Disasters

We have become acclimatized to news of disasters and take many of the stories in stride. But when these events affect cities; those solid, bustling places that seem to have permanence, we sit up and take notice. Those stories grow legs, drawing concern and help from communities near and far from the disaster zone.

Mostly recently there has been the devastating fire in Fort McMurray, the news of which has been heard throughout most of the world. Who can forget New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina or the 2011 earthquake that affected many towns and cities in Japan? There have been many city disasters in the past as well; the Halifax Explosion in 1917, the San Francisco earthquake of 1906 and the Great Fire of London in 1666 to name just a few.

While trying to find out more about my Grandfather's life after he immigrated to Saskatchewan in 1911, I came across the story of another city disaster. The Regina Cyclone cut a devastating swath through that city on June 30, 1912. Just what affect did the disaster in Regina have on my family's story?

Regina after the Cyclone, public domain - Saskatoon Public Library collection

Hunting Down Stories

Researching the effects of tuberculosis at the turn of the last century was an eye opener for me. I hadn't realized how prevalent and debilitating the disease was. Add to that all the other diseases for which there was no cure at the time and it is a wonder that any of our families survived and that we are here today.

It wasn't only disease that made life dicey for our forbears; natural disasters and the lack of a social safety net were other factors that weighed in. But all was not gloom and doom. There are happier stories and some that can leave us wondering. I have run across many stories while doing my research and I look forward to sharing them with you.

I think that one of the main reasons that I discovered so many stories while looking for information about my family is that my forebears share a common characteristic; they didn't stay put. I have found them in different counties, countries and continents. There is nothing I like better than hunting down a story, ideally by visiting archives in the countries in which they lived but sometimes virtually and often through books. Now I'm off to the library to gather background information for the next story.

Being Part of the Count

The latest Canadian census will be taken on May 10, 2016. My notice from Statistics Canada contained an access code so that I could fill out my census questionnaire online. Really - online, what a change there has been over the years.

Genealogists are well placed to notice changes in enumeration practices as they regularly use the information from census returns in their research. Typically taken every ten years, the census returns offer snapshots of families. New releases of census years are much anticipated. Family history researchers can't wait to search for their families in the latest release and there is much speculation when family members are missing. The latest Canadian census that is accessible is the 1921 census. There are quite a few census years which are available before 1921. Canadian censuses began even before there was a Canada.

When census taking began back in the mid 1800's, enumerators were hired to visit dwellings and write down the information which the householders gave them. Sounds simple doesn't it? Just think about it. Travel from place to place wasn't easy, there were no cars and, in many places, houses were few and far between. People then were wary of giving information to the government; many didn't know their ages or the spelling of their names. Enumerators ran into all sorts of problems trying to get the answers for the census questionnaires. The enumerator for the 1852 census of Puslinch, Wellington County in Canada West wrote this comment in his part of the census, “I could not find out the proper name of the person called something Morison because the parents could not speak English. They spoke the Galic which is very prevalent in the south of Puslinch amongst the Hiland Scotch.” Clearly, this enumerator's job was not an easy one.

Even if the job was difficult it mostly got done for which genealogist and researchers are grateful. We just hope that wayward Morison wasn't one of our missing ancestors.

The Uncertainty of Tuberculosis (part 6 of 6)

