By Michael Patrick O’Brien–
In the late 1800s, tuberculosis killed 1 of every 7 people on earth. This terrible bacterial plague—called the Captain of Death—claimed four of my own family members, including my great grandfather Edward W. O’Brien. He was just 25 years old, a new husband, and a new father.
Ed O’Brien was born on February 9, 1866 in Swanton, Vermont, just below the American/ Canadian international border. His father, called Edward F., was Irish but born in London. His mother Bridget descended from a French-Canadian father and a mother born in Ireland. Ed came from a large family, and had one brother and nine sisters.
In the 1870s and 1880s, the O’Brien family lived in nearby St. Albans, Vermont while Ed’s father owned and worked in a grocery store and served as the local postmaster. A devastating fire destroyed the grocery and surrounding buildings in 1875, driving the family south to the larger city of Burlington where several family members found jobs in a grist mill.
In the late 1880s, Ed got a job in the dress goods section of a store called Leo & McLaren. The downtown retailer, also known as the Boston Store, offered various clothing and household items. Ed sold fabrics. As a boy, he had helped his father in the family grocery and was a natural salesman.
While working at Leo & McLaren, Ed met Annie McCarthy, the head of the notions department. Annie, whose younger sister Mary Elizabeth (“Mame”) was a tailor, was in charge of the store’s large stock of hairpins and sewing supplies, including buttons, pins, and hooks. Logically, Ed and Annie had to work together.
Soon, the tall and trim Ed and the diminutive Annie (short and just over 100 lbs) were an item. Annie’s other younger sister Nellie McCarthy, who was close friends with Ed’s little sister Agnes O’Brien, tracked the budding relationship in her diary, first noting in August 1889 that: “Ed came home with Annie and me.”
By February 1890, Ed and Annie were married at the Catholic cathedral in Burlington. They had a fun reception with many friends, and Nellie’s diary indicated, “Presents kept coming all day.” Their fellow store clerks gave them a handsome French clock, perhaps also hoping to give them the gift of time together. The festivities continued after the couple’s wedding trip to New York City. Nellie noted: “Ed and Annie came home. We raised Cain in the evening.”
The tone of the diary turned dark, however, just a few months later when Nellie wrote, “Went after the doctor for Ed.” Ed had tuberculosis.
Diary and newspaper reports indicate that in June 1890, “Ed went away” for his health to the Adirondack Mountains near the town of Saranac Lake, about 60 miles west of Burlington. Some of Ed’s cousins lived near there, as had his French-Canadian grandfather Antwin Coolon who succumbed to tuberculosis just two years earlier.
Tuberculosis ended many famous lives, including President James Monroe, Henry David Thoreau, Frederic Chopin, George Orwell, and St. Therese of Lisieux. Saranac Lake hosted a well-known tuberculosis sanitarium founded by Dr. Edward Trudeau, himself a victim of the disease. Famous American writer Robert Louis Stevenson (Treasure Island) went seeking treatment in 1887-88.
The popular cure during Ed’s time there, until a drug-based treatment was developed about fifty years later, was cold fresh mountain air and lots of rest near the mountain lake. Ed stayed there about two months, sometimes with Annie, and returned home with somewhat improved health.
In the early 1900s, people learned that tuberculosis was caused not by genetics, but by airborne bacteria. It became a sort of American leprosy, and those suffering from the condition also endured prejudice and shunning. In the late 1800s, however, Ed enjoyed tender care and attention from his family and friends.
He needed it too. By October of 1890, Nellie wrote: “Ed is sick a-bed. We had the doctor yesterday.” The timing was unfortunate, for Annie was pregnant and in January 1891, she gave birth to Ed’s ten-pound son named Donald Raymond O’Brien (my grandfather).
A few weeks later, Nellie’s diary reported: “Annie and the baby are getting along nicely, but poor Ed is very sick. He has not worked for three weeks. He expects to go to Nashua soon.” The rest of Ed’s extended O’Brien family had moved to the New Hampshire city about two months earlier.
