Single Life to Benedict - Part 8 - Scarlet Fever & A Car Accident

Continuing the story of Alfred Moehlmann as he wrote it in 1960. He is up to the year 1935 in his story.    

"In February, St. Valentine’s Day, 1935 Helen M. was born and in December of that year I got a regular appointment to the Chicago Terminal R.P.O.  I transferred to the Cincinnati Terminal R.P.O. in February of 1936.  In the fall of 1937 we moved to the Bill Pope place on State Rd 54 N.E. of Linton. 

The big Ohio River flood happened in the winter of 1937-38 and Helen M. got down with the scarlet fever the fore part of 1938.  We got drowned out at Cincinnati and I came home while she was sick and stayed a few days with Uncle Karl and Aunt Annie and Dr. Porter said it would be safe for me to go home.  The scarlet fever had settled in Helen M. ears and she needed a lot of attention. 

About week later I called back to work but was advised to have shots for typhoid fever.  Dr. Porter gave me a 3 in 1 shot.  I went to Cincinnati and worked one night and took sick.  My arm had swelled so big I couldn’t get a coat on.  They called a doctor, he said I had scarlet fever and they took me to General Hospital.  The supervisor knew Helen Louise who was taking nurses training in a hospital there and she came to see me often and kept Mom advised how I was doing.  My arm had to be lanced and it gave me a lot of trouble.  I developed a severe pain in my right side and at first they thought it was my appendix.  After 4 weeks I was released from the hospital. 

Seemingly this sick spell was the beginning of my spiral downward relative to health.  I took an additional week off and had a complete physical check up by Drs. Knoefel, Topping and Malone.  It was mainly an account of my distressed right side.  I was advised not to be operated on unless the pain became unbearable.  This is where my previous wine episode paid off.  Dr. Knoefel said all I owed was $10⁰⁰ for a blood test and that he was doing this as a favor to my mother.

Late that spring Mom had a bad car accident that put her in the hospital.  But even the seriousness of the accident might well have been a Godsend to me.  Dr. Frank Bailey, who Aunt Annie got when Dr. Porter let us down, advised me that he found indications of serious trouble ahead, possibly cancer, if she did not submit to surgery for injured tissue.  Aunt Ruth stayed with us while Mom was in the hospital and also while she was recuperating and getting herself built up for future surgery.  Our 1936 Chevrolet was badly damaged and when it was repaired Aunt Ruth drove it to town and while she was trading at Kroegers (Main and A sts N.E.) evidently a truck backed into the front end and smashed it up again." 

Helen and Alfred welcomed their second daughter, Helen Margaret, named after her mother, on Valentines Day 1935.  It had been eight years since her younger brother was born and her oldest brother was 13. 

It's 1935 and their family is now complete with three boys and two girls. In 1936 Alfred get's his full time appointment at the Railway Post Office. The next year, 1937, they buy a new home farm. Once again things are going well. 1938 starts out a little rough. The rain is setting records and causing flooding.

23 Feb 1938
Linton Daily Citizen

Linton Daily Citizen 31 Mar 1938

Then came the scarlett fever epidemic to the Moehlmann household..

Rushville Republican, 29 Jan 1938

This article is about Bloomington which is 40 miles from Alfred's Linton home.  They are closing schools to try and limit the spread of scarlett fever and influenza.

Alfred winds up in the hospital. He's in Cincinnati at the teaching hospital - General Hospital - that had been there since 1915.  It's still there today as the University of Cincinnati Hospital. The Helen Louise that he mentions is his wife's cousin, daughter of her sister Anna (Bovenschen) and Karl Kramer, who is studying to become a nurse.

Helen Louise Kramer 

Unfortunately there are gaps in the digitized Linton Daily Citizen newspaper and there are no article about the wreck that Helen had in 1938.  Aunt Ruth who looked after the household is Helen Moehlmann's youngest sister.