George and his daughter Nellie suffer from “congestion of the Brain” and have to take opium. George may have had epilepsy. He struggles with severe headaches and can only intermittently write in his diary and oversee farming tasks. He does very little now in his general store which he had operated since 1864. He writes with passion and you can share his final moments. He dies at the end of the 1879 diary and his son writes the last heart-wrenching entry.