‘SPARKS’ OFF THE ROTARY WHEEL An Award-Winning Newsletter

The Rotary Club of Altadena meets Thursdays at noon at the Altadena Town and Country Club

Rotary Club of Altadena - #772 Chartered: February 14, 1949, P.O. Box 414, Altadena, CA 91003 RI Pres: Holger Knaack, Dist. 5300 Gov: Greg Jones

THIS WEEK via ZOOM: Marissa Peden, Director of Strategic Partnerships - Dressember Foundation Speaker Chair for April: Craig Cox

APRIL 08, 2021

Officers President: David Smith Cell: 626-826-2193 President Elect: Frank Cunningham Treasurer: Mike Noll Bus: 626-657-2287 Secretary: James Gorton Bus: 626-793-6215 VP: Mark Mariscal Cell: 323-816-6713 Directors Doug Colliflower Maria Perez-Arton Sylvia Vega Sarah O’Brien Dawn Smith In 2005, Dressember founder Blythe Hill began hearing about the issue of human trafficking. Despite her deep sense of urgency to help, she felt Chairs helpless. She wasn't a lawyer or a doctor or a social worker; her Membership: Maria Perez-Arton interests and talents were in fashion, trend analysis, and blogging. She International: Sarah O’Brien Community Service: Doug Colliflower didn't think she had much to offer to the fight, until four years later. Vocational: Steve Kerekes Youth Contests, Scholarships, Awards: In 2009, Blythe challenged herself to wear a dress every day of Mike Zoeller December (hence: Dressember). Every year since then, more people Youth Activities: Tony Hill joined in until Blythe’s one-person challenge blossomed into an Foundation: Steve international movement to fight human trafficking. Marissa Peden is a social impact professional and advocate with a Master’s degree in Human Rights and International Relations. Her expertise is in gender-based violence, women’s rights, and human trafficking prevention. Marissa has spent her career working in academia and research, as well as communications and development in the nonprofit field.

ZOOM INFO: https://www.ecsforseniors.org/montecedro/ https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84589196187?pwd=cE9Pa3hnL2ZwMjFyTW5 LN2sreXdIdz09 SUMMER CONCERT SERIES: Contact Doug if Meeting ID: 845 8919 6187 Passcode: 768576 you can help with Find your local number: https://us02web.zoom.us/u/kbItadr6xg sponsorship or know others who might be interested!

LAST WEEK: JUDIE BICKNELL, TOASTMASTERS Program Chair: Craig Cox Program Write-Up: Theo Clarke

Judie Bicknell

Today’s speaker was Judie Bicknell. She recalled a feeling many have when they’re on the hook to give a talk for the first time, in front of a lot of people – FEAR! She had that experience the first time she was asked to speak before a crowd. The room went blank along with her thoughts on that occasion. Everything was shaking. It’s been said that the two most dreaded experiences a person can have are death and speaking before a crowd for the first time. https://www.toastmasters.org/

Before her first speaking occasion Judie had called Craig in a kind of panic. They met for breakfast at 6:00 am during which he suggested Toastmasters. After enjoying breakfast with Craig, not to mention his calming demeanor, she Check your email felt public speaking was natural. So, she joined Toastmasters. In fact, the week for Club Invoices! after joining she gave the ‘Icebreaker’ speech. Judie describes Toastmasters as a “Soft place.” A place where you can improve your communication skills. She pointed out that there is more to communicating than talking; Listening is equally valuable. A few tips: before a talk one should create an agenda. Timing is important. You should start and end on time. Keep the length not too long, and not too short. President David’s Words of Judie also discussed ways to improve communication skills: Don’t be the Wisdom… and more! ‘Queen of ahs and ums’. You’ll begin to lose your audience. In Toastmasters you’ll also learn how to give an impromptu speech, and how to handle questions. A very important factor after giving a speech is evaluation – feedback. Feedback is important. Accept the comments. Don’t take them personally. Take the parts you find helpful. You’ll learn how to introduce a guest, and how to present and accept an award. Communication skills are learned. The benefits are legion. You’ll learn to make presentations for your business; you’ll be the first on the Leadership track, and officer training. Make the most of it. These skills last a long time. “If you can’t handle me at my There is a strong connection between Rotary and Toastmasters. Rotary was worst, then you sure as hell founded in 1905. Toastmasters was founded in 1905. Rotary has its Four Way don’t deserve me at my best.” Test. Toastmasters has its Four Core Values: Respect; Integrity; Service; Abraham Lincoln Excellence. The Toastmasters/Rotary Alliance was announced in January 2020. ______Judie recommended we should each visit a Toastmasters Club. They are global as is Rotary. She concluded by urging members to bring the next generation into your organization and visit a Toastmasters Club. ______

