The Mount, the CSJs, and epidemics

Crowded corridors at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Pasco, Wash.
The photo is undated, probably from around 1950.

WITH THE MOUNT CLOSED due to the COVID-19 pandemic and all of us hunkering down at home, we have been thinking about past epidemics that raced through the United States, all of which impacted the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet -- and later Mount Saint Mary's -- in different ways. Here are some historic highlights from our sources in the University Archives & Special Collections.

Having an epidemic? Build a hospital

The CSJs' hospital in Tucson,
Ariz., in the 1920s.

One of the scourges of the 19th Century was cholera, a water-borne disease spread by human waste and primitive sanitation. It was extremely contagious and often fatal. Those stricken would be healthy one day and dead the next. Germ theory hadn't yet been proposed, so diseases were thought to be transmitted by forms of "bad air" called miasmas, which the steamy Mississippi River next to the CSJs' early settlements seemed to produce. Creeping up the river from New Orleans, cholera struck St. Paul, Minn., in the summer of 1854, less than three years after the the nuns had arrived and before they'd been able to build the town's first hospital. With funding from local citizens and doctors, they started taking cholera victims into an old log cabin. Patients who could afford it paid a dollar a day. At the same time the sisters sped up their plans for a permanent hospital, which became St. Joseph's.

A similar story was repeated by the CSJs in Eureka, Calif., who had barely unpacked their trunks when they were faced with patients suffering from the devastating Spanish Influenza in 1918, a virus that killed an estimated 50 million people worldwide. In Pasco, Wash., CSJs took in flu patients at their tiny Our Lady of Lourdes hospital, just two years old. The sisters in Indianapolis couldn't offer a hospital, but they responded to the pandemic by opening the campus of Sacred Heart High School for outdoor "field" masses on Sundays. Parishioners could practice some "social distancing" and still receive the sacraments.

In the end, the Spanish Flu took a terrible toll on the CSJ community, claiming at least eight mostly young and healthy Carondelet sisters between 1918 and 1921.

Measles at the Mount 

High on a hill in Brentwood, Mount students were isolated in a unique way, but they weren't immune from virus outbreaks. The "Mountain Ear," a weekly gossip column in the The View newspaper (mountaineer -- get it?) reported humorously on March 20, 1957, that a local epidemic of measles had infected four students and possibly six in Brady Hall, including the editor. If a gossip column sounds unserious, it's because in the decades before the measles vaccine it was a very common childhood disease, and most Americans, including Mount students, had developed the immunity. There's no evidence the measles spread. Over the decades, The View reported an occasional student with an embarrassing case, and no one gave it a second thought. It wouldn't be until 2015 when parents' failure to vaccinate their kids led to a dangerous global outbreak, that everyone started paying attention. The warnings show up in recent student newsletters.

The polio scourge

A childhood case of measles is one thing, but another childhood disease caused absolute terror in mid-20th Century. Although there were many polio outbreaks in the 20th century, the epidemic after World War II was the most terrifying. Starting around 1947 in California, it wasn't stopped until 1955 and the release of the the Salk vaccine. The worst year was 1952, one of the largest outbreaks in U.S. history. Cases that year of poliomyelitis, also known by its starker name infantile paralysis, numbered almost 60,000 in the U.S. Three-thousand children and young adults died, and more than 20,000 were left with permanent mild to severe muscle and nerve damage, including paralysis.

Up on the Brentwood hilltop Mount student were relatively safe. Science and nursing majors studied the disease intently, receiving advice in the columns of The View about what scientific articles to read.  Recruited by ads in the paper, many students responded with regular blood donations for the Red Cross after it was discovered that gamma globulin, a blood component, boosted the immune system and was effective in reducing the symptoms of polio and and other serious diseases.

Adelaide Spuhler Mealey '49

Students at a a Family Day event in 1954 heard a talk from an alumna about day-to-day living after surviving polio. Adelaide Spuhler Mealey, '49 contracted polio after her marriage but was able to care for her two toddlers from her wheelchair.

