Losing one's mind, for real

Cover of a 1904  home health medical manual.
Credit: UF Health

Watching and caring for an elderly loved one who is dying is no easy task. You see them decline, day by day, until the time comes when your nursing care is pretty much useless. 

They're near death, and you pray, and tell them you love them, and treat them with gentle care. Finally, the day comes when you kiss them goodbye.

I just went through all that. My husband and I nursed my father through his final days in our house. And thank God for that. 

Had my father been in a nursing home, he would have died alone because of the coronavirus lockdown. He wouldn't have understood why I or other family members weren't with him. His Alzheimer's had clouded his mind too much by then. 

AdventHealth Hospice Care guided us every step of the way. I'm grateful for that. You learn quickly how to do things you never thought you'd have to do. And you don't mind. Your life isn't your own, because the needs of a dying Alzheimer's patient are great. 

And then, suddenly, everything stops. You know the time is coming but you're not ever really prepared. Dad's been gone less than two weeks and the void in the house is great. I'm still reeling from it all.

With more time at hand, I started wondering how people cared for dementia-suffering elders in Florida during pioneer days. Nursing homes didn't exist. 

My early 20th century ancestors considered hospitals places to be avoided. My ancestors were in New York City. I don't know if Florida had hospitals outside major areas at that time. My guess is that eldercare was done primarily in the home.

To check the era's home-health advice, I turned to the U.S. National Library of Medicine's online version of Dr. Gunn's New Family Physician Home Book of Health. The book was popular and had been updated and reprinted numerous times over decades. I viewed the 1901 edition.

On page 722, we're told that old age is "the only disease natural to man." Dr. Gunn believed "dosing and drugging" with non-natural remedies would bring on an early old age. People were advised to stick with roots, barks, and herbs. They were told to steer clear as much as possible from "Mineral Remedies."

The book is massive. On page 1,022 there's an entire discussion about bones. While the medical explanation is outdated, the author seems on target in saying that bones of the elderly "are extremely brittle and easily broken." 

Other pages hold decidedly modern notions. One example is an emphasis on healthful eating and unrushed, regular mealtimes. People who acquire such habits were said to reach old age "cheerful, sprightly and youthful in their feelings." 

All that is interesting, but a home-health manual of that size ought to contain something about dementia. 

In the old days, people who had dementia were said to be senile. Yet that word doesn't appear in the book. Nor does the word dementia. Or forgetfulness, or memory loss. Yet dementia was recognized by the medical community at the time. "Alzheimer's" would be named a scant few years later, in 1906.

I had slightly more luck finding the word "senile" in HathiTrust digital library's 1904 - get ready for this title - The Favorite Medical Receipt Book and Home Doctor, Comprising the Favorite Remedies of Over One Hundred of the World's Best Physicians and Nurses. 

Those one hundred-plus medical experts didn't have a remedy for senility. In the book, the word senile is associated with something called Senile Gangrene. It was the name used to describe a limb that became useless in an old person. Heart problems were said to cause the ailment. 

Again, no mention of dementia anywhere in the book. 

Maybe people didn't live long enough to suffer end-stage dementia in olden days. Life expectancy was a lot shorter then. 

But people suffered from it. It just wasn't as commonly known or understood as it is today. I can't imagine how bewildered the sufferers and their caregivers were upon dealing with the relentless loss of cognitive abilities and memory. It had to be terrifying and sad. Because it still is today.  

Florida, 1918 Spanish flu, and coronavirus

Pensacola was hit hard by the 1918 Spanish flu. This
screengrab is from the Oct. 4, 1918 Pensacola Journal.

The coronavirus pandemic has made me think about the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic. How did Floridians fare during that crisis? I wondered a lot of things - did they hoard supplies, practice social distancing, and argue among themselves about how serious the situation was? 

They had no instant means of communication back then. Telephones existed but weren’t yet in every home, particularly in rural areas. Radio wasn’t widespread until the 1920s. Seems to me common people in Florida in 1918 had the telegraph, postal service, and newspapers.

