Small Pox

(Another of James Franklin McGrath's missionary experiences 1901-1903)

We labored together from January until May (1902) and became veterans in missionary work so to speak.  However, during our stay together we had some trying times.  As I have stated, we were laboring in lumbering camps and towns and the conditions there were about the same as you would find in any new boom-town.  The people were all to busy trying to make money to have very much time for gospel or missionaries.

And to cap it all off, we ran into a town that was full of small pox.  I came don with the small pox and had to walk 25 miles in a heavy rain to get to a place where we could be taken care of.  We then had to spend six weeks in a pest camp, where only people with small pox went, and all that time, not too many of those who went left, because if you did not get well, they buried you there.  So for six weeks the only people whom we saw were the doctor, and our nurse who was on old negro man ninety years old who was also our cook and general manager of our section of the camp.  We would receive mail but could not send any out.  But the old darky was good to us and told us a lot about how to care for ourselves, so we got along fine (We were there from about the first of March until the middle of April).  A lot of things happened during this sickness that increased our faith.  We knew the Lord was with us and did care for us...

There is just one experience that I can not refrain from recording.  I took sick on Thursday and thought that it was a bad cold.  We had an appointment to hold a meeting on Sunday at a place that was 50 miles away.  We had planned to spend three days getting there, visiting and tracting on the way.  So we started out and did very well on Thursday, but Friday and Saturday I was too sick to work.  However we felt that we must make our Sunday appointment so we kept traveling as fast as we could with me in the conditition that I was.  Elder Packard carried both his grip and mine most of the time.  When we got in by Satuday night and spent the night with a family of saints near the schoolhouse where we were to hold our meeting the following morning.

Sunday morning my fever had gone down and I felt much better, so I went along to the meeting.  After the meeting we were invited home with a man who was investiating the gospel so we went with him and spent the rest of the day and night with him, sitting up quite late teaching him the Gospel.  So I retired that night a very tired and sick man.  Although I did hurt as bad as I had for the three days just past, I felt that by morning I would be well.  But about four o'clock I awoke, disturbed by the rain that had started the evening before, beating against the window, and I discovered that I was covered with sore bumps.

I called Elder Packard to make a light and when he did so, we found that I was covered with a rash from head to toe and that some of the bumps had started to fester.  We decided that it must be smallpox, so we called the man of the hosue and told him what we thought.  He like us, had never seen smallpox, but from what he knew, he agreed with us that it must be.  We decided that the only thing was for me to go to Jackson, Mississippi where I could get proper care.

Now the sad part of the story is that this man, his wife and their eight children had not had the smallpox, and they all had been with me from noon on Sundy until after ten o'clock that night (except their elder son who was away at a saw mill).  I had been sleeping in their bed from ten until morning.  well, to say the least, they were scared half to death, and I was sorry for them I could hardly live.

There as a railroad about one mile from this man's house and a little town where the train stopped.  The train was due at nine o'clock and we planned for me to saty in the bedroom until 8:30 and then leave to catch the train.  Well at the apointed time we walked out in as heavy a rain as I have seen fall, and the water was six inches deep right at the door-step.  It was knee deep before we reached the depot.  Now here is the meat of my story, and my testimony that God lives and answers prayers.  As we walked out in the rain, the man of the house came out on the porch to tell us goodby.  Elder Packard turned and said to him, "I promise you in the name of the Lord that no harm will come to you or yours as a result of this exposure to Elder McGrath."  We walked away, to find that the railroad waswashed wawy and there would be no train that day.

The wagon road was under water most of the way to Jackson and that water was running over the railroad tracks in many places. And further that there there was no room in that town for people with smallpox, even though it was raining, so down the track we went.  We hoped for luck, and luck was with us even though several times we walked on the cross ties where the dirt had been washed away and they were hanging to the rail with the spikes which holds the rails to the cross ties.  During the mid-afternoon, the rain stopped and the sun shone for a while and partly dried our clothing.  Reaching Jackson about 9pm, we found the city's health doctor, found that my case was smallpox in the worst form, and I was hustled out of town to the pest camp.  I was in bed by twelve o'clock.

All went well with us from then until six weeks later when we were out and on our way. It was then that we wrote our friend down in Rankins County and received this news from him, quote, "The next day after you left my house our son, who was away at the time you were here came home sick and we found he had the small pox, but he soon recovered and is now back on the job.  None of the rest of us have taken the disease and I feel sure we will not."  It was then that we went down on our knees and thanked the Lord for his goodness to us, and I write this 48 years later, I still thank God for what he did for me at that time and how he respected the promise of his servant Elder Packard, and save our friends from having the smallpox.