Virus research

No blog on viruses and MSMU can fail to mention our famous CSJ biologist, Sister Mary Gerald Leahy, whose pioneering research in the 1960s on mosquito reproduction was surfaced anew during the Zika virus epidemic in 2016. Rampant in South America, the Zika virus is spread by aedes aegypti mosquitoes -- which Sister Gerald actually raised in St. Joseph Hall -- and can cause serious birth defects if the mother contracts it during her pregnancy. The epidemic struck at the time of the 2016 Olympics in Rio de Janiero, foreshadowing the current debate over canceling the 2020 Summer Olympics. The Rio Games went on as planned, but because of Covid-19 the Toyko Olympics have been postponed.  

Coronavirus

Wildfire, epidemics -- never has the Mount been entirely closed in its history until now. The wonderful benefits of transportation and travel mean that the safety and isolation of the mid-century Mount and earlier is almost a dream. But the students of the early 1950s, sweating out the polio epidemic, didn't have smartphones, online classes, Zoom or digital article databases. The common thread is that we live with uncertainty and sometimes fear, but life always manages to go on.

And while all of Los Angeles is on lockdown, maybe we will have a little more time for this blog! Stay safe, stay healthy.    

Sources

We have access to so much wonderful stuff. Check out Sister Mary Agnes Rossiter, CSJ, A Sketch of Her Life by Sister Lucinda Savage, CSJ (1947), which mentions the Spanish Flu. The CSJs' early hospitals and cholera epidemics are mentioned in The Century's Harvest 1836-1936, also by Sister Lucinda. Digital copies of The View and all our digital collections can be viewed at http://stmary2.sdlhost.com.

An advertisement from The View on February 16, 1957, urges students
to donate blood to create gamma globulin to fight polio and other diseases.

Hidden treasures of the chapel

L.A. Archbishop John J. Cantwell and a cadre of other priests preside at
the Benediction liturgy dedicating Mary Chapel on May 2, 1940.

SUMMERTIME AND EVERYONE's cleaning out their desks. Or in the case of Campus Ministry at Chalon, the sacristy in Mary Chapel.

If one had the honor of being an altar server as a school kid, one will know what this means. Sacristy, from the Latin word for holy or sacred, is where the priest suits up before mass, known as vesting. It is a little liturgy in its own rite (sorry, that's a pun) with its own prayers. Other sacred objects are kept there for use during various celebrations in the church.

Since Mass is no longer celebrated daily at the Mount, the Mary Chapel sacristy has also evolved into something of a storage closet. From a historical standpoint, we're glad! One of the Campus Ministry student workers, nursing senior Chris Lorenzo '19, volunteered to clean it out. We helped with identification and in the process picked up some Mount history along the way. Check out the photos and captions below.

A set of candlesticks in two sizes, which originally number
six of each size. The complete array is visible on the
altar behind Cantwell in the picture at the top.

The picture above also shows Archbishop
Cantwell holding this monstrance at the dedication
of Mary Chapel in 1940. It's missing the luna,
the part that holds the sacred Host.

Detail of the 1940 monstrance showing St. Peter carved
in ivory. Its size and weight suggest it might have been
intended for a permanent location in a side chapel.

A lighter monstrance of classic sunburst design shows
up in photos starting in the 1940s and was probably
used for regular Benediction liturgies.

The sacristy revealed a number of old altar cloths, like this one made
of linen with a handmade lace border.

Priest's amice, a small cloth wrapped around the shoulders beneath the white alb and secured with ties around the chest. This one probably hasn't been worn in more than 50 years.

Official church permission to have a Stations of the Cross in Mary
Chapel, signed by Archbishop Cantwell, the president and chaplain
of the Mount, and members of the Franciscan Order in 1932. It
actually pertains to the original tiny chapel in Brady Hall.

Book find : More quack tracking

One remedy, primarily alcoholic, promises to relieve seizures.

WE ARE WEEDING some out-of-date nursing and medical books, an otherwise dispiriting task that is occasionally saved by the fun find.

Nostrums and Quackery, Vol. II landed on our desk for review this week, giving this blog another installment in the long-running (and ongoing!) story of medical fakery.

