——–
Self, Fearful Of Giv-
ing Disease To His
F a m i l y, Teachers
Shuts Self in School
——–
Three little girls one family
dead cerebro-spinal menin-
gitis a fourth affliced
on a cot in a
one room log cabin, wherein
tubercular father, her mother
three other sisters brothers
almost untraversable
back-
woods country in Polk township
near the Brown County line
the
setting
human
suffering Her frail
body shaken by convul-
sions, Dorval Axsom, 9, yesterday
joined her sisters, Dora, 5,
Dorothy, 7, in death.
Thirteen year old Delphne
contracted the disease from her
sisters
If she lives
she faces being
an invalid or deformed
after
effects of cerebro-pinal menin-
gitis.
other Axsom
family neighbors
in danger of contracting
the disease
About 15 families,
have been ex-
posed
Deputy health officer
Luzadder yesterday quarantined
Axsom cabin.
Without
county authorities
Deckard, teacher at the Axsom
school
placed the
school house under quarantine
with a cot
and groceries
to safeguard.
his wife and children.
Lying in the wildest section of hill country
“almost inaccessible,”Dr. Luzadder
said His son’s car could not
traverse the narrow clay road
an obso-
lete model Ford, its chasis high off
the ground
met him
took him to the cabin
stricken family
huddled into one room log struc-
ture. Sanitary conditions of
worst kind On
return Luzadder’s car
stalled, crank case broken by
high clay in the
midle of the road
How did such a family, with the
father ill in bed, manage to keep
alive, even before the ravages of
spinal meningitis entered the cabin?
Once a year in an old wagon
drawn by horse, they load buckets
of sorghum, molasses, themselves
climb on, start for Blooming-
ton. sorghum, from sugar
cane, grown on their farm land,
sold and food clothing bought
in return.
What they gain from
their long labors does not
last until next annual pil-
grimage to Bloomington.
help comes
from beneficent persons.
Home isolated diffi-
cult to reach, their plight
did not reach Monroe county Red
Cross headquarters until after
deaths of the children. Officers of
Red Cross
willing to give food
if someone will take it to them.
Kinser, trustee of Polk
township, issued order for
serum injections for Dephne Axsom
hopes saving her life. Dr.
Luzadder will go
give medical aid
even thought he may
have to walk
doubt, however
the serum will halt the scourge,
basing on statistics
from last year’s spinal menin-
gitis epidemic in Indianapolis,
80 out of a 100 victims
died.
Dr. Ackerman, of Brownstown,
atetnded a few
times, unable to reach
cabin as frequently as is necessary,
the nearly
impassable roads.
Note: Q U A R A N T I N E S is a found poem about the four Axsom children who died in 1931 and are buried together in Terrill Cemetery in the Deam Wilderness Area in the Hoosier National Forest of Indiana. The text comes from an article in the April 10, 1931 edition of the Evening World newspaper from Spencer, Indiana. Misspellings and line breaks match the original article; deleted words are now white space. The article is part of the Hoosier National Forest Office files in Bedford, Indiana, contributed by Monroe County Historical Society via Stan Newhall and Gary Lane.
~ ~ ~
Kevin McKelvey is a poet and writer and teaches writing, editing, and publishing at the University of Indianapolis. This poem is part of a book-length sequence inspired by the Deam Wilderness. Some of the sequence has been published in Dream Wilderness, a chapbook. The Indiana Arts Commission recently awarded him a grant to write poems about Indiana’s Wabash River. He is currently editing and designing textual maps of the Upper White River watershed and the Wabash River watershed and is also working on a novel. He lives with his wife and three children in Indianapolis in a house built in 1890.
the museum of americana: A LITERARY REVIEW 