The great mumps epidemic of 1962
The Legal Genealogist is of That Age.
You know the age I mean.
The age where we had everything — and I mean everything — as kids.
I had, in no particular order and at a minimum, measles, German measles, chickenpox, scarlet fever and mumps. Some of them, I suspect, more than once.
I wish I remembered better when I had chickenpox. I’d know better who to blame for the current attack of shingles that I’ve been dealing with for the past two weeks. It’s a virus, so there’s no cure whatsoever, but it’d make me feel better if I had someone to blame.
I do remember getting scarlet fever. It was the summer when I was eight years old and I came down with it at my grandparents’ farm in Virginia. Quarantine in a hot upstairs room during a Virginia summer is not my idea of fun.
But the illness I remember best is the mumps.
That’s because I was patient zero: the likely Typhoid Mary for a township-wide outbreak of mumps in the Central New Jersey town where I grew up.
I was in seventh grade in the fall of 1962 — junior high school then — but was quite a bit younger than most of my classmates, having started school when I was four.1 So I often hung out with the younger crowd that was still in elementary school.
And on Friday nights in the fall of 1962, the elementary school was showing movies that any kid from the neighborhood could watch.
And in late September or early October, if memory serves me correctly, the elementary school was showing a Walt Disney movie, The Littlest Outlaw, in two parts. Disney describes the storyline this way:
Determined to save a magnificent but abused stallion from certain destruction, Pablito, a peasant boy, steals the beautiful animal and together they ride off on an adventure-filled odyssey with the Mexican military in hot pursuit. From a harrowing encounter with armed banditos to a tense confrontation in the perilous confines of a bullring, the two runaways find danger at every turn in this captivating family drama filmed amid the rugged beauty of Mexico.2
I had seen part 1 of the film on one Friday night, and woke up the Friday morning of the second part not feeling really well. But I knew one thing for sure: if I stayed home from school because I didn’t feel well, I wasn’t going to get to go to the movies that night.
And I really wanted to see part 2 and find out what happened.
So I went ahead and dragged myself through a day at the junior high.
The overcrowded, already-on-double-sessions junior high.
The junior high that was fed by half of the elementary schools in town, and that in turn fed students on to both high schools.
Meaning, in essence, that anybody I came into contact with all day long who had an older or a younger sibling would be in a position to spread whatever I had into every single school in the entire township.
I lasted all day at school. I lasted through the showing of the second part of the movie. I came home and finally ‘fessed up to not feeling well.
Within hours, I’d been diagnosed with mumps.
Thoroughly, horribly, amazingly contagious mumps.
Which then spread like wildlife throughout every single school in the entire township.
It was the great mumps epidemic of 1962.
And I was patient zero.
But it really was a good movie.
And if you had mumps in Edison Township, New Jersey, in the fall of 1962, you now know who to blame.
SOURCES
- It’s not that I was any smarter than anyone else; it’s just that my older sister had gone to kindergarten in the Netherlands when she was four, and — since we were only two years apart in age — my mother didn’t want us more than two years apart in school. ↩
- “The Littlest Outlaw,” DisneyMovies (http://movies.disney.com/ : accessed 22 Jan 2016). ↩
Judy, I, too, started Kindergarten at age 4 – (actually 4 years 10 months). Our schools allowed 4 year olds to start if they would turn 5 by December 2nd of that school year. My brother (14 months younger than me) JUST made that deadline, having been born on 2 December!! Sorry you have the shingles, Hope I miss that bullet, as I too, had chickenpox!
Get the vaccine as soon as you can, Sharon!
Gee, you were one strong and determined kid. Just wanted to let you know that you are blameless in our Edison household because neither my brother nor I ever had mumps…phew!!!
Good to know I didn’t infect EVERYBODY in town!
Got the mumps the same year, but in France and luckily on the LAST day of camp, not like some other unfortunate camp-goers! I suffered the entire bus trip that took almost 20 hours from the sea shore at one end of France to the other by Germany where we lived. I know my sister got them too, but I cannot tell who else did, as we were all from different little villages spread over 2 “departements” with no social media at the time. Boy, did it hurt! I am still debating with my unbelieving doctor, if I should get the shingle vaccine. Hum! Hope you feel better soon.
I would definitely get the vaccine if you can.
Hope you got/get your “shingles shot” -they say it can help prevent shingles or at least lessen the severity if you get shingles. Hope you got to an MD for treatment quickly after the outbreak of your shingles. Also hope there are no long lasting post-herpetic sequelae.
I have never, to my knowledge, had the varicella (chicken pox); however, just in case I had a subclinical course of it, I think I will get vaccinated.
I was scheduled to get the shot with my annual physical — 10 days after I was diagnosed. Talk about a case of bad timing! Now, I’m informed, I will have natural immunity for about 18 months, so I will definitely get the vaccine at an appropriate time before that runs out.