Death of a diabetic who was
treating himself with a patent medicine
made by the John J. Fulton Co. of
San Francisco.

Nostrums, published in 1921 by the American Medial Assn., dates from the Golden age of patent medicines and dubious remedies. In the early years of the 20th Century, with its promises of scientific breakthroughs, alarmed physicians found their patients had stopped heeding their advice and instead were placing their trust in hucksters. Promising to cure everything from tuberculosis to nicotine addiction, patent medicines could be purchased from street vendors, reputable pharmacies, through the mail and from prestigious-sounding medical "institutes."

The AMA collected hundreds of reports in three volumes, reproducing some of the advertisements and providing verbatim accounts from the doctors. As evidence, several doctors included death certificates for patients who had succumbed to disease despite the claims of whatever quack cure they were ingesting.

Wine of Cardui came to the attention of the federal Office of Indian Affairs.
The label gradually changes as false claims are eliminated.

Preying on the sick and suffering, patent medicine salesmen also targeted vulnerable groups like Native Americans. Concerned teachers at an Indian School in Arizona wrote to the U.S. government  about something called Wine of Cardui that was suddenly flooding the reservation. It was advertised, with testimonials, as a "women's tonic" for relief of menopausal symptoms, prolapsed uteruses, decreased libido and menstrual cramps. Like most of these remedies, the main and only effective ingredient was pure alcohol.

For an AMA medical text, Nostrums and Quackery is highly entertaining, with plenty of detail and outraged comments from doctors, patients, victims and the local newspapers. Browse it below, or stop by Special Collections at Chalon to enjoy the real thing.

Off the hill and into 'jail'

Student Body President Vincie
Ginevra, front and center, with other
Class of 1945 members (front) L-R, Helen
Fitzpatrick, Vincie, Phoebe Tours,
Arabella Barnes; (back) Blanche Van
Oort, Mary Albachten and
Margaret Thalken. 

VINCENTIA 'VINCIE' GINEVRA LESKO '45  paid a visit to the Chalon Campus and the College Archives today along with two of her six children, Matt and Stephanie, and Cindy Hizami of the Institutional Advancement office.

We love alumnae visits because we always learn something. Vincie did not disappoint.

A self-described "grumpy old lady" of 93, Mrs. Lesko was anything but. Asked if she could help identify people in photographs from the 1940s, she cheerfully flipped through a stack of pictures while Cindy hastily wrote down names on a sticky note.

Possessed of an impressive memory, Vincie also reminisced about her days at the wartime Mount, when blackout curtains and air raid drills were as much a part of student life as as chapel veils and kitchen raids.

Vincie was student body president her senior year, and like her predecessors during the war years presided over a close-knit class. Stephanie scanned a few of her mother's pictures, including this one of Vincie and a few of her classmates smiling behind bars below a sign reading "Santa Monica Jail." It was just an amusement park, or we're pretty sure they wouldn't look so pleased with themselves.

Slowly but surely, Vincie hiked all the way up the stone steps to Mary Chapel, recalling that it was built while her older sister Beatrice was a Mount student. (She graduated in 1941.) Then we took Vincie to the cafeteria and dined in the same room where she and her classmates ate their meals 70 years ago.

As we were going in, a trio of Mount students looked at us politely but curiously. When it was pointed out to them that Mrs. Lesko used to live in Brady Hall on the third floor near the elevator, they seemed a little shocked.

Yes, this will be you someday, we thought -- and we hope your memories will be as sharp as Vincie's when you look back. And we hope you enjoy your time here as much as she did. Finally, if you wind up in jail we hope it's one at an amusement park.

Stimson House and the Mount

AFTER OUR TOUR the other day, Sister Judy Peters, CSJ, loaned us a precious record of occupancy of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet in their Infant of Prague Convent, known to the public as Stimson House.

The photographic prints, included together in a spiral-bound booklet, are the work of famed architectural photographer Maynard Parker. They show the transformation of the mansion into a convent, with a new chapel and dining room with tables set for a crowd. The rooms don't evidence any sign of occupancy yet (even by the meticulous sisters), so perhaps the photos were taken to record the changes on the eve of the CSJs moving in.