So I turned to historical newspapers to see how the flu was covered. Here’s what I found searching through the America's Historical Newspapers and the Chronicling America databases. Many things were eerily the same.

Then, as now, calmness was advised. The Pensacola Journal, on Oct. 12, 1918, told people not to panic. The newspaper explained what to look for when feeling unwell, and offered tips on how to self-treat. 

Many symptoms of the Spanish flu sounded familiar to those of COVID-19: chills, aches, sometimes nausea and dizziness, general feeling of weakness, temperature up to 104 degrees that lasted three to five days, a hard cough that grew worse at night, sometimes a sore throat, and often the appearance of a severe head cold.

People were told to go to bed at the first symptoms, both for themselves and to avoid spreading the flu. Then, as now, there was no cure. In 1918, flu victims were advised to take a purgative, eat nourishing food, and take medicine as advised by their doctor. 

Home options included taking quinine, aspirin, something called Dover’s Powder, and rubbing the throat, neck, and upper back with Vick’s Vapo-Rub. At that time, it was a relatively new product. The newspaper felt a need to explain that it was a salve whose ingredients included menthol, camphor, and oils of eucalyptus and thyme.

The chief worry was the threat of additional complication in patients with compromised systems because of underlying health conditions. The elderly were particularly susceptible. In general, patients were advised to stay in bed for two more days after their fever subsided. Those over 50 were to stay in bed four extra days. Back in 1918, anyone older than 50 was considered well up in age. Life expectancy in the United States in 1918 was 36.6 years for men and 42.2 years for women, according to a University of California, Berkeley, demographic table.

“Evidence seems to prove this is a germ disease spread principally by human contact …” explained the Oct. 12 Pensacola Journal article. People were told to avoid crowds, common drinking cups and towels, to take plenty of exercise in the open air, and to eat good food. Exactly what we’re being told to do today.

Then, as now, younger people also succumbed. The Daytona Beach News Journal, on Dec. 29, 1918, carried news of the death of a 17-year-old girl who had fought the flu for 10 days. She wasn’t the only young person whose death I noticed while browsing online.

Illness also spread through the armed forces. The country was still fighting World War 1 in 1918. Even after the war ended in November, war news predominated in newspapers as peace commissions met and troops started to return home. The Daytona Beach News Journal, on Dec. 5, 1918, reported a snapshot of how the flu affected men in uniform. Of the 20,500 deaths among troops between Sept. 14 and Nov. 8, an astonishing 19,800 deaths were attributed to the epidemic. 

Individual cases around Florida were cause for newspaper updates. The Ocala Evening Star, on Oct. 7, 1918, reported that Doc Lanier in Fort Lauderdale was much improved after a week’s illness “with the fashionable Spanish ‘flue.’ ”  Doc was again to be found behind the prescription counter at Beck’s drugstore. Also, a local Ocala man, Mr. L.E. Yonce, a baggage master on the A.C.L. Railway from Jacksonville to Leesburg, was reported to be finally able to get up after being down with the flu at home for several days. 

While much flu news was relegated to inside pages - war news took precedence on most days - the Pensacola Journal on Oct 4, 1918 gave top placement to news that all area agencies were cooperating to combat the flu. Representatives of the U.S. Public Health Service, city health department, civilian relief committee, and Red Cross planned a morning press conference that day to combat what had become an epidemic in the city. The Red Cross had ordered more civilian aid in Pensacola, in which many industries were said to be handicapped. 

“Interference of the disease is beginning to be felt in every quarter of the city,” the article said. Only 18 of a force of 102 were able to report to work at the city’s electric company. Elevators and telephone service were disrupted by illness of the operators. People were urged not to use the telephone unless absolutely necessary. The Naval Air Station was sending six pharmacists to local drugstores to help get out medicine to the sick.

Just like today, gatherings were canceled.  A War Camp Community Sing was canceled, as were the Naval Air Station’s weekly dances. Churches canceled services, and lodges and guilds halted meetings.

