Oh how I feel your pain! Another spouse of an engineer here who will not hire out house projects. My engineer DH suffers from renovation ADD where he bounces around from major project to the next without ever completing them. Current list of ongoing projects: he removed a kitchen pantry to make a mud room and consolidate 2 back doors into 1, not completed, then he moved on to finish the basement, and add a bathroom and new laundry room, that's pretty close but the bathroom and laundry room are just getting started, built ins in our master bedroom he started 3 years ago and I got impatient and hired a carpenter to complete, but our carpenter is even slower than he is! Then our main bathroom shower stall leaked he began demo on the shower and made a temporary shower over the tub but halted that project to concentrate on the basement. Now I have studs and rotted floor exposed where our shower stall was, I'm estimating it will look like this for about 2 years before he can focus some attention on it. Our kitchen was renovated by him in 2007, still needs a backsplash installed. But I'm not allowed to hire someone to install. Oh and he helped my cousin who is an electrician re wire out house when we moved in and never patched the holes in the ceilings and walls. It's on the "to do" list. Oh the joys of being an engineers wife!

Thanks anne_ct for the perspective. The parents' insurance should have covered this and as you said the only way to do it was to sue. The insurance company offered her ONE DOLLAR for her medical expenses. I think she had lousy lawyers. Sounds to me that they didn't sue it out correctly for one, and also to have let her say that the 8 yo should have known that jumping her would cause injury... that's equivalent to malpractice in my book. In any case, people should be more aware of the facts. Here's an article that gives a little more detail on the facts in a calmer method rather than the hysteria of social media. As far as trying to "cash in" or something, do the math. Anyone who has seen or had to pay medical bills these days should know that it doesn't take all that much to go to $127,000.00 considering there has been two surgical procedures so far and potentially a third coming. And sadly, the media can't really be held liable in this either. Can't really sue them absent malice. They didn't go far enough in my opinion but likely they checked that yes a kid jumped and an aunt got hurt and the aunt sued. So they're butts are covered. The kid shouldn't be the party to the litigation, it should be the parents. But laws vary from state to state and as anne_ct correctly pointed out, the aunt had no choice if she wanted her medical bills covered, which IMO, should have been covered because of what the kid did. It was an accident but when someone causes an accident that's what insurance is for, to cover the expenses.

Her obit in our morning Chicago Tribune says she was the youngest of 10 children. Dad was a sharecropper. She was working at 17. Survived by four children -- no mention of husband(s) or siblings in the obit.

I had not heard that-I loved her!! First in the Dick Van Dyke show & then in her own show. I still watch reruns of both show. Also Butch Trucks passed away also. Drummer & one of the founding members of the Allman Brothers.