This blog series is adapted from a memoir by Beatrice Zweber Mahowald of New Market. Her grandson, Pat Mahowald, compiled her autobiography with photographs and family research. Beatrice took over the household management on her family’s farm at age 15, after the death of her mother and the marriages of her older sisters. The incident she describes below took place in 1914, when she was 16 years old and a primary caretaker for her family. It has been slightly edited from the original for clarity.
After dinner, I wanted to go to bed but I found out I couldn’t lay down. So I sat on the edge of the bed with my elbows on my knees and my face in my hands. I was so tired but I just couldn’t lay down. I had such pain so at four o’clock in the morning I went in my brother Henry’s room and I told him that I sat up all night and that I was very sick. He said he would get up and feed the horse so dad could take me to the doctor.
The horse had to eat first because this was a far trip to Prior Lake, which is about eleven miles from our home [in New Market]. A horse can only walk about three miles in a half hour. It must have been 8:30 when we got there, because the doctor was at his office. When the doctor examined me, he said I had appendicitis. My dad got very excited and he was going to put me on the train at Prior Lake that stops at Shakopee, and then from there he was going to transfer to St. Paul on a train. But Dr. Kennedy said, “Oh no, Mr. Zweber, this child is too sick to operate on now.”
Prior Lake’s train depot in 1908. Scott County Historical Society.
He gave me some medicine in the office and said Dad should take me home, and I should go to the hospital on Monday. So Dad and I started the long trip home.
On Tuesday August 24, 1914 I had my operation. My dad went along into the operating room. When I laid on the table they told me to inhale the ether, but I didn’t do it. [Ether was a liquid anesthesia used in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Physicians dropped ether onto fabric held over a patient’s face by a mask.] I could see my dad sitting there and I felt so bad for him because he really looked sad. I thought of my three younger brothers and I thought now if I die who would take care of them. I wanted to cry but I really couldn’t do that because they said inhale. I just couldn’t inhale that stinky stuff. Anyway they must have poured it on because I went to sleep.
When I woke up I was in my room at St. Joseph’s hospital. Two doctors and some nurses were with me, and I was really sick. In those days an appendicitis operation was serious and dangerous because they didn’t have the medicine to fight infection like they have now. They would keep you in the hospital two weeks. I didn’t like it at St. Joseph’s because they didn’t feed me enough. I remember the first breakfast at home. My cousin brought me a great big plate of hot beef stew and gravy and several pieces of toast made from homemade bread. I ate it all.
Lead Image: Photograph of Beatrice Zweber in 1913. Scott County Historical Society.