A Fisher Story

It was a warm and sunny day in early summer about 20 years ago. Some of our woods roads were still blocked by trees and tree tops felled by the great ice storm of 1998, and we had worked for several hours, cutting up and removing the debris from one of those roads. 

Sitting on the large trunk of one such tree for a lunch break, we heard the sounds of animals “crashing” through the forest undergrowth and heading our way. As we watched, two young fishers romped into the clearing where we sat. Seconds later, they spied us.

One turned tail and raced back into the woods, but the other climbed a nearby tree that had lost probably half of it’s height to the ice storm – a sort of 20′ tall stump. It was soon pretty obvious that he had never climbed a tree before! We watched the mother pace back and forth in the woods, hissing and snarling at him, the translation of which was something like, “You damned fool child! Just wait until your father gets home and hears about this! Get down from that tree this instant!!!”

The poor little guy was scared out of his wits. He tried starting down head-first but quickly turned about and hung on by his claws. He tried backwards. He tried head-first again, and all the while his mother paced and snarled. It was such a treat to watch them.

Eventually – and gradually – the little guy made it to earth, and the trio exited Stage Left as we laughed and marveled at what we had been witness to.

Gramma Grew Up

Sarah Maud Pomeroy was born in 1884 in a small village in Ontario, Canada. Her parents were Henry Pomeroy and his wife Sarah Ann Webb.

When Maud was in her teens, her mother contracted Tuberculosis and died, leaving 14 year-old Maud to raise her younger siblings, 10 year-old Jessie and 3 year-old Grace. Her two brothers were “farmed out” to another family.

Maud contracted the TB and overheard the doctor tell her father that she, too, would probably die. Determined NOT to die, Maud moved her bed out onto the porch and spent as much time outdoors as she could, breathing the fresh air in deep breaths. She arrested the disease. (Lucky for me, eh?)

The brothers were unhappy in the family they had gone to live with, so one Sunday morning when the rest of that family had gone to church, Maud “kidnapped” her brother Harry and one other brother [although I can’t verify which brother that would have been, because the other boys were older than Maud] and brought them home.

Their father did not remarry, and Maud’s childhood came to an end before her 15th birthday. She raised her younger siblings and took over the household chores, but it certainly never dampened her sense of humor or love of a prank!

The Train

My grandmother, Sarah Maud Andrus, was widowed in 1945, two months after I was born. My parents and I were living in an apartment that had been created in the 2nd floor of my grandparents’ house. We continued to live there until our purchase of a house and 2 acres of land in a small town just east of Rochester, and when we moved there in 1950, Gramma came with us.

It wasn’t long before she was the most sought-after babysitter in the area. Kids loved her, parents loved her,and she drove herself to and from each job.  

On New Year’s Eve in 1958, on her way to a sitting job, Gramma’s car was struck by a freight train and dragged some distance down the tracks. The policeman who arrived on the scene took one look and concluded that there could be no survivors in the car – but when he ran a check of the license plate number, he realized that he knew Maud, and he made the extra effort it took to pry open one door of the car. There, crushed down under the passenger-side dashboard, was my grandmother.    

She was rushed to the nearest hospital, and despite breaking many bones – including many bones in her hands and fingers – and suffering a severe concussion, Maud lived to walk and laugh again.    A few years later, I would practice my driving skills in preparation for the licensing test by driving Maud and a couple of her friends around the countryside east of Rochester. She never drove a car again, but she maintained her sense of humor and was mentally keen until her death in 1966.

Tuberculosis

Recently I told the story of my great grandmother dying of tuberculosis, my grandmother catching it but “curing” herself by moving her bed out onto the porch and taking frequent deep breaths of the fresh air. Grandma survived TB, but if you survived it in those days, you would always be a carrier of the disease.

 

In 1974, my mother became ill. She was exhausted and became weak, yet she showed no other symptoms of anything until she began to run a fever.

 

Eventually she was admitted to Genesee Hospital in Rochester, her illness “TUO” – Temperature of Unknown Origin. Tests of all kinds were administered over the next three weeks, yet none showed any cause for her illness, and as she continued to get weaker and run a higher temperature, a specialist in infectious diseases was called in from Strong Memorial Hospital.

 

Her suspicion was that my mother had tuberculosis that was not in her lungs. Liver, bone, lymph – you name the organ, and they tested it for TB, yet all results were negative. Finally, without any obvious disease to cure, the specialist said, essentially, “If it walks like a duck and if it quacks like a duck, it has to be a duck,” and they decided to treat for TB. The test was to last a week.

 

After six days and no change in my mother’s temperature or overall state, her doc confided in me that if it were up to him, they would stop the TB drugs that night because they weren’t helping, but he couldn’t do that – he would have to wait until the specialist came in the next morning, because only she could order it stopped.

 

That night – and never again for nearly six weeks thereafter – my mother’s temperature dropped to NORMAL for several hours. The specialist concluded that perhaps they were on the right track and ordered the treatment continued.

 

A month after her admission to the hospital, my mother was discharged to go home and continue the treatment for TB, twelve months of taking a combination of powerful drugs. She was finally given a definite diagnosis of TB when, months later, her eyes showed the telltale markings of the disease. She lived another 23 years.

 

Grandma had lived with us until I was in my late teens, so I, like my mother, have been well exposed. So far, so good, with me, but at least I know what could happen.