Hi, I’ve been looking for a movie my mom and I saw a long time ago but that neither us can remember very much about.

It was a black and white film in English on VHS, most likely from the 1930s or 1940s. We rented the movie from Eddie Brandt’s Saturday Matinee, a sort of retro family-run video rental store that stocks a lot of classic and old movies. It was about a family- a mom, dad, and children- living for at least part of the movie in a rural cabin. It’s possible they were homesteaders. While I can’t remember the plot of the movie, I remember it being extremely depressing and dark. A lot of characters died, as I recall- although the only death I distinctly remember is that of the mother at the end of the film. She contracted some sort of disease like consumption, typhoid, or diphtheria. I have an image in my head of her being extremely small, thin, and sick-looking lying in a huge bed at the brink of death. My mom thinks she might remember at least one child dying as well, possibly in a blizzard or snowstorm.