The documents for the 1901 census recorded that William John Chambers, the eldest of Sarah Ann's two sons, was living in Newport, Wales. He was one of four assistant drapers living with the family of David William Price, a large household potentially full of infected and uninfected people. By 1909 William John was back in Bournemouth where he died of cardiac failure probably brought on by the phthisis which he had for 8 years. It appears that his disease, like that of his uncle John Thomas Chambers, was due to his occupation, unless he had picked it up from his mother, Sarah Ann and it only became active when he moved to Wales. But then again where had Sarah Ann become infected? Although her death certificate says that she had phthisis for 4 years, her entry in the 1871 census bears a striking similarity to that of William John as she was a draper's assistant living with a draper's family and seven other assistants in Yeovil, Somerset.  That uncertainty as to where and when the sufferer was infected was a typical characteristic of tuberculosis. Its initial symptoms came in a number of guises which were confused with other diseases. Public health campaigns did what they could to combat its spread. With no way to pinpoint where the infections were being picked up, the medically unsophisticated society of this time period could only cope with the disease once it manifested itself, which was usually too late for the patient. 21 But sometimes the progress of the disease was halted. Many were advised to move to more bracing climates and Canada was a favourite destination of British tuberculosis immigrants. So much so that this provoked protests from the Canadian physician-in-chief who felt that Canada was becoming a “dumping ground” for diseased Britons. Canada had enough home grown sufferers and felt that immigrants from England should be screened before being allowed into the country. 22 But this threat never materialized and the last remaining member of the Chambers family, Sarah Ann's youngest son and my grandfather, immigrated to Canada. Perhaps there was something in the bracing Canadian climate as he didn't succumb to TB or perhaps he was naturally resistant. That was the arbitrary nature of the disease, some it merely touched and some it latched onto and never let go.     Sources Smith,  F.B. The Retreat of Tuberculosis 1850-1950. London, New York, Sydney: Croom Helm, 1988 McCuaig, Katherine. The Weariness, the Fever, and the Fret. Montreal & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1999.

Dealing with Tuberculosis (part 5 of 6)

By the turn of the 20^th century, the belief that tuberculosis was an infectious disease was widely held. Specialist dispensaries became places to triage sufferers, dole out cod liver oil and distribute advice to slow the spread of the disease. 16 The instructions ranged from how to deal with the sputum of the sufferer and the segregation of their bed linens, to how the home was to be kept. Monthly fumigation and frequent dust-gathering were required to contain the infection. The dispensaries handed out leaflets with the following directives, “But most importantly and therefore usually in bold or capital lettering:

No fondling or kissing of other members of the family, particularly not of children

Married partners to sleep in separate beds preferably separated by a partition

Most important: the surviving head of the household immediately to notify the dispensary of the

death of the patient”*

This took care of the sufferers home environment but the spread of tuberculosis in society at large needed to be curtailed. Campaigns were launched to educate the public, posters can still be found with their advice to the masses. Prominent among their messages was the slogan that spitting spread tuberculosis. Those worried about public health also found other concerns among society such as shared public drinking cups and uncovered food and milk that attracted flies and dust. Dust was especially worrisome as it was believed to be a prime method of transmitting tuberculosis containing, as it did, the dried spit and other effluents from infected bodies. Reformers agitated about these concerns as well.

The late 19^th and early 20^th century was a time before antibiotics and, as can be seen by the concerns of the public health campaigners, a much less hygienic way of living than the most of the western world enjoys today. This world was different in other ways as well. Not only had the Industrial Revolution brought more people to the towns and cities to live and work in questionable surroundings and so spurred the rise in the spread of tuberculosis but it had also brought about the widespread adoption of the doctrine of separate spheres, where the male was sent out to work and his wife tended the home and children, thereby dooming families whose sole breadwinner was felled by the disease. Not that women didn't work, but they tended to do so when young and single and part of this was because of a difference in the world of work. Oh, there were the long shifts at soul destroying factories but there were also other fields where the way in which the workers lived led to the spread of infection. The placing of apprentices in the homes of their employers could put uninfected and infected people in close contact for long hours, thus spreading the disease. In his paper on pthsisis mortality Andrew Hinde states, “In the female home working area of Bedfordshire, for example, contemporaries complained that the long hours that girls and young women spent first in “lace schools” learning to make lace, and then working at in the cramped cottages led to much higher death rates for females that males, specifically from tuberculosis.”+  A similar observation may be made after reviewing documents related to the Chambers family.

Sources

* Thomas Dormandy, White Death: A History of Tuberculosis. (New York: New York University Press,

2000), 312.

Katherine McCuaig, The Weariness, the Fever, and the Fret. (Montrale & Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 1999.)

 “Separate Spheres”, accessed March 27, 2016

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Separate_spheres

+ Andrew Hinde, “Sex differentials in phthisis mortality in England and Wales, 1861-1870.” The History of the Family 20:3 (2015): 366-390, DOI: 10.1080/108162X.2015.1051077