The scourge of TB
It hit The Legal Genealogist‘s comments feed yesterday morning.
And hit my heart like a ton of bricks.
It’s technically called a pingback… a note sent by one blog to another that says, in effect, “Hey! We quoted you!”1
And the one that came across yesterday was to a blog about the availability of records for patients who’d been treated at tuberculosis asylums in Michigan and who’d died more than 50 years ago.2
Now… why the pingback was triggered yesterday for a mention in a blog post published in 2016, I don’t know.
What I do know is that my family — like so many others — knew only too well the scourge of tuberculosis, a killer in the early years of the 20th century often called consumption.
At least three of my close relatives suffered from tuberculosis in those terrible times before antibiotics brought the disease under control:
• Morris Gottlieb was the husband of Maud Cottrell, sister of my maternal grandfather Clay Cottrell, so my granduncle by marriage. He was diagnosed not long after their 1912 marriage, and fled to New Mexico from their home in Oklahoma in the hopes that the drier air would somehow effect a cure. He’d been given little chance for survival.3
Morris and Maud and their three children can be found in New Mexico as early as the 1920 census.4 And they were there in 19305 and 1940.6
They were still living there when Morris died, in Albuquerque, in 1961, at the age of 78. The cause of death: coronary thrombosis — a heart attack.7
So tuberculosis certainly impacted Morris Gottlieb’s life… but it didn’t kill him.
• Abigail (Claymore) Cottrell was another of my grandfather’s in-laws, wife of his oldest brother John Cottrell. Abigail and John met and married in South Dakota,8 where John, then a widower with a young child, was a rancher.
The family can be found on the 1920 census of Dewey County,9 and in the 1925 South Dakota state census with their then-five-year-old son Phillip.10
John and Philip were enumerated in Mobridge, in Walworth County, in 1930.11 But Abigail was not recorded with them.
She couldn’t be. She was, instead, at the South Dakota State Sanitarium in Custer County12 — being treated for tuberculosis.
One of her grand-nephews told me she’d contracted the disease at an early age and lived with it as a chronic condition her entire life.13 A life that didn’t end until 17 January 1965, when Abigail was pushing 85 years of age.14
So, once again, tuberculosis certainly impacted Abigail’s life… but it didn’t kill her.
The same can’t be said for the third member of my family.
• Martha Louise (Shew) Livingston was the grandmother of my maternal grandmother Opal (Robertson) Cottrell. Born in Alabama around 1855, she had some sort of a relationship with Jasper Baird that produced my great grandmother Eula (Baird) Robertson — but we’re not exactly sure if they were married or not.15
She went on to marry Abigah Livingston in 1876 and produce eight Livingston children, with some born in Alabama and some born after the family moved to Texas.16 The whole family was recorded there in Texas in 1900.17 While it was still Indian Territory, what became the State of Oklahoma was the next destination and the entire group had moved there in time for most of the family to be recorded there in 1910.18
Most.
But not all.
Sometime just after Oklahoma became a state, Martha Louise became ill. Nothing that anyone could do for her in Oklahoma seemed to be helping. She couldn’t breathe.
What was left to try to help her was what so many people at that time tried to do: she was sent off to a better climate, to the desert — to Red Lake in Colfax County, New Mexico, described in 1903 as “one extensive health resort” with weather “ideal for … the cure of consumption”19 in the hopes that what was diagnosed as tuberculosis could be brought under control.
It was not to be.
On the ninth of April 1909, tuberculosis claimed Martha Louise’s life.
The literature says that tuberculosis was “one of the leading causes of death in the United States in the early twentieth century.” That as many as “110,000 Americans died each year” from the disease in the early 1900s.20 It was one of the three top causes of death in those early years of the 20th century; in 1900, “194 of every 100,000 U.S. residents died from TB.”21
Sobering statistics for sure.
But somehow they don’t mean nearly as much to me in the aggregate as three in particular.
The suffering of Morris.
The suffering of Abigail.
And the death of Martha Louise.
My family.
Consumed by consumption.
