The American Plague - Molly Caldwell Crosby [32]
On September 6, Reverend Charles Parsons died, and the sisterssaid, even to the end, he refused to allow any nurses or sisters to waste their time tending to him. He was buried the day following his death at Elmwood Cemetery, and as no clergy were present, Mr. John G. Lonsdale Jr., owner of the private cemetery lot, read the burial service.
The Appeal’s editor wrote about his death: “He prepared for it as for battle, and as on a battlefield . . . he fell at his post during duty.”
That same day, the Appeal, which now only had one editor and one printer left on staff, published another story: “A man on Poplar Street yesterday cowardly deserted his wife and little daughter, both of whom were ill with the fever; if he isn’t dead, somebody ought to kill him.”
When news of Charles Parsons’s death made national news, some thirty priests volunteered to come to Memphis. One was a twenty-six-year-old, idealistic reverend who had just finished services in Hoboken, New Jersey, when he heard of Parsons’s illness. A fragile man who had recently recovered from a nervous breakdown, Louis Schuyler was discouraged from going on what would certainly be a death mission, but he was adamant, even stubborn in his intentions: “God calls me. I am safe in His hands—He will do what is best for me.”
On the train to Memphis, Schuyler received word that Parsons had died. He arrived in Memphis on Sunday, September 8, one day after Charles Parsons was buried, and went directly to St. Mary’s to find Sister Constance and Sister Thecla; the nuns had been without a priest or services for a full week. He was struck with the news that both were down with the fever.
A sister at St. Mary’s found Constance resting on the sofa several days before; she was dictating letters and insisted that she was healthy. She had felt the chill come on that morning, but worked for another five hours settling matters, knowing that when she fell many more would follow in her footsteps from neglect and starvation. Constance kept all correspondence, distributed the money, managed what little provisions they had and gave orders to the nuns and nurses.
“It is only a slight headache,” Constance persisted when Dr. Armstrong arrived. “I have not the fever, it is only a bad headache; it will go off at sunset.” He pulled out his pocket watch to measure her sluggish pulse and stroked his hand against her burning face, then insisted that the nuns give her a cool bath and put her to bed. The sisters made up their finest mattress with fresh linens, but Constance asked for another bed. “It is the only one you have in the house, and if I have the fever, you will have to burn it.”
Within the hour, Sister Thecla returned from the deathbed of a patient. Pale and perspiring, she began to shake. “I am sorry, Sister,” she said calmly, “but I have the fever. Give me a cup of tea, and then I shall go to bed.”
Neither Constance nor Thecla knew of the other’s illness, though they lay in rooms next door to one another. Finally, when they kept asking to see the other, the nurses had to tell them the truth: The fever had struck them both and on the same day.
Sister Constance soon slipped into unconsciousness and remained so for most of her illness, waking at one point only to say, “I shall never get up from my bed.” By then, 200 new cases of the fever appeared each day in Memphis, and the sister attending Constance wrote, “All the world seemed passing away; the earth sinking from under our feet.”
As Dr. Armstrong left St. Mary’s late that evening, one of the sisters ran after him and handed him a note. He thanked her and walked out into the night. The carbolic acid dumped into the Gayoso Bayou had killed the fish, and their odor cloaked the neighborhood, burning his eyes. With the sun deep beneath the horizon, the air felt suffocating and the neighborhood deserted. In the distance, two blocks away, the towers