They "don't believe it is catching" -- how the 1880 Diphtheria outbreak in Shawano County, WI devastated the Miatke family

In April 1864, Martin and Anna Miatke left their home in the small village of Schmogrow-Fehrow (population about 1,100), near the city of Cottbus, in the northeast German State of Brandenburg. After spending several years living in Ontario, Canada, the family settled in the Town of Richmond, near Shawano, Wisconsin.

Here is a graphic that shows how my dad, Ronald Duwe, is descended from the Miatkes:

By June 26th, 1880, when they provided information to U.S. Census enumerator Joseph M. Rogers, their household consisted of Martin, Anna, and seven of their eight children. Here is the census record for the family at the time:

The children present in the home at the end of June were: Johanna (17), Augusta (15), Paul (13), Otto (11), Herman (9), Ernest (7), and Amelia (5). Oldest son, Martin (19), was not living with the family.

As Shawano doctor J.D.W. Heath reported to the Wisconsin State Board of Health at the end of the year, a deadly outbreak of diphtheria raged through the area during the second half of 1880: 

Since my appointment as health officer of this city (Shawano), I have taken active measures for preventing the spread of Diphtheria, which has lately made its appearance among us, by placing Shawano in the best possible sanitary condition. The disease, however, prevails to a considerable extent; in several cases all the children in a family, nursing babies included, have died; it is almost needless to say that these little victims had been living under the most unsanitary conditions.

Many here and many in the town of Richmond, where the mortality has been very great...shut their eyes to the facts and proclaim that they “don't believe that it is catching.” Another thing worthy of attention in considering the spread of the disease is, that in many instances where it breaks out in log-cabins or other one or two roomed structures, sick and well live and sleep in the same apartment, sometimes even in the same bed. In many of those dwellings it has proved extremely fatal, and what wonder?

The Miatke family was devastated. Records from their family burial plot indicate that Martin and Anna lost sons Paul, Otto, Herman, Ernest, and daughter Amelia to the disease. Half of their family was gone in the space of a few weeks. During that time, Anna was carrying Valeria, who was born on November 22, 1880.

Diphtheria is caused by the bacterium Corynebacterium diphtheriae. The name of the disease is derived from the Greek diphthera. It means "leather hide," in reference to a thick gray substance, called a pseudomembrane, that may spread over nasal tissues, tonsils, larynx, and/or pharynx. 

The disease and its effects were described by ancient Greek and Roman writers. The bacterium was first observed in diphtheritic membranes by Klebs in 1883 and cultivated by Löffler in 1884. Antitoxin was invented in the late 19th century, and toxoid was developed in the 1920s.

According to a web resource published by the College of Physicians of Philadelphia:

The United States recorded a high of 206,000 cases of diphtheria in 1921, resulting in 15,520 deaths....Diphtheria is extremely rare in the United States today; between 2004 and 2011, no cases of diphtheria were reported to public health officials. One case was provisionally reported in 2012.

Why is diphtheria extremely rare in the United States today? Because a very high percentage of the U.S. population is vaccinated, causing what is known as "herd immunity." Those who choose not to be vaccinated are counting on herd immunity to protect them even as they risk weakening its protection for those who cannot be vaccinated.

Resources consulted:


Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Epidemiology and Prevention of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases: Diphtheria. Atkinson, W., Wolfe, S., Hamborsky, J., McIntyre, L., eds. 13th ed. Washington DC: Public Health Foundation, 2015. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/Pubs/pinkbook/downloads/dip.pdf. Accessed 16 November 2019.

College of Physicians of Philadelphia. "Diphtheria," in The History of Vaccines: an education resource of The College of Physicians of Philadelphia. https://www.historyofvaccines.org/content/articles/diphtheria. Last update 17 January 2018; Accessed 16 November 2019.

Sadarangan, Manish. Herd immunity: how does it work? University of Oxford, Department of Paediatrics, Oxford Vaccine Group. https://www.ovg.ox.ac.uk/news/herd-immunity-how-does-it-work. 26 April 2016; Accessed 16 November 2019. 

Wisconsin. State Board of Health. Annual report of the State Board of Health for the State of Wisconsin for the year ending 1880. Madison, Wis.: Wisconsin State Board of Health, 1881, Extracts from Special Correspondents, pages 128-130. [Full text accessible here: https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/005719980; Accessed on 15 November 2019.

Zereis, Cathe. Shawano County Genealogy. Cemeteries. Meatke-Miatke Family Plot. http://sites.rootsweb.com/~wishawa4/Cemeteries/39mietkerichmond/39meatke.htm. Last updated 2008; Accessed 16 November 2019.