SOURCES
- See MacMillan Online Dictionary (https://www.macmillandictionary.com/us : accessed 20 Apr 2018), “pingback.” ↩
- Annika Peterson, “The ‘Forgotten Plague’ in the Upper Peninsula,” Northern Tradition, blog of the Central Upper Peninsula and Northern Michigan University Archives and the Beaumier Upper Peninsula Heritage Center (https://northerntradition.wordpress.com/ : accessed 20 Apr 2018). ↩
- “Retired Jeweler Dies Here at 78,” Albuquerque Journal, 22 Nov 1961, p. 2, col. 3; digital images, Newspapers.com (https://www.newspapers.com : accessed 20 Apr 2018). ↩
- 1920 U.S. census, McKinley County, New Mexico, Gallup, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 77, p. 192 (stamped), dwelling 46, family 52, Morris Gottlieb household; digital image, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com : accessed 20 April 2018); citing National Archive microfilm publication T625, roll 1074. ↩
- 1930 U.S. census, Bernalillo County, New Mexico, Albuquerque, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 6, page 20(B) (stamped), dwelling 408, family 438, Morris Gottlieb household; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 20 Month 2018); citing National Archive microfilm publication T626, roll 1392. ↩
- 1940 U.S. census, Valencia County, New Mexico, Laguna, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 31-35, sheet 6B, household 62, Morris and Maud Gottlieb; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 20 Apr 2018); citing National Archive microfilm publication T627, roll 2455. ↩
- New Mexico Department of Health, Death Certificate, Morris Gottlieb, certified 21 Nov 1961, Division of Vital Statistics, Santa Fe; digital image in the possession of the author. ↩
- Walworth County, South Dakota, marriage certif. no. 4-44450, John Cottrell and Abigail Claymore, 9 Nov 1914; County Clerk’s Office, Mobridge. ↩
- Dewey County, South Dakota, population schedule, Trail City, p. 43, enumeration district (ED) 9(B) (stamped), sheet 2(B), dwelling 38, family 38, John W. Cottrell household; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 20 Apr 2018); citing National Archive microfilm publication T625, roll 1719. ↩
- See 1925 South Dakota State Census, Dewey County, Trail City, card nos. 239 (John W. Cottrell), 241 (Phillip Cottrell) and 622 (Mrs. John W. Cottrell); digital images, FamilySearch (https://www.familysearch.org : accessed 20 Apr 2018); citing South Dakota Assessor, “State Census, 1925,” South Dakota Historical Society, Pierre, South Dakota. ↩
- 1930 U.S. census, Walworth County, South Dakota, Mobridge, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 7, sheet 14(A), dwelling/family not recorded, John and Phillip Cottrell; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 20 Apr 2018); citing National Archive microfilm publication T626, roll 2232. ↩
- 1930 U.S. census, Custer County, South Dakota, Township 4, population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 4, p. 15(B) (stamped), dwelling 4, Abigail Cottrell, inmate; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 20 Apr 2018); citing National Archive microfilm publication T626, roll 2221. ↩
- E-Mail Message, Sean Claymore to author, 1/27/2005, grand-nephew of Abigail (grandson of William S. Claymore, Abigail’s uncle); privately held. ↩
- Aberdeen (SD) Daily Times, 19 Jan 1965, p. 2, col. 2. ↩
- See Judy G. Russell, “A death in the family,” The Legal Genealogist, posted 9 Apr 2016 (https://www.legalgenealogist.com/blog : accessed 20 Apr 2018). ↩
- Ibid. ↩
- 1900 U.S. census, Williamson County, TX, population schedule, Justice Precinct 2, enumeration district (ED) 125, p. 117(B) (stamped), sheet 9(B), dwelling 143, family 154, Abija Levingston household; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 13 Oct 2011); citing National Archive microfilm publication T623, roll 1679. ↩
- 1910 U.S. census, Tillman County, Oklahoma, Hazel Twp., population schedule, enumeration district (ED) 250, p. 107(A) (stamped), dwelling/family 145, Abijah C Livingston household; digital image, Ancestry.com (https://www.ancestry.com : accessed 20 Apr 2018); citing National Archive microfilm publication T624, roll 1275. ↩
- Report of the Governor of New Mexico to the Secretary of the Interior (Washington, D.C. : Government Printing Office, 1903), 26; digital images, Google Books (https://books.google.com : accessed 20 Apr 2018). ↩
- Richard Sucre, “The Great White Plague: The Culture of Death and the Tuberculosis Sanatorium”, University of Virginia (http://www.faculty.virginia.edu/ : accessed 20 Apr 2018). ↩
- “Achievements in Public Health, 1900-1999: Control of Infectious Diseases,” MMWR Weekly, U.S. Centers for Disease Control (https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/ : accessed 20 Apr 2018). ↩
Consumption (phthisis pulmonalis) wiped out many members of an extended family of my Missouri ancestors. Three men in the family were Civil War veterans. I wonder if they brought it back from their time in the service.