The full album is available on our Facebook site. Take a look!

Stimson House/Infant of Prague has also served as a dormitory for Doheny Students, in the late 1960s and again in the early 1990s. Among the Parker photos is a room that matches up with one of our dorm photographs, including the bed frames. Those lucky students! 

A dormitory room for a pair of CSJs in 1948 ...

... is home to two fortunate Mount students almost fifty years later.

Portrait from a wedding

IT IS FILED UNDER 'STUDENT LIFE, 1940s,' this beautiful little image of a young Japanese couple on their wedding day. The simplicity of their dress and austerity of the chapel speak to its wartime setting. It's signed "Sincerely, Henry & Joan Umeda."

We never thoroughly studied the photo, though, until the other day. More than a wedding portrait, it speaks of a deeply poignant situation. Above the signature, in different ink, is written "Joan Nagao," presumably the bride's maiden name. Beneath that is written what looks like "Margaret." 

But when you really look at it, you see it reads "Manzanar." 

Manzanar: that shameful episode of American history when tens of thousands of innocent Japanese-Americans were imprisoned by the U.S. government after the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941. Uprooted from their everyday lives, many lost everything during their years in the camp.

Yet life went on, including love and marriage. 

A faintly visible inscription in the upper left reads "To the dear Sisters of Mt. Saint Mary's College." From that we might discern that Joan Nagao was a Mount student who wanted to share her happy news with her teachers. 

We haven't been able to find any evidence yet of a Joan Nagao or Joan Umeda graduating from the Mount before or after 1941. But we hope she and her husband, Henry, had a long and happy life together after this photo was taken, and after they were able finally to leave Manzanar. 

White wonderland

IT WAS NEARLY 80 DEGREES at Chalon last Friday, and amid the beach weather and warm blue skies it's hard to believe that on the same date back in 1949 -- January 13, a Thursday -- the city and the College enjoyed a record snowfall.

It wasn't just a light dusting -- probably more like 4 inches -- and it stuck. I just came across this photo of Mary Chapel, taken from the second floor of Rossiter Hall. What I like about it are the "Christmas trees" on either side of the entrance.

The students (and maybe even a Sister or two) enjoyed some snowball fights before it all melted in the late morning.

The beach weather last week was pretty nice, but day after perfect day in Brentwood can be a little, well, boring. It would be fun indeed to see this place decked in white again.

Spirit (and hijinks) of holidays past

Front page of the campus paper, The View, December 17, 1946.

AS THE CHALON CAMPUS closes for the holidays, I thought we'd wish everyone a Merry Christmas and farewell to 2011 with a look back at The View, the campus newspaper that published its first edition in April, 1945.

First, some verse from the first Christmas edition, the winner of the 1945 Christmas Poem Contest (Vol. I, No. 8, December 13, 1945, p. 3):

Soliliquy [sic] of the Ox

The king of beasts strides in the tall brown grass,

And sees the stealthy, slithering cobra pass;

The sheepdog on the hillside in the night

Watches the browsing flocks all fleecy white.

Many creatures of the Lord, I know,

Have features finer than I can show,

But with no other would I change my place

For I have seen the Christ-Child, face to face.

--Marjorie O'Hanlon '49

The picture above is the front page of second Christmas edition of The View, Vol. II, No. 9, December 17, 1946. Even then the Mount was proud of its diversity, publishing a roundup of short articles by its international students about Christmas traditions in their home countries -- Mexico, Japan, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador. The illustration is by student Barbara Lichtenberg '47.

And lest we think The View was all piety and poetry, there's an article in the 1945 Christmas edition about four Mount reporters chasing down the local movie stars. "View Attempts to Visit Van" describes their mad rush to follow Van Johnson in his blue sports car to the home of fellow star Keenan Wynn on nearby Saltair Avenue, where the two actors were rehearsing a Christmas program for the U.S. Navy. They tried and failed to talk their way past Wynn's maid, but, nothing daunted, they decided instead to stalk handsome Peter Lawford the following weekend.

Hijinks at the holidays! A blessed Christmas and Happy New Year, everybody -- see you here in 2012.