Of depressing note: what I always knew as the “1918 Spanish flu” started earlier and ended later. On Dec. 1, 1918, the Daytona Beach Morning Journal reported that experts from the United States, Canada, and South America would meet in Daytona Beach the following week for the American Public Health Association’s annual convention. At that time, the experts were to coordinate plans for battling the flu epidemic in 1919. Another wave of illness was expected to sweep the country in 1919. Dr. W. A. Evans, former health commissioner of Chicago, was quoted as saying the Spanish flu first made its appearance in Spain in 1913. He also noted that, by 1918, Spain was already having its second outbreak. 

We’re only weeks into high-alert mode here in Florida as coronavirus cases continue to climb. Stay safe, all.

Of missions and marriages

All friends were cordially invited to attend St. Peter Catholic
Church's annual picnic in 1922. Screengrab of DeLand
Daily News article is from America's Historical Newspapers.

Vintage archival copies of my town's local newspaper have moved from microfilm to online. The paper's current iteration, the West Volusia Beacon, made the announcement last month. The DeLand News Historical Archive is hosted on America's Historical Newspapers. I can access the database through my Volusia County Public Library account.

This opens up a new portal for me! Day-to-day local history is only a click away.

I love the way newspapers in the olden days kept track of the common aspects of regular folks' lives.  The papers reported on people's vacations, houseguests, picnics, and so on. Such minutiae gives me a sense of domestic life in earlier periods.

Because my parish church, St. Peter, was established in DeLand in 1883, I first browsed the online archives for a look at church doings in years gone by. Here are some examples, with quotes taken directly from the articles:

• On Jan. 15, 1904, John Francis Cairns and Mary Ellen Donahue were married. "The day opened with a storm, which continued up to 9:30 raining torrents; but notwithstanding this, the little church was filled with invited guests. At 9:30 the skies cleared and the sun came out and there was beautiful weather for the marriage." January weather is generally nice in Florida, and I imagine it was even prettier after the storm blew through. The rest of the wedding day was splendid, according to the newspaper reporter: "The impressive ceremony of the Catholic Church was used. After the ceremony, about 65 invited guests repaired to the home of the groom's parents on Amelia Avenue, where congratulations were extended and a most sumptuous wedding breakfast partaken of. Bushnell's orchestra was present at the house and discoursed sweet music." The DeLand Daily News ended its account by wishing the couple a long and happy married life. 
• The bishop came to town March 18, 1904, to celebrate the sacrament of Confirmation at St. Peter Church. "Bishop Kenney of St. Augustine was assisted by Father Chisholm of DeLand," the article notes. Nine candidates were confirmed and the church was filled with people for the occasion. "Before performing the impressive ceremony, Bishop Kenney gave a most lucid explanation of the procedure and the symbolisms," the reporter wrote. Then, as now, some editorializing crept in. The reporter said "Bishop Kenney has an easy, quiet way, a pleasant speech that impresses one very favorably." We also learn that the "music was exceptionally good."
• The Jan 23, 1918, edition of the paper reported on a week of missions at St. Peter. The mission was opened on a Sunday by Dominican fathers. The opening night sermon focused on mortal sin. On Monday evening, the missionary preached on "The Evil of Gossiping." The next night - the day the newspaper was published - was to focus on "The Home." The reporter closed the article with a wish that parishioners and their friends "will take advantage of this precious opportunity of hearing exposed and explained the doctrines and teaching of the Catholic Church." 
• Not all church doings were inside the building. On June 21, 1922, the newpaper announced that "members and friends of the St. Peter's Catholic Church will hold their annual picnic Thursday, June 22, motoring to Coronado Beach. About 15 or 20 cars will leave from DeLand, being joined by a car from Leesburg and two cars from Eustis." The group was to use Ocean View hotel as headquarters. A picnic dinner, games, and surf bathing "are among some of the delightful attractions which are on the program to make this the best picnic ever." I hope they had a good time.