Judy,
My sympathy on the shingles! As soon as you’re over this attack, do get the vaccine, which will protect against another go round.
I’m half a decade older than you, and I had all those diseases too, in the mid 1950s, except scarlet fever. My brother, sister, and I tended to have them together. My poor mother, having to take care of the three of us crabby sick kids, always quarantined to our city house. One of us, usually me because I was the oldest, would bring whatever it was home from school and give it to the others. I especially remember mumps, which my brother and I had together. My sister, then only one year old, got them last, and was apparently not quite over them when she was let loose on the world. She gave them to a neighbor man, father of her best friend. As happens with adults with mumps, he was very ill for a long time, much sicker than any of the kids had been. Their son avoided the mumps completely. There were lots of jokes about his illness that went way over our heads. None of us were told until much that their only child was adopted, thus the jokes.
Oh, I will definitely get the vaccine after this active attack subsides. I was scheduled to get it on Monday, January 18th. And was diagnosed on Sunday January 10th. Great timing… sigh…
Get the vaccine! Sometimes shingles affects the vision, not a side effect anyone wants. It may not be too late, when Judy’s current bout with shingles subsides, to have some benefit from the vaccine — discuss with doctor.
The vaccine may help prevent another attack in the future, and I will definitely get it at the right time, Ann. I would have gotten it this month… had I not been diagnosed with shingles first!
I am a couple of years younger, but growing up in Australia, remember having had all of those childhood diseases too. Some unvaccinated children have recently had terrible damage from these diseases so we have a current vaccination drive for infants for these and diphtheria.
When I was a child I knew of diphtheria being fatal. Currently some people locally are being blinded by measles. (I thought it only happened now in Africa.) I have seen accounts of people on my ancestor’s ships dying of measles in the 1850s.
Were people this badly affected in the 1960s when we were children?
Was I unaware, or was this hidden from society?
Or were we lucky to have some weaker strains?
I remember knowing kids who were seriously affected, by so many of the diseases we now know are preventable with vaccines.
Being an RN, my mother was taken as the neighborhood expert on public health. So she organized a phone tree to alert parents whenever any child on our street came down with contagious childhood diseases.
This was because one child didn’t get any immunity from disease outbreaks, but had recurrent bouts of the same thing. He underwent a lot of 2 week quarantines over the years.
The other case was a child with leukemia, who could only have a single child over at a time, after her parents had confirmed that she was in remission & feeling up to visitors…
It didn’t make my own problems with poison oak allergies & extreme nearsightedness seem so bad. I think that these experiences all helped to shape the spirit of compassion that has enriched my life a lot.
Sounds like you had a great mom…
Get a shingles shot. Its not that bad. Better than being sick.
Too late! I was diagnosed eight days before I was scheduled for a physical where I was going to get the shot. Now I have to wait for the active case to subside.
You could not be “patient 0.” You had to get mumps from someone else.
Hope your recovery is very quick.
By definition, patient zero is the first one the epidemiologists can track. So yep, I was patient zero. Nobody ever figured out how I got mumps.
I recall that when I had mumps as a child, a neighbor child was sent to play with me, to hopefully catch the mumps and get it over with. I’m not sure if my playmate did catch the mumps from me.
Judy, you caught the mumps from someone.
Presumably, yes, but since the identity of that malefactor was never known, I get to claim being Patient Zero (the first identified, known vector)!
I’m so sorry you have the Shingles. Had Shingles four years ago. Rather go through childbirth again. Took four months to get back to normal. I had all the childhood diseases including chickenpox which at the time was no big deal. However Shingles is a big deal. My advice – GET THE SHOT!
Now that it is the new year, check with your health insurance plan (including Medicare)since some immunizations are now covered in drug plans. Why go through pain when you don’t have to!
Mary
You can’t get the whot while you have an active case — have to wait until the current situation resolves and THEN get the shot. I would have gotten it this month, except that I was diagnosed first — bad timing!
I somehow caught none of the standard “childhood illnesses” EXCEPT chickenpox. My relatives’ experiences with shingles have been very unpleasant so you have my deepest sympathies. And I worry that I’ll be like you and get it just before the scheduled shot.
Judy,
I had shingles about 10 years ago. I knew what it was immediately and started taking L-lysine that night when I woke feeling the blisters along with Vitamin C, and all the other supplements I gad on hand that were recommended by the book Nutritional Healing. That morning (a Saturday) I headed straight for a doc in the box and told him I had shingles – he seemed uncertain. I also knew what meds I needed to take. After going to look it up he said I was right and gave me what I asked for. But I believed the early response of high doses of lysine helped my shingles clear up quickly and saved me from a lot of pain. If you are still suffering try it.
I got onto the antiviral drugs right away, Carolyn, and that has lessened the overall impact for sure.
What is the statute of limitation on vectoring?
Hopefully expired!