Sweethearts and Smallpox

Just before Valentine's Day, the front page of the Gazette simultaneously invited people to a dance and warned them of the contagion that may lurk among the dancers:





Smallpox had come to town — but in a "mild form," according to the previous day's News as it reported on two "new" cases. The home of the Rev. J.C. Whitt was now under quarantine, Mrs. Whitt being ill with smallpox; likewise the home of Simeon and Abbie Bullock. Their 15-year-old grandson, Lester, was sick. If his mother, just then on another lengthy visit to Alva, Oklahoma, got the news, she apparently was not overly alarmed, as she did not return until early the next week.

By the next week, the home of Dave Young, south of Deepriver, was also on the quarantine list; and smallpox had "invaded" the Struble home in Hobart.

Early in March, Dr. Faulkner ordered fumigation of Hobart's school building and public library, "as a precautionary measure against smallpox."


Sources:
♦ Advertisement. Hobart Gazette 13 Feb. 1920.
♦ "Imperative Notice." Hobart Gazette 13 Feb. 1920.
♦ "Local and Personal." Hobart News 12 Feb. 1920; 19 Feb. 1920; 15 Mar. 1920.
♦ "Local Drifts." Hobart Gazette 20 Feb. 1920.