Reading such accounts helps me understand that the anti-Catholicism prevalent in early 20th century Florida wasn't practiced by everyone. Non-Catholics attended many of the church events listed above. The newspaper reporters in all my cited examples were generous and open-minded in their coverage of events.

That realization gives me hope that, in the future, people browsing 2020 domestic history will understand that some of us - even in today's fractured, politicized culture - stayed firmly on the side of kindness and fairness.

Progress steamrolled sacred grounds

This was photographed at an abandoned cemetery
in Charlotte County. Efforts were made to clean up
the burial ground about 10 years ago.
(Photo credit: Jeremy, Waymarking website)

Cemeteries are on my mind. For two reasons. One, I am helping my elderly father through his final days. In the not-too-distant future, I'll stand at the New York burial site he purchased some 50 years ago. I'll watch as he and my deceased mother's cremains are put to rest next to a baby they buried decades ago.

At least I know where my long-gone brother's grave is. And where my parents are to be buried. And what the family tombstone looks like and what names and dates will be added to it. Finally, I'll have the peace of knowing my loved ones will rest undisturbed in a long-established Catholic cemetery.

That's not the case with lost and/or forgotten African-American cemeteries in Florida. It seems every week I hear another news report about the discovery of a lost cemetery. We're not talking isolated resting grounds hidden in overgrown woods. I'm hearing disturbing reports of established cemeteries that were paved over during the first half of the 20th century. Roads, stores, houses, you name it, were built atop what should have been protected sacred ground.

Such wanton disregard is hard for me to understand. These aren't isolated cases.There are numerous videos in  Tampa news station 10 News WTSP's YouTube playlist "Erased: Tampa Bay's Forgotten Cemteries." 

The videos focus on several cemeteries in the Tampa area. Closer to my part of Central Florida, there was news a few years ago about an African-American cemetery split from its community - and subsequently forgotten - when Interstate 4 came through Lake Helen.

Another nearby abandoned cemetery is associated with a late 19th-early 20th century African-American community named Garfield. The settlement of Garfield was founded by ex-slaves after the Civil War. The land was lost to back taxes during the Depression and pre-World War II years. Today, what used to be Garfield - and its cemetery - are swallowed by the city of Deltona.

The Garfield cemetery was briefly in the news 15 or  20 years ago, when someone stumbled across its location. I haven't heard a thing since then. The city of Deltona apparently did an archaeological survey. It, too, was buried. I tried to read it over a decade ago, but the city never responded to my request to see the document.

In another local case, a forgotten potter's field was rediscovered during construction of a hospital expansion in DeLand. Only a few old-timers remembered the site had been the burial place for people who had died indigent and/or unclaimed.

These local cases, plus what's being uncovered in Tampa, plus others I've read about, are chilling signs of a disheartening disrespect that likely infected much of Florida in the past century. May all the deceased and the sacred grounds they rest in once again regain their dignity.

---

Click here or on the photo below to go to a YouTube playlist about lost cemeteries in the Tampa Bay area:

Secret sanctuary a holy place

Segment from a colorized postcard from 1938
shows the Shrine of Ste. Anne des Lacs
 in Lake Wales, Florida.
Photo credit: Florida Memory

Tucked away in Lake Wales is a small, serene Catholic shrine. It once drew hundreds - maybe thousands - of people on pilgrimages in the early 20th century. The shrine even has an entry in the 1939 Federal Writers Project's Florida, A Guide to the Southernmost State.

Today, only handfuls of the faithful and the curious make their way to the lakefront Shrine of Ste. Anne des Lacs. Stonework crumbles in places and chipped inlaid tiles tell of past glory. An ornately decorated church once on the property is long gone.

But the essence and spirituality of the shrine remain.  Many visitors describe feeling a sense of peace when they stop -  and perhaps pray - before a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in a grotto built to resemble the one at Lourdes. In a 2015 article, the Lakeland Ledger dubbed the shrine a secret sanctuary.

