He took a stroke and died

I remember Vendyl Jones saying when you don't recognize an idiom it makes you an idiot. That's a little over the top, as he often was, but true.
When my parents moved to Fort Worth in 1946, they lived in a few different places before borrowing money to make a down payment on a lot in the Fox Hollow development of Sansom Park. There, they built (with her dad's help) a small dwelling. It was "two rooms and a path," I was told. The fence on the east boundary of the lot was erected by "Tom Daddy," my mother's dad. I heard the story of his work on it as I was growing up, often conflated with the story of his death. The words I remember are, "He took a stroke and died."
In my head I could see him with a sledgehammer, pounding on a fencepost while collapsing in the yard. He took a stroke and died.
It was many years later, after that image was burned into my memory, that I learned the two events were not really connected. He did build the fence, and he did "take a stroke," but the stroke had nothing to do with the fence.
Once more, as I often conclude, I should ask more questions.