A Crisis of Disease
by Bob and Deb Brail

            Every family has stories that make up its unique identity.  Some families tell of their ancestors homesteading in the vast emptiness of Nebraska or the Dakotas.  Other families have stories that go back even further, to those great-great grandparents who emigrated from Germany to America.  More recently, many families are beginning to hear about the experiences of their grandparents during World War II.  Whatever incidents these stories involve, they become vital parts of what makes up each family.  One family from rural Schluersburg faced incredibly difficult circumstances in the early 1900’s.  Their story is not one of homesteading, emigration, or war, but one of heartbreaking separation and deadly disease. 

           

            Soon after the end of the Civil War, Charles Krugar, a former Confederate soldier from southern St. Charles County, married Tabitha Cork.  They settled near Femme Osage Creek, building a log home near what is now Highway F, a few miles west of Stub Road.  Charles and Tabitha had two sons, Willis, born in 1869, and James, born in 1872.  At some point during their early adult years, probably in the early 1890’s, both Willis and James began showing symptoms of tuberculosis. 

           

            Although tuberculosis, a disease of the lungs, is now a very treatable condition with modern drugs, that has not always been the case.  At the time the Krugar brothers were ill, the treatment of tuberculosis was really still in its infancy, even though it was one of the leading causes of death in the United States at that time.  It would be no exaggeration to call it a mystery.  What was clear, however, was the horribly agony of the disease.  One man wrote that when the doctor told him he had tuberculosis, the words “might just as well have been followed by ‘The Lord have mercy on your soul,’ for he felt himself a dead man.”  Indeed, one historian writes that tuberculosis was synonymous with death.  Those stricken with tuberculosis, called consumptives, experienced an array of horrible symptoms: a persistent cough, bloody sputum, shortness of breath, fatigue, weight loss, night sweats, and chest pain.  The typical consumptive could expect to eventually face an agonizing death preceded by one and one half years of total disability, which were themselves preceded by another one and one half years of partial disability.

           

            At the time the incidents in this program occurred, the state of Missouri was only just beginning to deal with the problem of tuberculosis, even though, by 1910, five thousand Missourians were dying annually of the disease.  In 1910 the Missouri State Board of Health finally established a lab where doctors could send sputum samples for tuberculosis testing.  It wasn’t until 1907 that the Missouri State Sanatorium opened in Mt. Vernon, but it initially treated only a few patients.  Even though tuberculosis was highly infectious, there was no statewide registration of consumptives until around 1910.  By 1910 only three towns in Missouri, Kansas City, St. Louis, and St. Joseph, had any hospital beds for consumptives.  For the estimated eighteen to thirty thousand consumptives in Missouri in 1910, only 317 hospital beds were available.

           

            When the Kruger brothers were looking for treatment, they really had no options near their home in rural St. Charles County, so they went elsewhere.  Around 1895 Willis Krugar decided to move to California in order to find treatment for his tuberculosis.  When he made this decision, he joined tens of thousands of other tubercular Americans who viewed the climate of the American West as the best cure for their ailment.  The mountains and seaside of the West were thought to provide better oxygen which would aid the lungs in healing.  Western cities, businesses, and railroads even began advertising in Midwestern and eastern newspapers to persuade tubercular patients to move west.  By 1900, eight percent of California’s population, about one person in twelve, consisted of individuals sick with tuberculosis.  Southern California, in particular, was a popular destination, and many miraculous recoveries had been reported there.  Willis Krugar soon settled in the small town of Sites, northeast of Los Angeles, and began selling insurance.  Eventually he married a local woman.

           

            By the time James Kruger decided to leave St. Charles County in the fall of 1907 for the hope of a cure in California, the social stigma of tuberculosis had reached a high level of intensity because of the highly infectious nature of the disease.  Although James may not have been subjected to such treatment in the Schluersburg area, it was common for tubercular patients to experience extreme alienation.  Because they were considered to be a constant danger to others, such people often lived alone.  The common public perception was that tuberculosis could be contracted by licking postage stamps that had been on the post office counter, using public phones, waving handkerchiefs, and visiting rummage sales.  Other suspected forms of contamination were coins, money, library books, tatooing, and pierced earrings.  Doctors, state governments, and local municipalities created scores of recommendations and laws in response to the fear of tuberculosis.  In some places, tubercular patients were not allowed to keep pets, to kiss, to shake hands, to kiss the Bible in court, or to drink out of a Communion cup in church.  Consumptives were not allowed to work in restaurants, bakeries, or any other food business.   Other locales prohibited tubercular patients from marrying, and if the sick individual was already married, doctors strongly advised against having children.  Probably the most common prohibition created in response to tuberculosis was the laws against spitting in public.  In an eight month period in 1910, nearly 700 St. Louisans were fined for spitting in public.   

