In the News: Quarantine 2

Last week we noted that 1947 began with the Chris and Malinda Buller family under strict quarantine (see here). That post ended with a series of questions:

• What contagious disease plagued the family?
• How had the family contracted it?
• How long had they been quarantined?
• Were all family members affected equally?
• Who took care of the chores during this time? the family needs?

Thanks to Dad (Carl) and further newspaper research, we can answer most of those questions.

We begin with the disease itself: some of the members of the family had contracted scarlet fever (or scarlatina), a bacterial disease that causes, first, a fever and sore throat, followed by a pink-red rash that spreads over part or most of the body. The disease was most common among children, though even adults could contract it. The mortality rate during the 1930s was 15–20 percent, but beginning in the early 1940s both the frequency of epidemics and the mortality rate declined, due to the use of antibiotics to treat patients with the disease. Before then and throughout the 1940s the most common—and first—response was to impose a strict quarantine on both the infected and anyone who had come into contact with that person.

Instances of scarlet fever were highest during the winter and spring months, and outbreaks of scarlet fever were, compared to the recent past, relatively common. For example, we cannot imagine that 1947 was an outlier, for a year earlier, in January 1946, the York Daily News Times (31 January) reported that scarlet fever was on the rise in Nebraska (see the article to the right). A month later (20 February) the same paper noted that the spread of scarlet fever had slowed but that the number of measles cases had risen from 18 to 146 during a one-week period.

All this goes somewhat toward answering the second question: scarlet fever was in the air, so to speak, and even in 1947 it would probably have been impossible to say how the family had contracted the disease.

We do not know now, nearly eight decades later, exactly who had scarlet fever. Dad did not catch it and thinks that perhaps one of two of the younger children had it. As far as the health authorities were concerned, it did not matter if only one person was afflicted or every family member was: in either case the entire family had to be quarantined for an extended period of time.

Grandpa and Grandma’s family was not the only one quarantined at that time. According to the Lushton section of “About York County People” in the 16 January 1947 York Republican, 

The Chris Buller family and the Henry Janzen family are in quarantine for scarlet fever. The school will be closed all week.

One week later (16 January 1947) the same column in the same paper reported:

School opened Monday morning after a four days’ vacation. No new cases of scarlet fever have been reported.

As can be seen in the extract to the right (York Daily News Times, 17 January 1947), Lushton’s Evangelical United Brethren Church, which the Chris Buller family attended, suspended services in mid-January as well. Much like during our recent experience with COVID-19, social distancing was the go-to measure to stop the spread of the contagious disease.

Dad’s memory is that the family was quarantined for six weeks or so. This recollection is reasonable, or at least in the ballpark, since we read the following update in the 13 February 1946 York Republican:

The Henry Janzen family were released from a four weeks quarantine, the last of the week. Three of the children had scarlet fever.

The phrase “were released” is not without significance. It reflects the fact that in most cases quarantine was not chosen but rather imposed by local health authorities. Those quarantined were not released from it until those same authorities lifted the quarantine.

If the Chris Buller family was under quarantine for six weeks and was released from it around 23 January, we can estimate that their quarantine period began sometime during the second week of December, most certainly before Christmas.

Finally, as noted above, it is likely that only one or two members of the family actually contracted scarlet fever, so life on the farm continued much as it always did: corn was picked, animals were fed, water was carried, and so on. The only real difference was that there was no going to town to sell eggs or other farm produce or even to attend school. For six long weeks, all the members of the Chris Buller family had was the farm and each other. And now, to paraphrase a voice from the past, we know the rest of the story—or at least a few more details and background than we did before.