Irish Cross Memorial New Orleans

Irish Cross Memorial New Orleans
The Celtic Cross Memorial in New Orleans, Louisiana. Photo by Adrian McGrath. Click the image for the story about the cross.

Tuesday, September 8, 2020

Typhoid Mary: The Sad Case of an Asymptomatic Irish Immigrant

"Typhoid Mary" Mary Mallon
in the front hospital bed (Wikipedia)


By Adrian McGrath

Dangerous diseases are in the news nowadays. People isolate, take many precautions, and sadly some get sick and even die. Others go into quarantine.

A similar, though much smaller scale, medical scare happened a century ago in New York. It has parallels to today, and it was important also because of the asymptomatic nature of the case. It involved an Irish immigrant.

She came from Cookstown, County Tyrone, in the north of Ireland. Born in 1869 she came to America when in her early teens in 1884. It is probable she had typhoid from birth as her mother had the infection when pregnant. 

Her name was Mary Mallon, and she lived at first with her aunt and uncle.  Later she worked in the New York City area as a maid until she developed into a cook. Her career advanced as she worked as a house cook for wealthy families.

But there was a problem. At the homes of the well-to-do where she worked, people kept getting sick. Eventually, it is believed that she infected more than 50 people. Three of these unfortunate souls died from the illness. 

Mary Mallon went from job to job, and people kept getting sick. The ill people would have a high fever, stomach pain, head pains, and might become nausiated and vomit. A skin rash might develop. These symptoms might last for weeks and become worse. Pneumonia and intestinal bleeding might also occur. 

The disease was called typhoid fever or typhoid (not to be confused with typhus). The disease was spread by bacteria often resulting from unclean or unsanitary conditions. Simple washing of the hands could have reduced the problem, but medical science in those days did not fully realize this. 

A poster originally from the New York American
from 1909 depicting Mary cooking and spreading 
typhoid fever. (Photo from pbs.org and Wikimedia)


It is probable, at least at first, that Mary did not realize that she was the source of the problem. She had the disease, but she did not understand it. She was asymptomatic, which meant she carried the illness but had no outward signs of it. She was in fact the very first, diagnosed, asymptomatic carrier of typhoid fever in the United States. 

Mary was ostensibly healthy, yet inside of her was Salmonella typhi.

Eventually the authorities caught up with her and concluded she was the source of the problem. She was quarantined and let go after agreeing to be more hygenic and change her occupation. 

She went from cook to laundry worker. She did this agreeably, but she later changed back to cooking after an injury. Cooking also paid much more than laundry work or being a maid. With her injury and limited job skills, cooking was the work Mary relied on to earn a living.

However, now she began to work in public places rather than in homes of the rich. She worked in restaurants, hotels, and even at a hospital. She used false names and worked as a cook against health officials' orders.

Then as the illness spread, she was discovered and quarantined again by the authorities. So twice quarantined, her life was a nightmare. 

Mary was sent again to a place called North Brother Island in The Bronx in New York. She stayed there for over 25 years in total. 

It was said she had no friends or relatives left to console her, and she found peace only in her religious beliefs. 

She died almost alone, except for the medical staff, in 1938. 

Mary Mallon was cremated. Her ashes are buried at St. Raymond's Cemetery on North Brother Island.

The press covered the story and gave her the nickname "Typhoid Mary."

Typhoid fever was eventually treated with the use of antibiotics which can destroy Salmonella. A British scientist also developed a vaccine in 1896 which was successful.


North Brother Island, East River
The Bronx, New York
(Photo by US Coast Guard and Wikimedia)





North Brother Island,The Bronx,
New York, 1906 (Wikipedia)



Sources and further reading: See about North Brother Island
the poster of Mary is from pbs.org and Wikimedia https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Mallon-Mary_01.jpg; Photo of lighthouse North Brother Island https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Northbrother.JPG

Tuesday, July 7, 2020

The Healys: The Many Accomplishments of One Irish African American Family


Bishop James Augustine
Healy















By Adrian McGrath

Being Irish Catholic in 19th century America had a great societal disadvantage. There was then a great deal of anti-Irish and anti-Catholic prejudice. Being an enslaved African American then in the South was obviously a terribly oppressed situation. There was no freedom at all. One family suffered in both conditions, and yet made incredible accomplishments. This was the Healy Family of Georgia. Surprisingly, their story is not well known. Yet it should serve as an inspiration to us all.

Michael Morris Healy was an Irish Catholic immigrant from Roscommon, Ireland. He came to America and became wealthy as a cotton planter in a location near Macon, Georgia. Mary Eliza Smith was Michael's common-law wife. She was a person of mixed White and Black backgrounds; and she had been a slave. There is some uncertainty if she had been freed or remained a slave.