Wow… that’s sad.
All too unfortunately TB was still a scourge in South
Texas in the 1960’s. The numbers may not have been high but it was present enough that when I went inyo the military my test came back positive. Being able to put names and faces to those devastated by disease is part of what keeps us human. (At least I hope so)
Consumption/TB took the “best and brightest” of my paternal grandfather’s clan–his beautiful youngest sister, Elizabeth, who died aged 18 and his father’s favorite brother, Arthur, who died at 34 after having spent two years in Texas in hopes of affecting a cure.
And let’s remember things like cholera and typhoid, Bright’s Disease and polio. So frightening for so many families–and the flu of 1918, to boot!
That’s so sad on so many levels, Dave… I can’t begin to wrap my head around the losses from one dread disease at a time…
While your story centers around the 20th century, I, too, found consumption/TB had killed at least 2 members of my fret great grandfather’s family–his oldest brother and oldest sister, within 6 months of each other in 1854. His brother was 18 and his sister was 16. 5 years previous, they’d had the youngest sibling, a sister, die of Typhoid Fever. I can’t imagine the pain the family endured in losing two young adults just entering the prime of their lives.
Oh ouch… that’s just awful…
… My mother’s mother died of “galloping consumption” when my mom was just 9 months old. In the few months after mom was born and before her mother Luella took sick, there was a 4-generation picture taken … a treasure from the tiny sliver of time that they were all alive 🙁
It’s so sad that you lost your grandmother that way… but oh my… that 4 generation photo is priceless.
From a collateral relative’s early 20th century death certificate, I learned that TB wasn’t always confined to the lungs. This individual died in the 1920s of intestinal tuberculosis.
Yep, though it usually affects the lungs, it sometimes hits another part of the body — even the heart.
My mother had TB in the early 1930s, when she was in her early 20s. She spent 3 months in the hospital, all her family could afford. The doctors then wanted her to recuperate in a sanatorium. But the family couldn’t afford it. So they screened in both the front porch and the back porch. She was still so weak that when she needed to use the bathroom, one of her brothers carried her there. I’ve never heard of her using a chamber pot, but I suppose she had one for emergency use. She was bed bound for three years, during which her younger sister graduated from college. That sister brought home her English homework, and they worked on it together. It was the best gift her sister, who had always been her best friend, could have given her. They lived in Seattle, and there was a wonderful view of the city from the front porch. Unfortunately, there was also a view of a working coal factory. Apparently nobody realized the connection between coal dust and TB. All her 4 siblings lived at home, in a big rattling house, so she had company. A first cousin lived right around the corner, who was just her age. He had an evening paper route, and her family was the last on his route. He always stopped in, and spent at least half an hour chatting with her. They remained dear friends to the end of his long life, and she grieved him until the end of her longer life. All her siblings lived at home and worked while going to college, using a small bequest from their grandfather. Unfortunately, her share went to pay medical bills, as there was no health insurance. When she was well enough to go to school, she went to business college and became a bookkeeper. When she needed to take a TB test later in life, it had to be a different form, because the usual one always came up positive. But she lived a very active 83 more years. She was never bitter about what had happened to her, just grateful for the reams of poetry she memorized
Wow… that’s an amazing story, Doris.
As many others I have found s-o-o-o many ancestors who died from TB. The one that had an impact on my genealogy research was a 3xGgrandfather who died 1 month before the 1870 census. So until I ‘discovered’ the mortality schedule census 3 yrs later, he was a disappearing link
My grandfather died at age 52 of TB in 1932 in North Carolina, leaving his wife, and two sons, one my father, who was only 11 years old at the time. When the disease was getting worse, my father and brother were sent off to their maternal grandparents farm for the summer, while their mother tended to their father. Very pivotal experience in my father (and his brother’s) life.
I can’t begin to imagine how much of an impact that would have had.