FROM UNDER THE SHADE MARY MALLON By President David Smith Mary Mallon (September 23, 1869 – Until now I knew nothing about Typhoid Mary. The only November 11, 1938), also known thing I knew was it was believed that she was the cause of a as Typhoid Mary, was an Irish-born cook Typhoid epidemic and her name certainly used as a punch believed to have infected 53 people line. What I’ve learned is partly by her own doing she had a with typhoid fever, three of whom died, tragic life. She was the first person in America to be and the first person in the United States identified as an asymptomatic carrier of a virus, in particular identified as an asymptomatic carrier of Typhus. Because of her occupation she triggered some small the disease. Because she persisted in outbreaks and unfortunately some deaths. However she wasn’t alone. Eventually four working as a cook, by which she exposed hundred people were identified as asymptomatic carriers but she was the only one others to the disease, she was twice demonized and placed in forced quarantine. In the future I’m going to stop using her forcibly quarantined by authorities, and name as a punch line and substitute it with Bat Soup. Who knows, maybe in a hundred died after a total of nearly three decades in years we’ll learn some new truth about that too. isolation.

Early life Mary Mallon was born in 1869 in Cookstown, County Tyrone, in what is now Northern Ireland. Presumably, she was born with typhoid because her mother was infected during pregnancy. At the age of 15, she immigrated to the United States. She lived with her aunt and uncle for a time and worked as a maid, but eventually became a cook for affluent families.

Career From 1900 to 1907, Mallon worked as a cook in the New York City area for eight families, seven of whom contracted typhoid. In 1900, she worked in Mamaroneck, New York, where within two weeks of her employment, residents developed typhoid fever. In 1901, she moved to Manhattan, where members of the family for whom she worked developed fevers and diarrhea, and the laundress died. Mallon then went to work for a lawyer and left after seven of the eight people in that household became ill. In June 1904, she was hired by a prosperous lawyer, Henry Gilsey. Within a week, the laundress was infected with typhoid, and soon four of the seven servants were ill. No members of Gilsey's family were infected, because they resided separately, and the servants lived in their own house. The investigator Dr. R. L. Wilson concluded that the laundress had caused the outbreak, but he failed to prove it. Immediately after the outbreak began, Mallon left and moved to Tuxedo Park, where she was hired by George Kessler. Two weeks later, the laundress in his household was infected and taken to St. Joseph's Regional Medical Center, where her case of typhoid was the first in a long time. In August 1906, Mallon took a position in Oyster Bay on Long Island with the family of a wealthy New York banker, Charles Henry Warren. Mallon went along with the Warrens when they rented a house in Oyster Bay for the summer of 1906. From August 27 to September 3, six of the 11 people in the family came down with typhoid fever. The disease at that time was "unusual" in Oyster Bay, according to three medical doctors who practiced there. The landlord, understanding that it would be impossible to rent a house with the reputation of typhoid, hired several independent experts to find the source of infection. They took water samples from pipes, faucets, toilets, and the cesspool, all of which were negative for typhoid. Mallon herself never believed that she was a carrier. With the help of a friend, she sent several samples to an independent Investigation New York laboratory. All came back negative for typhoid. On North Brother Island, almost a quarter of her analyses In late 1906, Mallon was hired by Walter Bowen, whose family lived on Park Avenue. from March 1907 through June 1909 were Their maid got sick on January 23, 1907, and soon Charles Warren's only daughter got also negative. After 2 years and 11 months typhoid and died. This case helped to identify Mallon as the source of the of Mallon's quarantine, Eugene H. Porter, infections. George Soper, an investigator hired by Warren after the outbreak in Oyster the New York State Commissioner of Bay, had been trying to determine the cause of typhoid outbreaks in well-to-do Health, decided that disease carriers families, when it was known that the disease typically struck in unsanitary should no longer be kept in isolation and environments. He discovered that a female Irish cook, who fit the physical description that Mallon could be freed if she agreed to he had been given, was involved in all of the outbreaks. He was unable to locate her stop working as a cook and take because she generally left after an outbreak began, without giving a forwarding reasonable steps to avoid transmitting address. Soper then learned of an active outbreak in a penthouse on Park Avenue and typhoid to others. On February 19, 1910, discovered Mallon was the cook. Two of the household's servants were hospitalized, Mallon said she was "prepared to change and the daughter of the family died of typhoid. her occupation (that of a cook), and would give assurance by affidavit that she would Soper first met Mallon in the kitchen of the Bowens and accused her of spreading the upon her release take such hygienic disease. Though Soper himself recollected his behavior "as diplomatic as possible", he precautions as would protect those with infuriated Mallon and she threatened him with a carving fork. When Mallon refused to whom she came in contact, from give samples, Soper decided to compile a five-year history of her employment. He infection." She was released from found that of the eight families that had hired Mallon as a cook, members of seven quarantine and returned to the mainland. claimed to have contracted typhoid fever.[19] Then Soper found out where Mallon's boyfriend lived and arranged a new meeting there. He took Dr. Raymond Hoobler in an attempt to persuade Mary to give them samples of urine and stool for analysis. Mallon again refused to cooperate, believing that typhoid was everywhere and that the outbreaks had happened because of contaminated food and water. At that time, the concept of healthy carriers was unknown even to healthcare workers. Soper published his findings on June 15, 1907, in the Journal of the American Medical Association. He wrote: It was found that the family changed cooks on August 4. This was about three weeks before the typhoid epidemic broke out. The new cook, Mallon, remained in the family only a short time and left about three weeks after the outbreak occurred. Mallon was described as an Irish woman about 40 years of age, tall, heavy, single. She seemed to be in perfect health. First quarantine (1907–1910) Soper notified the New York City Health Department, whose investigators realized that Mallon was a typhoid carrier. Under sections 1169 and 1170 of the Greater New York Charter, Mallon was arrested as a public health threat. She was forced into an ambulance by five policemen and Dr. Josephine Baker, who at some point had to sit on Mallon to restrain her. Mallon was transported to the Willard Parker Hospital, where she was restrained and forced to give samples. For four days, she was not allowed to get up and use the bathroom on her own. The massive numbers of typhoid bacteria that were discovered in her stool samples indicated that the infection center was in her gallbladder. Under questioning, Mallon admitted that she almost never washed her hands. This was not unusual at the time; the germ theory of disease still was not fully accepted. On March 19, 1907, Mallon was sentenced to quarantine on North Brother Island. While quarantined, she gave stool and urine samples three times per week. Authorities suggested removing her gallbladder, but she refused because she did not believe she carried the disease. At the time, gallbladder removal was dangerous, and people had died from the procedure. Mallon was also unwilling to stop working as a cook, a job that earned her more money than any other. Having no home of her own, she was always on the verge of poverty. After the publication of Soper's article in the Journal of the American Medical Association, Mallon attracted extensive media attention and received the nickname "Typhoid Mary". Later, in a textbook that defined typhoid fever, she again was called "Typhoid Mary". Soper visited Mallon in quarantine, telling her he would write a book and give her part of the royalties. She angrily rejected his proposal and locked herself in the bathroom until he left. She hated the nickname and wrote in a letter to her lawyer: “I wonder how the said Dr. William H. Park would like to be insulted and put in the Journal and call him or his wife Typhoid William Park.” Not all medical experts supported the decision to forcibly quarantine Mallon. For example, Milton J. Rosenau and Charles V. Chapin both argued that she just had to be taught to carefully treat her condition and ensure that she would not transmit the typhoid to others. Both considered isolation to be an unnecessary, overly strict punishment. Mallon suffered from a nervous breakdown after her arrest and forcible transportation to the hospital. In 1909, she tried to sue the New York Health Department, but her complaint was denied and the case closed by the New York Supreme Court. In a letter to her lawyer, she complained that she was treated like a AND IN OTHER NEWS... "guinea pig". She was obliged to give samples for analysis three times a week, but for six months was not allowed to visit an eye doctor, even though her eyelid was paralyzed and she had to bandage it at night. Her medical treatment was hectic: she was given urotropin in three-month courses for a year, threatening to destroy her kidneys. That was changed to brewer's yeast and hexamethylenediamine in increasing doses. She was first told that she had typhoid in her intestinal tract, then in her bowel muscles, then in her gallbladder.