Under the laws of that time, Mary was considered to be Black. She and Michael had several children. They were considered Black under the law; and the children were also considered to be slaves under the law, assuming the mother was enslaved. Georgia law then prohibited education for all Black children, free or enslaved.

It was feared that education could lead to independent thinking and even result in a slave revolt.

Michael, despite the unjust law, intended for his children to be well educated. So, he sent the children to school up North. They were all baptized Catholic.

There were nine children in all, who lived to be adults. Some went to boarding schools run by the Quakers at first, but later went to Catholic schools.

All of the five male children except for one graduated from college. Three of the children continued their educations, going to graduate school in Paris, France at Seminaire Saint Sulpice. They were James, Patrick, and Sherwood Healy. Patrick and Sherwood studied further and attained doctorate level degrees.

Seminaire Saint Sulpice in modern times,
near Paris, France, the school where several
Healy sons studied
Photo from wikimedia.org


The three daughters also were well educated in a Catholic convent in Montreal, Canada. One daughter, Martha, however, left the religious order and married an Irish Catholic immigrant and raised a family.

Three of the sons became Catholic priests. The three daughters became Catholic nuns.

Patrick Francis Healy,
a Jesuit priest, later head
of Georgetown College

The fifth son, Michael Augustine Healy, who liked adventure and who did not graduate college, joined the United States Revenue Cutter Service. This was the forerunner of the US Coast Guard. He rose to the rank of Captain and did a lot of his service in the wilds of Alaska.

Michael Augustine Healy became the first African American to take command of a United States ship. Today in his honor the US Coast Guard has a ship called the USCGC Healy. It is an icebreaker and the largest ship in the US Coast Guard.

United States Coast Guard Cutter,
an icebreaker in north Alaska
USCGC Healy aka WAGB-20
This ship was named after the Healy son,
Michael Augustine Healy


James Augustine Healy became the first American bishop who was of African American descent. Patrick Francis Healy became the president of the Jesuit school, Georgetown College which later became Georgetown University in Washington, DC. He is also said to be the first American of African descent to earn a PhD. He was a Jesuit priest.

One of the daughters, who was a nun, became a Mother Superior. In Healy style, she became the first Mother Superior of African descent in the USA.

Healy Hall at Georgetown University,
named after the Healy son and Jesuit priest,
Patrick Francis Healy
Photo from Wikimedia Commons


In sum the nine children were as follows:

1. James Augustine Healy, became bishop of Portland, Maine

2. Patrick Francis Healy, PhD, became a Jesuit priest and head of Georgetown College, later called Georgetown University

3. Alexander Sherwood Healy, earned a doctorate degree and became a priest

4. Michael Augustine Healy, joined the Revenue Cutter Service, today's US Coast Guard, became a Captain and a USCG cutter is named after him

5. Eliza Healy, became a Catholic nun and the first African American Mother Superior, was stationed in St. Albans, Vermont

6. Hugh Healy, graduated from Holy Cross but died at age 21

7. Martha Healy, entered novitiate but left the nunnery to marry an Irish Catholic immigrant and raise a family

8. Josephine Amanda Healy, became a Catholic nun with the Religious Hospitallers of Saint Joseph

9. Eugene Healy, unkown what became of him, his parents dying when he was only two years old. Reportedly, he lived a sad life.

It is often said that the Healy Family was a "family of firsts," in that they accomplished great things before anyone else.

They left quite an extraordinary legacy.

Michael Augustine Healy, Captain
in the US Revenue Cutter Service
US Coast Guard
Photo from USCG and Wikimedia

Sources and further reading: Wikipedia article on "Healy Family"; The Healys: An Extraordinary Family at irishamericanfootnotes.blogspot.com; The Healy Family at teachingcatholickids.com; Irish America, Window on the Past, The Georgia Healys


Tuesday, January 21, 2020

Abraham Lincoln and The Great Hunger

Abraham Lincoln, 1846
while a member of the US Congress
Photo from Library of Congress,
and Wikimedia



By Adrian McGrath

The Great Hunger (or as it is called in Irish "An Gorta Mor") killed more than 1,000,000 Irish people and drove another 1,000,000 away from Ireland as emigrants. It began in 1845 with a blight on the potato crop -- the main, if not only, source of food for most Irish. When the potatoes rotted away, the people starved to death or died of related diseases. (See more on this at my story on Coffins Ships.)