Grandfather's War – Clifford A. “Kip” Christensen in World War II

November 21, 2019 is the 100^th anniversary of the birth of my maternal grandfather, Clifford Alvin “Kip” Christensen. This seems a good moment to recount what we know about his service in World War II. All who knew him agree that his service in Europe marked him profoundly. The horrors of war shook a young man who was intelligent and charismatic, but who had a dark turn of mind, and a weakness for drink that brought out a mean streak in his character. 

When my grandparents, Kip Christensen (1919-1972) and Audrey Radloff (1921-2000), married in Chicago in May 1941, the future must have seemed bright for them. A handsome couple with movie star looks, of which they were more than a little bit vain, they had come through the worst of the depression trusting that hard work would see them through.

Wedding photo, May 1941, Chicago, IL

Less than one year later, the young couple suffered the hard blow of a son born to live only one week. The infant Rodney died on April 16, 1942. Kip traveled by train from Chicago to Waupaca with a small white coffin on his lap, taking his son home to be buried.

Possibly looking for a fresh start, Kip and Audrey moved to Detroit, Michigan in the summer of 1942, along with thousands of others, as the city and its automobile industry transformed itself to become America's wartime manufacturing powerhouse. Ford Motor Company's gigantic Willow Run Plant alone would employ more than 40,000 at one time and would produce 8,865 heavy B-24 Liberator bomber aircraft by the end of the war. Tensions in the crowded city exploded into violence between blacks and whites for about 24 hours in June 1943, until federal troops enforced order. 

February, 1943, Detroit, MI

On November 29, 1943, Just over a week after Kip's twenty-fourth birthday, he reported to the Recruit Reception Center at Fort Sheridan in Lake Forest, IL. Just a few days later, he was shipped out to the Field Artillery Replacement Training Center at Camp Roberts, CA. He spent several months there, qualifying to be a Cook and to operate the Army's field artillery pieces.

Fort Sheridan, Lake Forest, IL, November, 1943

Camp Roberts, CA, 1944

Training as a Cook earned Kip a Technician, 4^th Class (or Tec-4) Rank, allowing him to be paid as – and addressed as – Sergeant. The Tec-4 patch (see inset in photo with overalls) has three chevrons and a letter “T”.

Artillery Training at Camp Roberts, CA, 1944

In April, 1944, Kip was assigned to the 97^th Infantry (Trident) Division, 365^th Field Artillery Battalion, and ordered to report to Fort Leonard Wood, MO by May 10, 1944.

Kip's assignment to the 97^th Infantry Division at Fort Leonard Wood, MO.

Here is the uniform shoulder patch of the 97^th Infantry Division – the Trident:

The 97^th Infantry Division crossed the submarine-infested Atlantic Ocean during the final week of February, 1945, arriving at Le Havre, France on the first day of March. After staging at Camp Lucky Strike, France, the Trident Division crossed into Germany on March 28, 1945, passing near the devastated town of Aachen.

The 97^th arrived in time to participate in one of the last major battles of the war in Europe – The Battle of the Ruhr Pocket. During the first two weeks of April, 1945, German Army Group B, with about 350,000 troops under the command of Field Marshal Walther Model, was encircled and defeated. Seventeen American divisions, including the 97^th, were part of this climactic effort.

 Trident Division Campaign Maps, April 1-18, 1945

With German forces dissolving between the 16^th and the 18^th of April – more than 300,000 German troops surrendered to become POWs – the battle of the Ruhr Pocket was over, and the 97^th Infantry Division was redeployed. The Trident Division was moved to the German-Czechoslovakian border to hold down the left flank of the U.S. Third Army as it moved south and east through Germany and Austria. The 97^th Division's first objective was to take the city of Cheb, Czechoslovakia.

As preparations for invading Czechoslovakia went forward, the Flossenburg concentration camp was discovered within the Division's sector of control. When troops of the 90^th Infantry Division discovered the camp on April 23, 1945, approximately 2,000 weak and ill prisoners remained in the camp, and unburied corpses lay on the ground. The Nazi SS (Schutzstaffel), which ran the camp to house political prisoners, Jews and others, had been evacuating the camp as U.S. Army forces closed in during April, 1945. They forced prisoners on a 125-mile death march south to a German-controlled camp near the village of Posing. 

According the U.S. Army's website history of the camp's liberation (link below):

The 97th Division performed many duties at the camp upon its liberation. They assisted the sick and dying, buried the dead, interviewed former prisoners and helped gather evidence against former camp officers and guards for the upcoming war crimes trials.