Secret, indeed. I've lived in Florida a long time and love to explore historic sites and Catholic-related places. How can I have been ignorant of the very existence of the Ste. Anne des Lacs shrine? The site is apparently overseen by the Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Lake Wales. The parish history page makes only a brief mention of the shrine, under the year 1921. The site says Easter Mass is celebrated there.

I cobbled together the place's history from the WPA guide, the Ledger article, YouTube videos, Wikipedia, and Florida Memory, which is where I located the colorized postcard pictured with this post. 

Among things I learned is that the local neighborhood has a protective attitude toward the shrine. Local residents look after the property, tend the grounds, and share information with tourists who find their way there.

Thanks for the shrine's very existence are due to a long-ago resident named Napoleon Pelletier. He was among a group of Canadian Catholics who wintered in Lake Wales to escape harsh weather in the early 20th century.

Different sources diverge on why the shrine was built. One says the devout Pelletier was the driving force behind creation of a shrine in the group's winter retreat. Another source says either Pelletier's son - or French artist Francois Morsollier's son - recovered from a serious illness while in Florida. The recovery was attributed in part to the healing waters of Saint Anne Lake. The shine was then built in gratitude for the child's recovery.

Either way, we do know the date of the shrine's construction: 1920. By the time of the WPA guidebook's write-up in 1939, the property contained stone grottoes, statuary, and a little church in which Morsollier had painted scenes from the Holy Land. Even relics were kept at the shrine.

Here's how the guidebook describes shrine activity:

"Pilgrimages are made here annually as to the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes in France and the shrine of Ste. Anne de Beaupre in Canada. High dignitaries and priests of the Roman Catholic church in the United States and Canada assist the local priest in conducting the ceremonies." (page 466)

Those days are long gone. The place's faded grandeur - but also its current dignity - are evident in the YouTube video I linked below and in photos on Facebook. 

The Shrine of Ste. Anne des Lacs continues to nurture all who find their way to her doorstep. You can find the wooded retreat at 1207 St. Anne Shrine Road, a circular road that winds around the lake a few miles east of town center. Say a prayer for me if you get there before I do. I'll return the favor.

Below is the link to a video about the shrine. You can also click on the photo to go to YouTube.

Watch a video about the shrine at this link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QyGxa0vRHos&t=1s

In search of Dr. Annie Mae Walker

Dr. Annie Mae McClary Walker is buried in Greenwood
Cemetery in Daytona Beach. This image is from the
 Find A Grave website. 

Born in a Florida turpentine camp in 1913. Died with a string of "firsts" and awards to her name in 1998. Why hasn't anyone written an in-depth biography of Dr. Annie Mae McClary Walker?

I'd write the bio, but this is an #ownvoices story if there ever was one. I say that even though I'm ambivalent about the movement. I believe writers, actors, artists - all creatives - deserve the freedom to create at will, with no barriers placed. So ... my former-journalism self could write her life story. But I instinctively know an #ownvoices writer would produce a deeper bio than I could achieve.

Screengrab is from an article,
"The American Negro in
College, 1943-1944," in a 1944
issue of The Crisis Magazine.
Annie Mae McClary Walker
was known as Annie Mae
Tooks at the time.

Dr. Walker was a pioneering African-American-Seminole educator whose strong personality and amazing life shine in a conversational biography penned by Dr. Lynn Hawkins, Always the First, The Story of Annie Mae Walker (Taylor and Seale Publishing, 2016). The book is based on hundreds of hours of recorded interviews between the two educators, who were friends. But when my Ravenclaw self went searching for more information about Dr. Walker, I found almost nothing.  A search of academic databases turned up zilch. She doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. Dr. Walker, where are you?

This was a woman who created Black Studies programs, was integral to the Head Start program, fought hard for civil rights, integrated neighborhoods, and was the first Black professor of Black Studies at SUNY Stony Brook in New York. Among other achievements. And she knew what it was like to have a cross burned on her front lawn.

