I wrote last week about having whooping cough in the summer of 1939 and having to spend the next six months in a sanitarium for complete bed rest. My left lung had collapsed from coughing so much. I’m sure if that condition were true today I would not have been sent there.
You see, it was a TB sanitarium, and most patients there indeed had tuberculosis. The heavens were smiling down on me and I survived those six months without catching that problem.
In the 1930s, at least in Akron, Ohio, if your children had measles, whooping cough or any condition that could be considered as communicable, the house had to put a notice on their front door announcing that condition, and no visitor was then allowed to enter.
I don’t need to tell you this mortified my Mother. She felt this notice implied she was not a good housekeeper and took it personally. In fact, she was such a good housekeeper you could eat off her floors any day or night.
My sister was two years younger than me, and I’m sure after being gone for several months, she forgot all about me. When my parents visited, she had to stay in a parlor, on the other side of the door. I remember being told to speak to her through a glass door. We just stared at each other, each of us wondering why we were standing there staring at each other.
As it got towards Christmas while I was ensconced in this rest establishment, a woman’s group of some kind had us “inmates” list several things we wanted for Christmas. Shirley Temple was quite popular at that time and I wanted to look like her. My request was for a red polka dot dress with white dots. I couldn’t tell you if Miss Temple really had one, I just remember this request.
As it turned out, I got to come home on Christmas Day. I had received the red polka dot dress and was packed and ready to bring it with me. About all I remember now is that my Mother wasn’t real pleased with my request, and you know? I don’t remember seeing it when we got back home. Hmmmm – –
[Carolyn Cary is the official Fayette County historian and the editor of the county’s first compiled history, “The History of Fayette County,” published in 1977. She lives in Fayetteville.]