I do not know what duties my grandfather was called upon to perform. As a child, I was told or came to understand that he had taken part in the liberation of a German concentration camp, and that it gave him nightmares for the rest of his life.

One more quote from the U.S. Army website history of the liberation:

One eyewitness U.S. Soldier, Sgt. Harold C. Brandt, a veteran of the 11th Armored Division, who was on hand for the liberation of not just one but three of the camps, Flossenburg, Mauthausen, and Gusen, when queried many years after the war on his part in liberating them, stated that "it was just as bad or worse than depicted in the movies and stories about the Holocaust. . . . I can not describe it adequately. It was sickening. How can other men treat other men like this'"

With operations in Czechoslovakia between April 25 and May 7, 1945, the 97^th Infantry Division was involved in some of the final hostile actions to take place in the European Theater of war. The Division met uneven resistance – at times almost none at all; at times, quite determined – as it drove to take Cheb from April 26^th through 28^th, 1945 and Pilsen on May 6, 1945. On May 7, all forces were ordered to halt offensive actions in expectation of the acceptance of the unconditional surrender of Nazi Germany's forces on May 8, 1945, known now as V-E Day (Victory in Europe). 

Trident Division campaign map – final days of war in Europe

Kip Christensen, Camp Old Gold, France, June, 1945

After a brief stay at Camp Old Gold, near Yerville, France, the 97^th Infantry Division sailed on the S.S. Brazil troopship. They arrived at Camp Shanks, near Nyack, NY on June 24, 1945 and were granted thirty-day furloughs. The Division was to be redeployed to the Pacific for the expected invasion of Japan, but the destruction of the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by atomic weapons led to Japan's surrender on September 2, 1945. Elements of the 97^th Infantry Division did participate in the occupation of Japan, but Kip Christensen was not among them. He was given an honorable discharge from Division Headquarters at Camp San Luis Obispo, CA on October 22, 1945. 

 

Military Service Milestones for Clifford A Christensen:

29 NOV 1943 – Enlistment – Recruit Reception Center, Fort Sheridan, Lake Forest, IL.

DEC 1943 – Field Artillery Replacement Training Center, Camp Roberts, CA for training on cook duties and in use of 105mm howitzer artillery.

MAY 1944 – Assigned to 97^th Infantry Division (Trident Division), 365^th Field Artillery Battalion, Special Services Battery, Fort Leonard Wood, MO.

JUL 1944 – Earmarked for assignment to the Pacific Theater, Division relocated to Camp San Luis Obispo, CA for training in amphibious landing operations.

SEP 1944 – Division relocated to Camp Cooke, CA for further amphibious training.

DEC 1944 – Heavy losses to American forces in the Battle of the Bulge cause Division to be reassigned to European Theater.

1 MAR 1945 – Division arrives Le Havre, France; proceeds to Camp Lucky Strike staging area.

28 MAR 1945 – Division crosses into Germany west of the city of Aachen.

1 APR – 18 APR 1945 – Battle of the Ruhr Pocket.

23 APR – 30 APR 1945 – Troops of the 90^th and 97^th Infantry Division liberate the Flossenburg Concentration Camp near the border of Germany and Czechoslovakia.

23 APR – 6 MAY 1945 – 97^th Infantry Division redeployed to German-Czechoslovakian border to hold left flank of U.S. Third Army's drive into southeastern Germany and Austria.

7 MAY 1945 – All American forces in Europe ordered to halt offensive action.

8 MAY 1945 – Allied forces accept unconditional surrender of its armed forces by Nazi Germany (Victory in Europe, or V-E Day).

Late MAY to mid-JUN, 1945 – Camp Old Gold, near Yerville, France.

24 JUN, 1945 – Division arrives at Camp Shanks, near Nyack, NY on the troopship S.S. Brazil; granted thirty-day furlough.

22 OCT 1945 – Honorable discharge; Camp San Luis Obispo, CA 

Internet resources consulted in researching this post: 

The 97th Infantry Division During World War II (http://www.97thdivision.com/historyp1.html) Accessed 9 NOV 2019.

Dabrowsky, John R., Colonel, U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center. “U.S. Army Liberates Flossenburg Concentration Camp.” U.S. Army. https://www.army.mil/article/8441/us_army_liberates_flossenburg_concentration_camp. 11 APR 2008, Accessed 10 NOV 2019.

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Encircling the Ruhr.” The Holocaust Encyclopedia. https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/encircling-the-ruhr. Accessed on 9 NOV 2019.