The ancient Greeks called tuberculosis “consumption,” for the disease seems to devour its victims over time. They suffer from great fatigue, fever, terrible bloody coughing, and weight loss. Most patients soon are emaciated with protruding cheekbones, hollowed-out eyes, and forlorn demeanors. With his lungs said to be “very delicate,” Ed entered this most difficult stage of the disease in early 1891.
On February 10, 1891, the Burlington Free Press reported: “Mr. Edward O’Brien, who for the past four years has been employed in the dress goods department of Leo & McLaren, left last evening for Denver, Colorado. For the past year his health has been failing and it was thought that only a change in climate would prevent his going into quick consumption. The employees and the firm made up a generous purse which was presented to him. It is hoped that the trip will restore him to health. He expects to secure a position in the West for the present.”
Ed stopped in Nashua first, to see the rest of the O’Brien family, but he never made it to Denver. In April 1891, Nellie noted in her diary, “Poor Ed is awfully sick.” Annie was in Nashua for most of this time caring for him and little Don, likely at the home of the O’Brien parents and siblings on 31 Allds Street (the old house still stands there).
In May 1891, Ed’s oldest sister Mary Riley, herself a young wife and mother, succumbed to the dreaded disease at age 36. Ed, however, had a bit of a recovery. In June 1891, Nellie’s diary noted: “Had a big time with Ed O’Brien.” Nellie’s diary also said: “Eddie O’Brien came home with us.” It did not last long.
On September 17, 1891, The Burlington Free Press told the sad news: “E. O’Brien, who worked in the dress goods department at Leo & McLaren’s until a short time ago, when he started for Denver, Col, but went to Nashua, N.H., where he died Tuesday morning of consumption.” The Nashua Daily Gazette also reported: “The funeral of the late Edward O’Brien took place this morning from the church of the Immaculate Conception. A large number of friends and relatives were in attendance.”
Nellie’s diary simply said: “Got a telegram Wednesday that poor Ed was dead.” Ed was buried in an unmarked grave somewhere in St. Patrick’s cemetery in Hudson, just outside of Nashua.
After Ed died, Annie and baby Don O’Brien moved in with Annie’s parents (Irish immigrants Jerry and Alice Fitzgerald McCarthy) at their home on Front Street in Burlington. The newspapers indicated that Annie and little Don had the “sympathy of a large circle of friends.”
One such friend was renowned Burlington doctor Patrick Eugene (P.E. McSweeney), who had stood as an usher for Ed during his wedding ceremony. During the following years, Dr. McSweeney and his daughter, Dr. Katherine McSweeney, treated many members of the O’Brien clan, including Ed, Annie, Don, and my own mother. McSweeney enjoyed a long life and productive life, forcing me to ponder what might have been in store for Ed had he not been prematurely struck down by the Captain of Death.
Annie O’Brien, only 25 when Ed died, lived another fifty years but never remarried. Although young Don O’Brien never knew his father, he was raised by his devoted mother, his Aunt Mame, and his maternal grandparents. Years later, he wrote about a happy home and a contented and adventurous childhood.
He shared many of those childhood adventures with a live-in playmate about his own age, his cousin Fred McCarthy. Fred was the son of Annie’s older brother Frank McCarthy. Frank lost his wife and young Fred lost his mother, Mary Gillhooley McCarthy, in 1895 at age 26. Tuberculosis killed her too.
Although it still claims 1 million poor souls a year today, tuberculosis does not strike the same fear in my heart that it did in those of my ancestors 150 years ago, Yet, death has many names, and today it is called cancer, Alzheimer’s, and Ebola. Our lot is to live the best and fullest life possible, no matter which deadly captain might come calling. Because my grandfather Ed did so, I proudly bear the O’Brien name today.
*Mike O’Brien is a writer and attorney living in Salt Lake City, Utah. His book Monastery Mornings, about growing up with the monks at the old Trappist monastery in Huntsville, Utah, will be published by Paraclete Press in August 2021.
