Ricky Self could not have prepared himself for the phone call he received on April 26. As associate pastor at Pineview Baptist Church in the tiny town of Harvest, Alabama, he’d been spending the last two days helping his congregation grieve the loss of Jennifer Norsworthy, a mother of six who had passed suddenly at the age of 40 from a blood clot.

Now, Self learned—just 48 hours later—there was an ambulance at the Norsworthy residence again. Jennifer’s husband, Toby Norsworthy, had passed from a heart attack in his sleep, leaving the couple’s six children orphaned. (Relatives suspect that the stress of losing his wife was a factor, The Huntsville Times reported.)

The couple had been married for 10 years, Self said, and had three children together—Mickey, 11, Aurora, 9, and Lainie, 6, according to the Times. Jennifer also had three children from a previous marriage—Quinten, 20, Riley, 17, and Bradley, 13. Toby, a computer programmer, led the church’s ...