Bold Spirit - Linda Hunt [60]
Ole felt his stark helplessness in preventing his daughter from choking to death. Nor could he be Helga to give her a mother’s comfort. Always before when their children were ill, she had nursed them back to health.
In the 1890s, medical doctors observed that the mild or strong onset of the disease did not always indicate the future prognosis. An apparently mild case could lead to death in three to four days. Mortality rates during the 1890s from this disease ranged from forty to seventy-five percent, highest if it was a young child who contracted the most virulent form known as “black diphtheria.”11 If children were attacked with this virulent form, doctors advised parents that the best they could do was to provide some relief to ease the pain and make every effort to avoid contaminating the other children. Small doses of whiskey mixed with milk were recommended to relax the victim, but Ole probably could not afford that luxury in his home.
No neighbor dared to come to help the family because they risked bringing the dreaded diphtheria back into their own home. So, Ole tried in vain to comfort his daughter, and Olaf watched his little sister’s dying hours in horror. When Bertha died the next day, on April 6, Ole walked out to within a few feet of the shed and had to yell the terrible news to her brothers and sisters. They broke into crying and wailing. Ole, known by all for his loving nature as a father, did not dare comfort them for he likely carried the contagious bacteria himself. Instead, he walked over to his workshop and began to make his beloved daughter a simple pine coffin.12 Something in the familiarity of having a tool in his hand, and the unimaginable reality of using it to build his own child’s casket, may have broken through his days of silent stoic duty.
The next day, Ole drove the horse wagon to the Mica cemetery alone and buried his daughter next to her younger brother, twelve-year-old Henry. Neighbors watched in sadness. The minister refused to come to the cemetery until after Ole had dug a deep grave, buried Bertha, and covered the coffin with dirt.13 The dread of diphtheria robbed a family of receiving even the most elementary acts of decency and comfort, normally common in this close community. No nourishing food to help restore a shattered soul, no offer of childcare to ease a parent’s grief, no housecleaning aid to free Ole to care for the children, nor any visit from the clergy to offer spiritual sustenance during grief could be provided. A quarantined home meant a home bereft of human connection.
Helga soon learned the devastating news of her daughter Bertha’s death. After seeing how virulent diphtheria in Minnesota could kill all of a family’s children in a matter of days, she became alarmed, anxious to get home to nurse and protect the children. This propelled Helga to ask for public aid for the first time in her life.14 Three daily newspapers covered her and Clara’s desperate visit to the office of the Charities Commission to ask the city of Brooklyn to pay their way to Spokane. Both women were described as “respectable and intelligent” in the newspaper article, and Helga told Commissioner Brutes that they had walked all the way from Spokane. Independent and resourceful, Helga was used to relying on her own resources and had never considered asking for public assistance. “We wouldn’t ask for it now, but that I have received news that diphtheria is in my house and that my daughter Bertha is dead.”15
Commissioner Brutes explained to Helga that it was impossible to grant such a request but offered to send them to the almshouses. “That’s not what we want,” said Mrs. Estby. “We want the money to return instantly to our home. We will pay you back every cent of it.”16 The Commissioner then advised them to go to the Bureau of Charities on Schermerhor Street. The New York Daily Tribune provided extensive