Alfred Damian Lambert

Diphtheria took three of nine-year-old Grandpa Fred Lambert's six siblings and two sisters of nearby neighbor Warren R. Austin, future U. S. Senator and United Nations Ambassador, in Highgate, Vermont in the summer of 1891.

After that loss, Fred's father sent the nine-year-old to work for a farmer in nearby Sheldon. He was a farmer for the rest of his life until he fell off a wagon and broke his neck and right wrist. He lost his nine-year-old daughter, Dorothy, to diphtheria on December 26, 1915 and buried her the same day in an unmarked grave. 

The diphtheria vaccine was developed in the 1920s, but it was too late for some of Grandpa Fred and Senator Austin's siblings and Grandpa Fred's daughter.