Ida was grief-stricken and she believed that God punished her by killing her daughter. She demanded that William and Katie shower her with displays of love and affection. She was deeply affected by this and developed phlebitis and epilepsy and desperately feared the loss of her first-born child, Katie. Ida spent hours a day in a darkened room with Katie in her arms, kissing her and weeping. William's brother, Abner, once found Katie swinging on a gate of the garden of her house and invited her to go for a walk with him. The child replied that "if would go out of the yard, God would punish [her mama some more".