Margaret Conway and Dora's Lock on the Mailbox

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Margaret Conway kept Dora under surveillance the entire time after Claire had died. When Margaret Conway first saw Dora, she was shocked at how small she was. A skull was skin drawn tightly over the bones. Over it all was a bluish tint. There was one meal where Dr. Hazard had put out some food for Dora to eat. And there was a fresh peas served. The peas had been cooked, so they were soft. But nothing but trouble for D Nora to even try to eat that she couldn't even grind that pea down because she was too weak.

In 1911, two sisters traveled to Seattle to meet a "doctor" named Linda Hazzard. The sisters didn’t seem very sick, but when they arrived, Dr. Hazzard told them they didn’t have a moment to lose – they needed to begin her treatment right away.

A few months later, one of the sisters wrote a letter to her old governess. “I am wonderfully better in fact,” she said, “getting stronger by leaps.” But her handwriting was messier than usual, and her sentences ran together and overlapped.

You can find Gregg Olsen’s book, Starvation Heights, here.

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