The American Plague - Molly Caldwell Crosby [31]
Dr. Armstrong fastened his carriage to the post outside St. Mary’s and hurried inside where Constance waited for him. He felt George Harris’s feverish skin and studied the languid, depressed countenance of the dean. Armstrong gave the grave news to them that Harris had the fever. He reminded them that it could be a light case, but in a letter he later wrote, “Do not expect to see Dean Harris alive. I worked with him hard last night.” Harris would, in fact, recover after a long battle with the fever.
Armstrong quickly packed up his medical case and said good-bye to Constance and Parsons, promising that he would return later. For a moment the three of them stood there together—one who nursed, one who doctored and one who delivered the souls from this purgatorial place.
Charles Parsons found a quiet room and sat down to write a letter to his bishop and friend, Charles Quintard. Sunlight washed the floors of the convent. It was the first day of September, the choking heat showed no signs of relenting, and the death toll rose higher each day. “People constantly send to us, saying, ‘Telegraph the situation.’ It is impossible. Go and turn the Destroying Angel loose upon a defenseless city; let him smite whom he will, young and old, rich and poor, the feeble and the strong, and as he will, silent, unseen, and unfelt, until his deadly blow is struck; give him for his dreadful harvest all the days and nights from the burning midsummer sun until the last heavy frosts, and then you can form some idea of what Memphis and all this Valley is . . .”
Parsons signed and ended the letter: “I am well, and strong, and hopeful, and I devoutly thank God that I can say that in every letter.”
A few years after moving to Memphis, Charles Parsons had remarried; his wife was the niece of Dean George Harris, and during the epidemic she lived with Mrs. Harris on the Annandale Plantationin Madison, Mississippi. In letters to his wife Margaret, Parsons likens the epidemic to the frontline of a battle, in which the firing never ceases. “I never thought I could be happy if you were absent from me but am thankful you are not with me now.”
Parsons wrote to Maggie every night of the epidemic, though few letters still exist. One such letter would be found over a century later, part of a package of waterlogged paperwork that survived a fire. It was the last letter he ever wrote: “One of your thoughts, my devoted wife, I know will be that I will have the Fever next . . . I am robust and regular in appetite and sleep, and all that good God Who, in His Infinite Mercy, gave us such a Blessing as you. Kiss my little ones for me. Speak courageous and cheering . . . And God will not forget your labour of love.”
The next morning, Charles Parsons awoke feverish. In a warm room, he received a visiting nun from St. Mary’s. He was smiling and in good spirits. The nun offered to fan him or hang mosquito netting, anything to make him more comfortable.
“No, no, I beg you will not; indeed, I could not let you so fatigue yourself.” The nun looked to the attending nurse who simply shrugged. “Let him have it his way; I never saw anyone so unselfish as he is.”
Charles Parsons never descended into the delirium that so often accompanied the disease, and in many cases, was a relief as a patient slipped away unaware of his own suffering or of the family he would leave behind. Parsons continued to talk of his wife Maggie and his “little ones.” He remained coherent until the end. In his final hour, he talked of having done his duty, then said he wanted to be taken away from this place. “Where