Inn 1852, Henry began blowing glass at the Ihmsen Glass Company and he was also a teacher in a night school.  That meant brighter days for Mother, and in 1854 we moved out of the smoke row into a better house on Eleventh Street up town.  It was the first time we ever lived in a house that had paper on the walls.

Henry’s health began to fail; it was lung trouble, and in 1858 the Ihmsen Company sent him on the road as a salesman, hoping that he would recover.  But Henry did not last long, and some time in May, 1858, Mother received a letter from Rev. Tucker, of Houston, Texas, saying that Henry died in a hospital there and that he would place on his grave a stone bearing his name.  That was a hard blow to my Mother.¹⁾My Early Life and the Civil War, Conrad Smith, 1920, pages 14-15