Last spring From the Archives shared some of what was experienced during the Spanish Flu outbreak of 100 years ago. Today, a century later, we know all too well the suffering brought about by COVID-19. But what of the years in between? A perusal of the chronicles and other sources reveals that epidemics were part of the lives of our earlier sisters.
According to the chronicle of St. Peter Convent, Milo (Columbus), Ohio, “In the year 1903 an epidemic of small pox broke out in the city. Even though the school at St. Vincent’s Orphanage and Sacred Heart School were forced to close for a long time, St. Peter’s in Milo was spared. How grateful we were that only one case of the dreaded disease appeared in our vicinity.”
In her manuscript history, S. Liguori Mason describes what happened at Sacred Heart, Columbus: “A dire visitation was in store for priests and people of Sacred Heart. In 1903 in the month of February a man whose home was near the convent died after some days’ illness, and his relatives foolishly concealed the fact that he had been a victim of the most virulent kind of small-pox. In consequence, nearly all those who attended the funeral were carried off by the disease. Then the children had in the meantime communicated the germ to others and the school had to be closed. While the nuns were spared, the people of the parish suffered terribly, and the family in which the disease had originated was almost completely wiped out.”
We again learn from S. Liguori that some years later the community and school at St John, Columbus, experienced another outbreak of this dreaded disease: “What might have been a catastrophe, but fortunately was not, occurred in 1920. A boy came to school with face and hands badly broken out. They said at home that it was poison (ivy). A few days later, a sister fell ill, her face and hands likewise covered with pimples. Then a second was taken ill and the doctor discovered that it was the small-pox, in a mild form, yet it was really that dreaded malady. Now it was necessary for the remaining teachers to leave the house while there were any patients in it or the school would have to be closed. So a regular exodus took place. The sisters put up for the night in the schoolhouse and might be found assembled for meals on the stage of the auditorium; they had taken to the stage as one of them said. This untoward happening brought out clearly the generosity and good will of the parishioners who were always bringing them something or another ‘just to help out,’ in their ‘straightened circumstances.’ The sisters were deeply grateful that they had been protected from the threatened calamity. Their non-Catholic doctor was so much impressed by the favorable turn things had taken, that he declared it must be owing to the sisters’ prayers, and when some time later he had to undergo an operation, he sent to the sisters to beg their prayers, since these, he said, were so powerful.”
Through our chronicles of today we document the realities of the current pandemic and continue to use our powerful prayers for those who suffer from it.