TYPHOID MARY
The Story of Mary Mallon
By Caitlind L. Alexander
A LearningIsland.com
Biography
Editor: Jennifer Robinson
Smashwords Edition
(c) Copyright 2004 Caitlind L. Alexander. All rights reserved.
Published by LearningIsland.com.
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Typhoid Mary; The Story of Mary Mallon / Caitlind L. Alexander
Summary: A biography highlighting the life of Mary Mallon, better known as Typhoid Mary.
1. Typhoid Mary. Juvenile Literature. 2. Mary Mallon. Juvenile Literature. 3. Typhoid. Juvenile Literature.
Created in USA
RL: 4.9
W: 5832
Table of Contents
Ask most adults who Typhoid Mary was, and they'll tell you a lie. They'll tell you she was someone who killed hundreds of people, maybe even thousands. They'll tell you she was a woman who knew she had a deadly disease and didn't care that she spread it to others.
But is it true?
No. Most of it is not true. Here is Mary's story.
Mary Mallon was born on September 23, 1869 in Cookstown, Ireland. When she was 15 years old, Mary came to the United States.
Very little is known about Mary’s early years in Ireland, or why she came to America alone. She must have been a very brave girl to get on a boat that would take her to a new country, away from everything and everyone she had known and loved.
When she reached New York, Mary knew that she would have to find work, but there weren't many jobs for women in 1884. Good women were expected to stay with their father until they got married. After that their husbands would take care of them.
Mary didn't have a husband or anyone else to take care of her. She needed a job.
Since most servants in 1884 were women, Mary got a job as a servant. Not only did the job pay her, it gave her a place to live. Mary was given a small room, usually in the attic of the house.
Mary worked hard. She knew that an Irish person wasn't considered as good as an American. Many Americans thought Irish people were stubborn and stupid and that they drank a lot.
Mary was a bit stubborn, but she was stubborn in a good way. She wasn't willing to accept that she could only be a housemaid. She wanted to do something better. She wanted to work in the upstairs rooms.
In rich houses in the 1880s, the worst servants worked in the basement. They did the laundry and some of the food preparation. Sometimes they would get to go up to the levels where the rich people lived, but only for a short time. Then they had to go back down to the basement.
If a servant was good, after a few years they would let them clean the upstairs rooms. These were mostly the bedrooms of the rich. Only trusted servants were allowed in the bedrooms because that's where the rich people kept their jewelry and other expensive things.
Mary worked hard to work her way up. After several years she was good enough to be a cook's helper. By 1900 when she was 31, Mary was a cook.
Being a cook was a better job than being a maid. It was also a lot better than doing the laundry. It not only paid more, but you also got lots to eat.
Many people thought Mary was an excellent cook. In the 1800s it was often hard for women to find a new job, but Mary was such a good cook that she never had trouble finding work.
People said her food was great and that she was wonderful with the children. That was important. Often rich families would let the children watch the servants, and the servants would watch the children. It meant the rich people didn't have to pay a babysitter when the children's nanny was off work. Instead they sent them to the kitchen to be with the cook.
Being a servant was hard work and they often had very little time for themselves. Servants often worked six or seven days a week, from early in the morning until late at night.
Sometime around 1900, Mary got sick. At that time Mary was working as a cook for a family that she had been with for three years. During that three years no one had gotten sick from her cooking.
Then one day a young man came to visit. The man had typhoid fever.
Typhoid fever is an illness that can make you very sick or can even kill you. In the early 1900s it killed one out of every ten people who caught it. Because of that a lot of people were very afraid of typhoid.
Typhoid fever gives you a fever and headaches. You don't have any energy and all you want to do is lay in bed. Many people with typhoid fever get a rash on their stomach and their stomach swells up. It hurts to touch it.
Typhoid fever can last up to four weeks! After four weeks you start to get better, but it can take about six months to fully recover.
When this sick visitor came to stay with the family, Mary helped to take care of him. This might have been where she caught the typhoid.
When Mary got sick, it didn't seem like something serious and Mary got better a few days later. She probably thought it was the flu, but it wasn't. Mary had caught a mild case of typhoid fever. While it made her feel sick for a few days, she did not end up in bed for a month like many people did. But even though Mary didn't get as sick as other people, she carried the disease inside her body.
Usually you stop carrying a disease a few weeks after you stop being sick. That is usually true even when you get typhoid. Once you are well, you can't make anyone else sick.
But somehow the disease stayed in Mary's body, in her gall bladder. That's an organ near your stomach that helps your body break down food.