November 1885: 

I don't know what I am going to do to protect my family.  Word has it that a serious epidemic of typhus fever is running rampant 'round these parts, killing people.  Every day we hear of someone else dying or more and more people becoming sickened.

Typhus fever is something to be afeared of because it's so deadly.  It can hit with surprising swiftness.  One minute a person may seem well; the next, he is burning with fever, and there's really nothing anyone can do except to try to lower his fever or keep him comfortable at best and hope that the doctor, when he comes, can do something, before the person dies.

Word has it that the fever started in Old Man Stedman's barn.  Rats were discovered; they were devouring the wheat and oats he had stored in his barn.  It was apparent that these rats were not healthy:  they were diseased.  Old Man Stedman ended up with the fever; when he was found a few days later, he was dead.  Then the people who found him sickened, and they died, too. 

Soon the fever spread like wildfire.

It's been a month now since the typhus fever first hit; it continues to do its deadly work amongst the populace.  Everyone is scared to go anywhere, because they're afraid that the typhus might strike them next.

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Last I knew, my neighbors, the Neilsens, got the typhus fever.  Ebenezer, his wife, Anna, and four of their six children (Grace, Jedidiah, Molly, and Michael-John) are sick; the only two who remain healthy (at this time) are Carrie and Seth.  Questions remain whether they will get it or not; right now they are staying at an aunt's house over fifty miles from here, in the hopes that this will prevent them from becoming sick.

I checked on them briefly at the sick bay at the school up the street (didn't go in, just peered through the windows), and they are all fighting to live.  It scares me to see them laying there, still as corpses, and looking as though death will come calling at any moment.

I never knew typhus fever could make someone so sick.  To see the victims gasping for air, shaking with the chills, coughing badly, and a rash covering their bodies is frightening enough; we don't need to realize just how serious this epidemic of the fever is.

All we can do is hope that the doctor will get to the sickened ones in time or that he can delve out medicine that will help them get over this horror.

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So far, my own family has remained well:  I keep praying desperate prayers to the God above, asking Him to keep my family safe from the fever.  I pray this continues; I don't know what I'd do if they got sick or even died.  I would prabably go mad with grief.

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Oh, the horror!!  My littlest boy,  Patrick Eugene, who is only two, woke up with the fever, and coughing his head off.  I am sure he must have typhus fever:  he is acting like he had it.  I don't know how he could have possibly gotten it:  he hasn't been around anyone who's been sick; we've been keeping the family inside.

I am going to have to get a hold of Doctor Thomas:  Patrick needs medicine or he will more than likely die.  All we can do is pray and hope that nobody else in our family sickens.

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Patrick has taken a turn for the worse.  He lies there in his bed, gasping for every breath, burning with a terribly high fever.  We try to keep him cool with damp rags and washclothes and cover him if he's chilled, or to raise his head/shoulders, so he can breathe easier.  He is desperately sick.  It is absolutely terrifying!!

*To be continued.*