Typhus

1893. The year of the Typhus outbreak in Teasdale, Utah that proved so devastating to my Grandma Stringam’s family.

Back to my Grandma’s journals . . .

“One and a half years after Father died (of dropsy—edema, according to Wikipedia), our whole family came down with typhoid fever.”

A stark statement that packs such a wallop.

Except for Jane (third eldest child) and Sylvester (youngest), everyone, Great-Grandmother Williams and six other children, were stricken. There had been a lot of flooding in their area in September, 1893 and the family dipped their water out of ditches. It was through this water they all got the disease.

The two unaffected children were sent to Grandma’s house to be looked after and the rest tried to nurse each other. Living so far out, help was hard to find.

And no one else wanted to expose themselves to the disease.

One man, Joseph Stickney, a handyman and a ‘sort-of’ nursing orderly came by after Great-Grandma was stricken. As did a woman, Mrs. Rust, a practical nurse, who stayed until after Christmas.

A third helper, cousin Gustavus Noyes, who lived 40 miles away, came to help. But he “took it and died”.

The eldest sister, Florence was the first to go. She was fifteen. Florence was a very good scribe and had been told some years earlier in a prayer that she would assist her father in his work. Her father had died a year and a half before, so the family always accepted that she had been called home to do that work.

Two brothers, Gus (second-eldest) and George (fourth) were gravely ill. Shortly after Florence died, Gus quit breathing. The family thought he had gone, but after a few minutes, he came around and eventually recovered.

But George did not. As Gus began to breathe once more, George slipped quietly away.

In all, three people died, Florence and George and cousin Gustavus. The disease clung to the household from September till March. All who recovered were left deaf in one ear, a side-effect (they were told) of the quinine they used to treat the disease.

Another side-effect was their hair loss. To cover their bald heads, the family, particularly the girls, wore caps to church and school.

“The boys [there] teased us unmercifully and were continually jerking the caps off just to see our bald heads. But we lived through it . . .”

And there, in that one statement, is Grandma Stringam’s stout philosophy of life.

Times were very, very hard indeed: Losing their father, and in short order, two of the children.

But they lived through it.

Something I can definitely learn from.