Letter transcription:
MRS. R. S. YEGERLEHNER
KENTLAND
INDIANA
3-15-43
Dear Daddy – Another March day – Rain & wind. Mark is still home. He got over the measles nicely but I thought I would be better to keep him in a few days. I am giving him unicaps. He is a little thin but seems to feel good. The baby had 2 c.c. Immune Globuline last Thurs. Can’t tell yet whether he will take measles or not. John said he would rather have them now and not have to be afraid of getting them all the time. So far no one in the 7th grade has had them but Angus Washburn was out today so he may be taking them. Sammy is over them. I got your letter of Feb 26 today. I wrote your folks and gave a brief resume. Dolores isn’t coming home till Apr 9 so we will plan to go that week-end (Friday the 9th) after school Ruth M. may go with us. Earl doesn’t get enough gas to drive only to work. I haven’t used all my coupons so far. Will leave the car at the garage and have it greased & checked over before we go. Mom said Kenneth is still in Indpls as far as they know. I believe he wants to go into the air corps. Paul and Earl both got deferments. Wilma graduates this spring and wants to take nurses training. David is chewing on a toy. He acts like his gums bother him. Joe Fletcher saw him yesterday and said he was the best looking boy we have but told him D. looks a lot like John did. Floyd things he looks like Mark. Hope you get his picture & ours I sent some weeks ago. Will have some more to send in a few days. I have been sending pictures in registered letters. There is a meeting at the High School at 2:30 for gardeners. A man from Purdue is going to speak. I may go if I get around in time. Have to feed D. at 2. I should take Mark but this weather wouldn’t be very good for him since I am keeping him home so he won’t catch cold.
Love Mother
©2014 copyright owned and transcribed by Deborah Sweeney
Post originally found at: https://genealogylady.net/2014/02/16/mark-is-still-home-gladys/
Genealogy Lady 
When you were in NYC last summer I asked if you knew when John had polio, because I don’t know. It was before I was old enough to remember it. This last weekend I attended the Northeast Conference on Science and Skepticism, and one of the speakers was a doctor in Philadelphia who had to deal with the measles crisis brought on by a cluster of small fundamentalist churches that refused to have their kids immunized. Many children in the churches died, as well as many in larger community who had been exposed to them. Makes you want to SCREAM!
The vaccine debate is still very big and not just from the fundamentalists. There are average middle-class families who are choosing not to vaccinate because they have bought into the hysteria about drug companies trying to make a buck or believing that vaccines cause Autism. It is extremely frustrating. I think some of it goes to the fact that people are starting to forget what is was like before vaccinations were common, and death from disease was part of everyday lives.
Yep, it’s been happening here in Australia too Deborah. An increasing number of little babies dying from Whooping Cough… unvaccinated families returning from holidays in Bali, etc… and bringing back the Measles virus. My brother was struck down with Polio in the 1954 epidemic, before they’d found a vaccination so I’ve lived it in more ways than one.
My view is, we are told it’s a “free world” then OK make your choices. However, if a person chooses not to vaccinate and another dies as a result then they should be facing up to a charge on Manslaughter. Simple as that, in book.
Now I’m climbing down off my “soapbox”… 😆 Thanks for letting me vent, Deborah.
My uncle John had polio too in the late 1940s or 1950s. I will have to ask my dad again when that was. We are also having a resurgence of Whooping cough in California the last few years and babies have died too. And feel free to use your soapbox anytime. 🙂
Reading of Mother’s concern re: Measles totally belies the nonsense being peddled that it’s just a “childhood illness” and not to be bothered about re: immunisation. Having a child die because he was too young to be immunised and caught it from another whose mother had chosen not to immunise still angers, and haunts me… despite it being 44 years ago.
Wow Catherine! I can’t image your loss. I think that would belong in the unforgivable category for me. People just don’t think about how their decisions affect others. I don’t know how people feel about immunizations in Australia in general. There is a small group here in the U.S. that is making things dangerous. I stick by my decision to have my kids get their shots and we try to get the flu shots every year. The mother of one of the students at my school died from influenza this year.
Reading these letters is making me increasingly grateful for immunizations!
I agree. I have a hard time understanding people who are against immunizations. Diseases like Whooping cough are making a comeback because people don’t want to risk being immunized. Studies like the one 15-20 years ago that claimed immunizations cause autism have been debunked over and over again, but people are still afraid to take the risk of getting the shots. We are enough removed from the epidemics that routinely killed children that the naysayers are not cognitively aware of this past. They have read about it but have never experienced the heartache of watching their classmates die. Can you imagine schools being closed to prevent and stop the spread of disease? Even growing up in the 1970s that was not something that I experienced because we had the benefits of immunizations.
Amen to everything you said. One year while I was teaching Kindergarten there was a very bad flu. Our school wide attendance hovered at and fell below 50% for about seven or eight school days. I can’t imagine if the epidemic were something deadly. Thankfully everyone recovered because it was the flu and not something more serious and deadly. (I know the flu can be serious also…)