wvhorse.com
Chapter 3
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wvhorse.com Chapter 3
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. . . Little Redheaded White Girl |
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. . . Little Redheaded White Girl Melani April 12, 2008 (1317)
Chapter 3 When Smallpox hit Logan Both young women walked in silence in the chilly evening air, the thick scent of coal smoke from the cook stoves in the houses they passed followed them. "Have you always lived in town, Sally?" Lena steered the conversation away from any talk about the Ellis man they met earlier. "No. My parents had a couple of acres and a good house twenty miles from Logan. It wasn't country and it wasn't town. A small community. I loved it and lived there until I was eleven." "Grandma has always lived where we live now," Sally explained, "Me and my brother, Tom, were visiting our grandparents when my parents took sick. They wouldn't let us go home for fear that we would catch it too. Mother and Daddy both died of smallpox. After they died, Grandma and Grandpa took us to raise." "That's awful. Our family got smallpox too. There was a salesman, in 1902, came into Logan and he stayed at Marion White's house. Chester, my brother, was going to school and boarded with them. The salesman brought the smallpox in. Marion White's mother-in-law was an old lady and she died with the smallpox. There was also a baby in town and Bilt Buskirk died with smallpox." Sally nodded, "I remember that baby. They lived up the road here about a mile. Everybody was scared to go near the place." "Chester stayed two weeks after being exposed. His school was out but he stayed to see if he taken it. He came home and was home two weeks and taken it. There was Daddy and Mother, Ballard, Homer, Oma and me all had smallpox at the same time." "Who took care of you all?" Sally asked, wide eyed. "Dr. S.B. Lawson or Dr. H. H. Farley came every day. They had to ride horseback to come. People were afraid of us and went around the hill rather than up the road. "We had women to stay with us until everything was cleaned up. Sis Workman had already had smallpox and she stayed to help. Nora, the eighth child in our family, was vaccinated and it didn't take on her but she didn't take the smallpox either. "Dave, the fourth in the family, was working away from home and we had to send for him to come home. He made him a bed of corn chucks out in the corn crib across the creek from the house. He got French Bryant to come and help him take care of the crops. Ed White worked there for the summer and he was down with it at the same time." "How did Dave keep from taking it?" Sally stopped and waited for the answer. "Sis or Nora would cook and put the food on a biscuit board and take it across the creek to a stump and set it down. Then Dave would come and get the food and eat it and then put the biscuit board back on the stump. "Dave was vaccinated and it took but that like to killed him and we had to bring him in the house. He almost lost his arm and the doctor was there one day and it was so bad. The doctor said he would be back the next day and if it wasn't better, he would have to take his arm off. "The doctor told Mother to scrape an Irish potato and make a poultice and put it on that arm. Dave's temperature was so high that it would cook the potatoes in just a little while, but it got better and he always said that Mother saved his arm. "Ballard took the smallpox in the fall and he came in with a temperature so high that Mother cooled him with a fan in each hand trying to lower his fever. Chester rode the horse to town eleven miles to get the doctor. The doctor said that was all that saved him was Mother fanning he keeping his temperature down. "It didn't hurt Homer and Oma very much. They played around part of the time. They were just little kids. But I was twelve years old and it hurt me. "My daddy's face and head swelled. His eyes were swollen shut and he couldn't see for a long time. Ballard was the same way. I was scared that we were all going to die." "Is that why his face is so scarred?" Sally asked gently at she touched Lena's arm. "Yes. He and Ballard both have many scars. Daddy was such a fine-looking man before, but now everybody notices the scars first," Lena said as a big tear escaped to roll slowly down her cheek. "Daddy's strong though and he doesn't let it bother him none. "Ballard was worse than the rest of us. You couldn't touch him or lift him or anything. They had to turn him in the bed in a sheet. They fed him with a spoon forty-one days. "Ballard thought he was going to die and he knew they couldn't take him out to bury him in the cemetery at the churchyard up the road because of the quarantine. He picked out a place on the farm out under an apple tree to be buried. He was only twenty years old. "When he finally got so he could walk, he only weighed 65 pounds. His hands were broke out with scabs and scars. They were so thin that they just looked like bird's claws. He said if he could have endured his feet until the scabs dried up enough, he could have peeled his feet off just like taking off a moccasin." "How awful. I was never told any details about my parents, but it about killed me and Tom when they died," Sally said softly as she stopped and stared at the ground. "Nobody ever mentions smallpox to me." "We had to wash all the quilts and tear all the paper off the wall and burn it. We scalded the walls and burned some kind of incense in the house. Mother had to disinfect the feathers in every one of her featherbeds and pillows. We had to wash all the quilts and clothes and hang them out on the line. It took over a month to get it all done." Lena noticed that Sally bit her lips and wiped away tears with the back of her hand. She didn't mean to upset her friend by sharing such memories of home. "I'm so sorry, Sally. I never meant to hurt you," Lena whispered and then turned to put her arms around the shaking young woman. "No. I always wondered what it had been like for Mother and Father. Nobody would talk about it to me. I always felt that I needed to know more about it," Sally said sobbing softly against Lena's shoulder. "I was only 11 years old and Tom was 15. If we were home, we might have died too. We didn't even get to have a funeral, because they buried everybody so quick," Sally whispered, her shoulders shaking as she sobbed audibly. "But we go to their graves up where Tom lives now. They had to bury them back on the hill on the farm." They both finally wiped their eyes with their handkerchief and resumed a very slow stroll in silence while endeavoring to get themselves under control before they reached home and had to face their families. Both young women had forgotten all about the visitor at the skating rink. As the girls rounded the last curve, Lena saw that many lamps were on in the Caldwell house and several people were on the porch. Sally whispered, "Oh, no. What's wrong?" and she gathered up her skirts and ran toward home with Lena close behind her. |
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Wild, Wonderful West Virginia
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