Unfortunately the "good olde days" weren't all good.

 Most people didn't live long lives brought to a close by falling into eternal sleep in their warm beds. Even back then, bad things happened to good people and many old causes of death now seem shocking.

Here, we take a look at what brought about the demise of some Johnston residents. While most sexually transmitted diseases can be treated and cured today, in the olden days STDs often meant a painful decline for the afflicted adult and could be passed on to a newborn fetus by its mother. Fifty-five-year-old Julia Ann Tyler, the married daughter of James and Julia Hopkins, died from the effects of syphilis on April 26, 1885. Byron Hudson, the son of Byron and Kate Hudson, was born with that dreaded bacterial disease, which caused sores, a body rash, muscle pain, fever and sore throat. He died from the illness on Oct. 14, 1890, at the age of two months, and was buried in Pocasset Cemetery.

Another sexually transmitted disease, gonorrhea, often brought about a certain death after the afflicted suffered with painful urination, swelling and abdominal pain caused by bacteria. On Aug. 28, 1867, 34-year-old John Lewis died at the Johnston asylum from the illness. When a new rodenticide "Rough on Rats" was developed in 1872, many people in a suicidal frame of mind, used the arsenic-based poison to put a final end to temporary problems.

Lucia Doherty, the 53-year-old daughter of Albyn and Mary Arnold, and the wife of printer Henry Doherty, was fatally poisoned after eating the pest control solution in 1891. She was later buried in Pocasset Cemetery. Sometimes poisoning was in error. On Aug. 27, 1894, George Telfer Morrison drank from a container of flypaper solution. Composed mainly of arsenic, anyone ingesting the poison, which was meant to be smeared on paper to attract and kill flies, was directed to immediately ingest raw egg whites, drink lukewarm water mixed with mustard, and tickle the throat with a feather to induce vomiting.

Unfortunately for the one-year-old son of James and Mary Morrison, the error couldn't be undone and the child died. Some medicated themselves with an accidental fatal outcome. Betsey Bacon, the 50-year-old married daughter of Nathaniel and Betsey Cherry, died from the effects of alcoholism on Aug. 9, 1872. Sixty-six-year-old Jane Fenner, the daughter of Giles and Elizabeth Greene, and the wife of stonecutter Tompkins Fenner, died on April 2, 1894 from an overdose of morphine.

Easily obtainable at that time, morphine was an accepted pain killer which an individual had to carefully meter out to themselves to prevent difficulty breathing, coma or death. Some causes of death are no longer used in determining the reason for one's demise. When one-year-old Thomas Earle died on Sept. 9, 1870, it was recorded as being due to "a summer complaint." The son of John and Catherine Earle actually fatally suffered from severe diarrhea. The daughter of James and Catherine Duffy, 4-year-old Margaret, died of "worm fever" on March 16, 1863. The actual cause of death was severe stomach pain, vomiting and malnutrition brought on by the presence of parasitic worms in the intestines. The illness was prevalent in unsanitary homes where food or water was contaminated or where animal feces was present. Sometimes it took one simple thing to give a person eternal rest. On July 4, 1894, 54-year-old Augusta Baumgartel died after being "overcome by the sun." The daughter of George and Mary Petzold, and the wife of Christian Baumgartel, she was buried in Pocasset Cemetery.

Other times, the end was truly shocking. On Feb. 25, 1896, 52-year-old Jesse Tacey and his 24-year-old son, Jesse George Tacey, were both killed due to electrical shock when they came into contact with a live telephone wire. They too were laid to rest in Pocasset Cemetery. From simple sufferings such as teething or paper cuts, to the act of jumping out windows and being kicked by farm animals, our ancestors had lives, and deaths, less rosy than we like to imagine.

Kelly Sullivan is a Rhode Island columnist, lecturer and author.