Soon after, a request was made for a girls’ school as well. Catharine was chosen to teach there, in part because she had grown up in Creek Path. She reluctantly accepted the charge with mixed emotions about leaving the friends she had met at Brainerd but also felt a strong sense of importance for the work ahead of her. Brother's illness and her own subsequent death In 1821, Catharine’s brother, John, contracted tuberculosis and began showing symptoms of the deadly disease. Though she felt a strong tug at rejoining her friends and returning to her work, her Cherokee duty compelled upon her the need to help care for her brother. At the time, the Cherokee believed physical illness was the result of a spiritual ailment that could only be cured by performing sacred rituals. While this was rejected by many Christian missionaries, no alternative was introduced and many Christian Cherokees themselves practiced traditional medicine to treat illnesses. It was then no surprise when Catharine joined John’s wife on a journey to a sulphur spring in Alabama. To the Cherokee, water had a certain healing property of its own and was manifested in many ways within the culture. One such practice was called “going to water” where they bathed daily in running water to purify themselves. It made perfect sense to seek healing for John’s ailments by going to the spring. However, the journey was long and John’s health continued to deteriorate so they decided to stop at another spring and made camp. He drank the water and bathed in it but to no avail. Six months later John passed. After her brother died, Catharine returned home to care for her parents who, by this time, were in their sixties and living in John’s home. She visited the missions at Creek Path and Brainerd but had resigned herself to her duty of caring for her aging parents. In a letter to her other brother, David, she expressed a hope to possibly emigrate west and viewed the opportunity to spread her values with a sense of excitement and enthusiasm. However, Catharine had already began to show signs of the same illness that claimed her brother. She sought the help of Dr. Alexander Campbell, a white physician who lived near Limestone, Alabama, but as her condition grew worse her parents became desperate. Much to the dismay of the missionaries at Brainerd her parents