Mumps, Measles, etc.

In my Grandmother Henrietta’s generation a great many children died as babies or toddlers. She was her parents’ fourth child—but the first three, Eliza Jane, William and Samuel, had each died before the age of two from whooping cough and pneumonia. (Six-month-old Willie died while his father was at Eliza Jane’s funeral.) In the 1860-70s Henrietta’s cousin, Harris Thompson, and his wife lost five children under the age of four—their headstones are in a row in the Prairie Home Cemetery. Quaint-sounding bygone maladies such as “milk fever” and “summer complaint” were believed to be responsible for some of these deaths. And some of the “treatments” seem odd today—Mother said that when she was young they felt that an earache could be helped by blowing tobacco smoke into the ear. She also said that a local doctor had once proclaimed that pneumonia was “an old person’s friend” since it helped the elderly to “just slip away.”

Healthcare systems had improved a lot by the time I was a youngster—but were still pretty crude. Dr. Sparling came to East Center school once every four years to vaccinate students against smallpox, but immunization against most other childhood diseases was not yet available. There were no antibiotics—sulfa and penicillin weren’t available until the 1940s. Measles, mumps and chickenpox were so common that it was assumed that every child would catch these diseases before completing grade school. But there was great concern when a case of scarlet fever was reported, since two children had died from scarlet fever in a neighboring community. That year the school board closed East Center for the year two weeks ahead of schedule. Houses where there was scarlet fever were quarantined. Dad was the township supervisor, so it was his job to tack a red sign on the house with WARNING—SCARLET FEVER in large letters.

Donald, John and I came down with mumps at the same time and were supposed to rest quietly in a darkened room. We did rest some, but we also had a good time telling stories and “quietly” playing games. (At least we tried to be quiet, but more than once Mother had to come up to tell us to “settle down.”) John and I had really swollen jaws but Donald’s case was much milder; he was slightly swollen on one side. We thought Donald was lucky to get by so easily—but just about the time we had recovered, the other side of Donald’s jaw ballooned up and he had to stay in bed for another week while John and I went back to school.

We kids seemed to have a painful boil far too often. I still have several scars from childhood boils. The worst was a boil near the tip of my right index finger that hurt like blazes. I lost the fingernail (temporarily) and the end of the finger never did quite come back to its original shape. Another bad one was on my upper lip that felt like it stuck out farther than my nose! When a boil was “ripe” Dad would lance it and then squeeze it to get the core out. Ouch!!!! I know that boils are caused by a bacterium, but I have long had a hunch that the high level of fat in our diet contributed in some way to our frequent boils.