Most children are taught to share, and passing around a box of raisins might seem pretty innocent, but Rebecca was taught to never share a glass, a piece of food, or an eating utensil.

In the 1st half of the 20th Century the "consumption" was a terrifying disease with no known cure. Although it is now known that tuberculosis germs are not spread through sharing food or drink, in the 1st half of the 20th Century "consumption" was a terrifying disease with no known cure.

Both Bill and Fern, Rebecca's parents, grew up in Booneville, Arkansas. Bill's parents both caught TB and become patients at the Arkansas Tuberculosis Sanatorium. Bill, being just 4 and the youngest of the children, lived at the Sanatorium in a facility for the children of patients. His two older brothers still living at home were sent to an orphanage. Fern and her 2 brothers were passed around to relatives when her mother became a patient.

At the peak use of the Sanatorium there were nearly 300 staff members and the total population of staff, employees and residents was larger than the town of Booneville.

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During the time of it's operation, the Sanatorium grew into a self- contained city.  The stigma of having had tuberculosis made finding a job difficult. The Commons Building, as well the other facilities at the Sanatorium, provided jobs for many former patients and their families, as well as residents of nearby Booneville. Bill's father was a janitor at the Sanatorium. His mother was a nurse's aid. One of his brothers and a sister worked there. Fern moved to the Sanatorium when she was around 12, living in a dormitory and doing housework and childcare for one of the doctors. She later worked in the laundry, and the dining hall at the Commons Building. Her father worked in the dairy and drove the school bus.

Bill's family lived in housing provided by the Sanatorium and many of the children he rode the school bus with had parents who worked at the Sanatorium. Many years later, when she married and moved to California, Fern kept photos of the friends she made at there. Bill and Fern talked of their childhood friends from the Sanatorium, a place created to treat tuberculosis that became a small community unto itself.