           

            James paid his Odd Fellows dues in February of 1907 and was appointed road commissioner of District 5, for St. Charles County, also in February, so he had no plans then for leaving for California.  However, if his condition was typical of consumptives, by the summer of 1907, he must have found it nearly impossible to do his farm work.  It must have been agonizing for him to watch his wife, who by then was obviously pregnant, and five young children, Verna 11, Charley 10, Edna 8, Johnny 5, and Olinda 3, knowing that his health was deteriorating.  One consumptive described what an earthly hell it was for him to “awake every morning and see one’s brightest dreams, one’s dearest ambitions, one’s fondest hopes, lying on the paper at the bedside in loathsome putrescence.” Without a cure, James would never live to care for his family’s future.  He also knew that his presence presented a real danger to them.  According to a 1911 report to the Missouri General Assembly, “the vast majority of consumptives in Missouri must be cared for in their own homes under conditions facilitating the spread of the disease to . . . other occupants in the house.”  

James and Ida

           

            On August 11, 1907, twins Clarance and Clara were born to James and Ida.  When James said goodbye to his wife and seven children, probably in early November of 1907, he must have been quite sick since he was choosing a separation of two thousand miles from his family in order to be cured.  James probably took the train to California.  Like him, many tubercular patients traveled alone, leaving family and friends behind.  The railroad trip was often difficult for consumptives, who often waited until the disease was so advanced that they went west as a last hope.  They arrived in California with little money and too sick to work and often became charity cases.  Very few were able to afford stays in sanatoriums, but instead stayed in private homes run as infirmaries, boardinghouses, and even tent camps.  Homesickness was very common.  James may have stayed with his brother Willis for a few days after his arrival.  Soon, however, he was living in San Leandro, just south of Oakland, probably in a boarding house. 

Clarance

           

Clara

             


         


           



          


          
         
          Within several day of his arrival in the San Francisco area, James chose the United Physicians and Surgeons of San Francisco and Oakland for his treatment. An advertisement from this medical practice appeared in a San Francisco newspaper around the time of James’ arrival.  It overflowed with claims to cure just about any disease known to man:  “Our phenomenal success is due to the fact that we know how and do cure,” and “We positively guarantee to cure every case we undertake and you pay when cured.”  James may have especially been encouraged by the words, “We cure even long standing deep seated disease.”   Another United Physicians and Surgeons newspaper ad boldly stated, “We positively guarantee to cure you and make you well and strong, as you ought to be.”  A forty year old doctor, William Card, whose medical degree was from Cooper Medical College of San Francisco began treating James.  Apparently Dr. Card told James he could cure him within three months. 

           

            By the early 1900’s treatment for tuberculosis was largely a matter of guesswork.  In her book Fevered Lives, author Katherine Ott writes that the average doctor practiced a rich mixture of common sense, folklore, popular knowledge, and medical doctrine.  By the time James Krugar went to California, some early remedies had been rejected: these included serums from turtles and horses, creosote treatments, whiskey, and various electrical devices.  Around 1900 one popular treatment was the inhalation of medicated vapors, so many inhalers, atomizers, and vaporizers were sold.  The more popular substances inhaled included carbolic acid, chloroform, mercurials, chloride of ammonium, iodine gas, hemlock extract, and turpentine.  It is not known how James was treated.

           

            While James was being treated for tuberculosis in California, another health crisis was developing back in Schluersburg.  A few days after Christmas, the Krugar children began coughing and soon began to show symptoms of whooping cough, or pertussis, a highly contagious respiratory disease that was especially deadly in infants.  Within days, four-month old Clara was dead.  On January 13, 1908, Willie Gerlemann, James’ brother-in-law, wrote to James: “They was not show for little Clara.  She had the bronchial pneumonia and the last day she was in spasm. . . . ‘Tis God’s will be done, not ours about the twin babies.  That came all at once that they took so sick.”  Clara’s symptoms were common complications from whooping cough: pneumonia and convulsions.