There was plenty of other food in British-occupied Ireland then -- fruits, vegetables, grains, seafood, dairy products, and even beef. But this was all controlled by the British who, in most cases, refused to share this food supply with the starving Irish. Indeed, shipments of Irish food were sent under guard by police or British soldiers to England or sold overseas for profit. Meanwhile, the Irish starved to death.

Starving Irish in Skibbereen, Ireland
James Mahoney, Illustrated London News, 1847
Photo from Wikimedia Commons


This deliberate starvation was the result of centuries of anti-Irish and anti-Catholic discriminatory laws, ethnic prejudice, and a warped excessive belief in an economic philosophy called laissez faire, which completely overlooked how an economic system should operate in times of crisis. It was tantamount to genocide.

The British government did intervene at some point, inadequately; and some aid did come from overseas from humanitarians. Notable examples of people who sent money or materiel to help the starving Irish were the Quakers religious organization, the Choctaw Native American Indians, and the Sultan of Turkey.

The Quakers in Ireland set up giant cauldrons -- called Famine Pots -- and made soup kitchens. Many Quakers even became ill themselves or died from illnesses during their charity work.

The Sultan of Turkey had an Irish medical doctor on his staff
who encouraged the sultan to help the starving Irish. Consequently, the Sultan sent a message to the Queen of England, Victoria, offering 10,000 Pounds to help in famine relief. The English queen allowed the sultan to donate only 1,000 Pounds, however. Why? Because she donated only 2,000 Pounds herself, and the British queen wanted no one to donate more than she did.

The Choctaws, a Native American Indian tribe who themselves had been subjected to discrimination, decimation, and abuse donated money gathered from their poverty-stricken people and sent it to aid the Irish. (In the infamous Trail of Tears some years earlier the Choctaws had been forced from their homeland along with other Indian tribes and marched to Oklahoma. Many died along the way.)

Choctaw Indians in Louisiana, 1847
from Wikimedia Commons based on a painting
in the New Orleans Museum of Art
"Louisiana Indians Walking Along a Bayou"
Public Domain


But a professor from Drew University in Madison, New Jersey, Cristine Kinealy, made a fairly recent, stunning discovery of another donor to the cause of Irish famine relief. The donor was none-other-than Abraham Lincoln.

In the late 1840s, Abraham Lincoln was not a well-known figure. He was just a former rail-splitter and farmer turned country-lawyer. Within about 15 years, however, he would become president of the United States and one of the most famous men in American history.

Professor Kinealy has studied the Irish Great Hunger for many years and has done extensive research. She came across a list of donors in her research and found that a relatively young Abraham Lincoln donated $10, which today would be about $500. Remember, at this time Lincoln was himself an unknown and relatively poor.

Lincoln donated the money in 1847, known as Black 47 in Ireland because the death toll was highest then. Lincoln had just become a
member of the US House of Representatives.

The professor was quoted as saying Abraham Lincoln had an affinity towards the Irish and could recite by heart Robert Emmet's speech from the dock. (This was a famous speech by an Irish rebel who was captured and put on trial by the British. Here is a video of Liam Clancy reciting Robert Emmet's famous speech. https://youtu.be/o5Amf1RE0AA )


Additionally, Abraham Lincoln had as a favorite poem "The Lament of the Irish Emigrant" by Lady Dufferin, the professor was quoted as saying (See Helen Salina, aka Lady Dufferin). The words of the poem were turned into a popular song.

 (See the article  "Historian Discovers Abraham Lincoln Donated to Ireland during Great Famine" from independent.ie, September 28, 2012. For more on "Lament of the Irish Emigrant" see here.)

Abraham Lincoln is known as perhaps America's greatest president (along with George Washington). Lincoln preserved the Union during the worst time in American history when brother fought brother, and he ended slavery in the United States.

President Abraham Lincoln, 1863
Photo from Wikimedia Commons
Originally by Alexander Gardner


But now there is one more reason to admire this great man. He looked beyond his own self and his own land and saw human suffering overseas and tried to stop it.



Sources and further reading: Story about the Turkish Sultan donating, see this  ; story about the Choctaws donating, see this ;
Stories about Lincoln donating see this, and this , and this . And see this from The Irish Post https://www.irishpost.com/life-style/abraham-lincoln-donated-money-ireland-great-famine-170674

Artwork: Skibbereen, here.https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Skibbereen_by_James_Mahony,_1847.JPG; Lincoln, here; Choctaws, here ; President Lincoln, here.

To see more about "Lament of the Irish Emigrant" see here. http://www.evergreentrad.com/the-lament-of-the-irish-emigrant/

See the Robert Emmet speech here https://youtu.be/o5Amf1RE0AA

For more information about Professor Christine Kinealy, see http://www.drew.edu/history/Faculty/christine-kinealy