Her life journey intersected with an incredible roster of people. She was related by marriage to Mary McCleod Bethune and was taught by Zora Neale Hurston during the writer's brief tenure at Bethune-Cookman College (now University). She marched with Dr. Martin Luther King and had Malcolm X as a houseguest.

Dr. Walker's life was not without warts, as are all our lives. I haven't yet met a perfect being and won't until I meet the Lord. But the combined parts make up a fascinating whole. I look forward to reading an in-depth biography on this most interesting woman.

Ma Barker haunts Florida house

Historic image of tiny Oklawaha is part of a presentation, "The
 Records and Legend of the Kate "Ma" Barker Shootout at
Ocklawaha," by George Albright III and Carson Good.

Looking for a real haunted house this Halloween season? Try the country home made famous by the 1935 gun battle between the FBI and the Ma Barker Gang in the Florida hamlet of Ocklawaha. The 1930 house is named the Bradford-Ma Barker House and is open for tours by appointment. But watch out for ghosts. More than one person believes Ma's spirit still lurks there.

In the 1930s, Ma Barker was said to be the mastermind behind the gang, which consisted of her sons and other men. Gang members robbed banks, killed, kidnapped, and hijacked with cold-blooded ruthlessness. At the time, Ma was in the nation's collective consciousness as a Most Wanted Woman, a harridan who presided over an evil empire. But modern history discounts that theory as something promoted by J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI.

Ma's full name was Arizona Clark Barker, but she used the name Kate. Three of her four sons were active in the famous gang along with other young men. She traveled with them and seems to have served as a protective cover. For example, she was the one who arranged to rent the rural hideaway on Lake Weir in Ocklawaha. But her full role remains murky, at least to me.

On the one hand, her four sons were in and out of trouble and prison, starting at young ages. Something was seriously amiss from the start in that household. Online sites that borrow heavily from one another portray her as an early version of today's helicopter parents. She thought her boys could do no wrong and she intervened with the law to save their hides more than once.

Ma  Barker

On the other hand, Ma's husband left her after the boys were grown. Like many another woman during the Great Depression, Ma seems to have done what was necessary to survive. Somehow that evolved into being a permanent member of a vicious gang. Yet one of the group's most notorious members - Alvin Karpis - wrote in a memoir that Ma was just a country woman who didn't have the smarts to organize kidnappings and bank robbings. He says gang members hid their activities from Ma. They'd leave her home or send her to the movies when they went out on a job. According to the Alcatraz History website, Karpis claims that "Ma saw a lot of movies."

So who knows. Ma's true story is buried beneath lore, legend, and speculation. What is a known fact is that she and her son Fred were in the lakefront house in Ocklawaha the day the FBI came gunning. The other gang members had left for reasons unknown to me.

Ma and Fred refused to surrender. The gun battle lasted hours, and burned itself into local lore. With good reason! You see from the photo that Ocklawaha was about as small and quiet as a Florida town could get in that era. Having bank robbers, the FBI, and a Wild West shootout in town sent shockwaves through the region.

Among local residents who witnessed the shootout was the great-grandfather of Marion County Tax Collector George Albright III. In fact, the younger Albright grew up next to the famous house. He's done a  lot of research on the subject and is involved in the renovation effort, which included relocating the house to the Carney Island Recreation and Conservation Area in Ocklawaha.

Before, during, and after the project, stories surfaced about how Ma haunts the house. These recollections came from reputable people. Don't laugh. Read at least this article from the Tampa Bay Times before you decide to dismiss the idea.

If you prefer only verified facts, check out the treasure trove of shootout documents and photos collected in a presentation by Albright III and Carson Good, whose family owned the house. The PDF and an accompanying video are generously shared online. Go to the Online Forms page of the Marion County Tax Collector website and scroll down to the "Other" heading near the bottom of the page. There, you'll find links to "The Records and Legend of the Kate 'Ma' Barker Shootout at Ocklawaha."

After that, go visit and tour the house. If you dare.

Here's a link to the video of the house tour by the Ocala Star-Banner: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PSK-ufEAJA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7PSK-ufEAJA