           

            The next day Ida Krugar wrote James a long letter about the tragedy in their family.  All of her children but one had whooping cough, but the baby boy was “the worst one.”  She told James it was “hard to see the little boy cough and vomit.”  At that point Clarance could no longer hold his head up or raise his arms.  By this time, Clarance was probably in the paroxysm state of whooping cough.  These paroxysms, or coughing fits, are characterized by numerous rapid coughs followed by the whooping sound caused by the patient gasping for air.  The coughing is so violent it often leads to vomiting, leaving the patient completely exhausted.

           

            In the letter Ida mourned the loss of their baby daughter, “my sweet little girl.”  Another complication of whooping cough is cyanosis, a bluish/purplish skin coloration which results from lack of oxygen; Ida wrote, “Little Clara she was awful sick and her little arms black up to her elbows.  When she was dead, her little back was black and blue.  I just wish that I had her yet, that sweet little thing.”

           

            In the early 1900’s there was no known effective treatment for whooping cough.  Physicians searched for remedies to help their patients.  Some common remedies were belladonna, carbolic acid, bromides, creosote, and opium.  Antipyrin combined with expectorant also helped.  Besides these drugs, the doctors believed that good air, warm clothing, and light and wholesome food also positively impacted a patient’s recovery.  It is not know how the Krugar babies were treated, although one letter makes reference to windows being kept open, even though it was extremely cold outside.  This would, of course, have provided fresh air to Clara and Clarance.  When the babies’ whooping cough advanced to the paroxysmal stage, the doctors may have prescribed belladonna since it was used as a sedative to stop bronchial spasms in whooping cough.  Today it is considered unsafe when taken by mouth because it can actually cause convulsions.  Perhaps baby Clara’s spasms were worsened by belladonna given to her in an attempt to cure her.

           

           
           On February 2, 1908, Willie Gerlemann wrote to James for the seventh time in four weeks.  He had no good news for James.  Baby Clarance was dead:  “Now I will write you a very sorry letter which cannot be helped.  Poor little Clarance is gone to the home above, as the preacher says.  It is very hard but everything for the best.  I tell you there was always a show for the little angel, until inflammation touched his heart. . . . Little Clarance was buried the first of February.  The twin babies was buried side by side on the Schluersburg Cemetery. . . . Well, brother, I know this will be hard for you to read.  It is hard for me to write.”  With what must have been a very heavy heart, Willie mailed his letter. 

           

            However, James Krugar never received this letter and therefore never learned of his son’s death because James died of tuberculosis on the very day Willie Gerlemann wrote the letter.  It is possible that the family received news of James’ death in a telegram the same day Willie posted this letter.  James’ body was shipped by rail, probably to Matson.  His funeral was held in Schluersburg, just days after Clarance was buried.

           

            Today few families are confronted with the challenges that faced the Krugar family in the early 1900’s.  Although tuberculosis is still a problem worldwide, in the United States it is a rare condition.  Whooping cough is now easily prevented with vaccines.  Hospitals and antibiotics are now readily available, and treatment is easy to obtain.  The confusion of the early twentieth century about these diseases no longer exists.

           

            The crisis of disease and separation suffered by the Krugar family is a heart-breaking story.  This family, because of the time in which they lived, underwent hardships that most of us find difficult to identify with.  Without a doubt, James, Ida, and their children suffered immensely, as did their family and friends who supported them.  Their story is both one that saddens us and makes us thankful we live today.

Ida Gerdiman of rural Schluersburg is the granddaughter of James and Ida Krugar.  She provided the authors with a collection of family letters and photographs which made this article possible.

Sources: cdc.gov; clevelandclinicmeded.com; faculty.virginia.edu; Fevered Lives (Katherine Ott); mayoclinic.com; “Special Message of Gov. Herbert Hadley Regarding the Control and Prevention of Tuberculosis to the Missouri General Assembly, 1911” (googlebooks); “The Treatment of the Paroxysmal Stage of Whooping Cough, November 3, 1900, Medical Press and Circular, London” (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov); webmd.com; wikipedia.org.