Day: May 11, 2020

Posted in Photo, Squire

Diphtheria Outbreak Breaks Family’s Heart

Posted on by Amiira

From Mary Josephine Squire’s (KWZV-7RH) autobiography:

“While we were living in Fredonia, N.Y., my brother Page contracted diphtheria in school. If I remember correctly (I was 7 1/2 at the time), he came home from church sick. It was his 9th birthday, 4 May 1909, and he had just joined the Methodist Church that day. He was desperately sick, and one week later he died. There was no funeral because he had died of a contagious disease.”

“My father was the only person beside the hearse driver who went to the cemetery. The picture is still vivid in my mind of the hearse driving away on that cold, windy muddy May day with all that was left of our darling brother. The only glimpse Raymond or I had had of Page since that fateful Sunday was through a window.”

Edmond Page Squire as a baby

“Page was very like his father, sweet, kind, and unselfish. Our loss was surely Heaven’s gain! Many years later my mother told me that just before Page died, all of a sudden he sat straight up in bed and seemed to look off in the distance and smiled and seemed to look radiant. Then he lay back down and died. Perhaps he saw a chariot and angels coming to get him.”

“My mother took every precaution and Raymond and I did not contract the disease. But since Page had contracted the disease at school, mother would not send me back to school until the truant officer came and enforced attendance.”

The outbreak of diphtheria in Fredonia was not like the pandemic of coronavirus we are having in 2020. It was a smaller outbreak, but diphtheria outbreaks happened regularly in the United States and around the world when Mary was growing up. Like coronavirus, it is a respiratory disease (though caused by a bacteria) with some similar symptoms, including sore throat, loss of appetite, and fever. It is also spread similarly, from person to person, usually through respiratory droplets, like from coughing or sneezing. Before a vaccine was invented in the 1920s, diphtheria was one of the most feared infectious diseases, with mortality rates as high as 40 percent, and was a major cause of childhood mortality.

At least a few other children died from the outbreak that killed Page Squire. I couldn’t find any news articles about his death, but I found a few about other children who died around the same time.

Three months earlier, the school district was closed because of several cases of diphtheria. You can understand why Laura Squire did not want to send Mary back to school until she was forced to. It was a scary time to live and have kids with so many early childhood diseases that we can now avoid thanks to vaccines.

Posted in Photo, Squire

The Early Years – Mary J Squire

Posted on by Amiira

In her autobiography, Mary Josephine Squire (KWZV-7RH) wrote about often spending time at her grandparents’ house as a child. She was born in their house and often visited their dairy farm, 1 mile east of Spartensburg, Pennsylvania. “To arrive at this farm from Spartensburg, one had to go up over a hill and cross a high iron bridge over a creek. The farm was just on the other side. To me the bridge looked as if it rose about a mile into the sky.”

“The house was 30 or 40 feet from the road, and this front yard had several huge pine trees between two of which was hung a hammock in summer. On hot summer evenings or Sunday afternoons after Church, dinner and chores, one of the men often took a snooze in this hammock. But the rest of the time my brothers and I could enjoy it.”

Edmond Squire’s Farm at Spartensburg, Pennsylvania
Unfortunately, I don’t know who the people in the picture are

“Summers were happy times on the farm. We played with the Collie dog, Shep, or with the Gould children who lived a short distance away, picked four leaf clovers from the big field which came clear up to one side of the house, or sometimes went across the field to visit our great grandfather, Joseph Morse Jenkins.”

“It was quite confusing when my playmates spoke of their different grandfathers and grandmothers as I didn’t know anyone had more than one set. My brothers and I only had one set and wondered how come others had more. My father’s father had married my mother’s mother when my parents were in their teens. They grew up together and were brother and sister as well as husband and wife.”

In case you didn’t catch all that, here is the chart.

John Jay Squire married his step-sister Laura May Page three and a half years after their parents married each other. But John was 21 years old and Laura was 19 years old when their parents married, so it is not like they grew up in the same house together.

“In December of 1912, at my grandparents wishes, we left the vicinity of Fredonia, New York, and moved to Corry, Pennsylvania, where my grandfather helped my father to get started in the sand, gravel and cement block business. My grandfather purchased a piece of ground with veins of sand and gravel and a half a dosen Irish shanties, the largest of which we tried to make into a home.”

“All of the buildings were in various stages of disrepair. The house was small with four little rooms on the first floor and a room and a half under the eaves. It was so cold that winder that dad banked the house with straw and manure from the barn to keep us from freezing. We often had to wade up to our hips in snow drifts to get to school.”

“Eventually we tore down and replaced or dispensed with all the little outshanties – the little house over the well, the many chicken coops, tool shed, wood shed, and privy. When mother sold the house after dad died in 1947, it was an entirely different looking place with its additions, improvements, shingled exterior, enclosed porches and a nice double garage. In place of the shanties surrounding the house, there were trees, flowers, a rock garden and big lawns.”

John Jay Squire’s sand and gravel pit