Release and second quarantine (1915–1938)

Upon her release, Mallon was given a job as a laundress, which paid less than cooking—$20 per month instead of $50. At some point, she wounded her arm and the wound became infected, meaning that she could not work at all for six months.[ After several unsuccessful years, she started cooking again. She used fake surnames like Breshof or Brown, and took jobs as a cook against the explicit instructions of health A little bird told me… authorities. No agencies that hired servants for upscale families would offer her President David brought along a employment, so for the next five years, she moved to the mass sector. She worked in a feathered guest to last week’s number of kitchens in restaurants, hotels, and spa centers. Almost wherever she meeting! worked, there were outbreaks of typhoid. However, she changed jobs frequently, and Soper was unable to find her. In 1915, Mallon started working at Sloane Hospital for Women in New York City. Soon 25 people were infected, and two died. The head obstetrician, Dr. Edward B. Cragin, called Soper and asked him to help in the investigation. Soper identified Mallon from the servants' verbal descriptions and also by her handwriting. Mallon again fled, but the police were able to find and arrest her when she took food to a friend on Long Island. Mallon was returned to quarantine on North Brother Island on March 27, 1915. Little is known about her life during the second quarantine. She remained on North Brother for more than 23 years, and the authorities gave her a private one-story cottage. As of 1918, she was allowed to take day trips to the mainland. In 1925, Dr. Alexandra Plavska came to the island for an internship. She organized a laboratory on the second floor of the chapel and offered Mallon a job as a technician. Mallon washed bottles, did recordings, and prepared glasses for pathologists. Death Mallon spent the rest of her life in quarantine at Riverside Hospital on North Brother Island. Six years before her death, she had a stroke. She never completely recovered, and half of her body remained paralyzed. On November 11, 1938, she died Theo entertained a mother bear and of pneumonia at age 69. Mallon's body was cremated, and her ashes were buried her cub in his backyard pond! at Saint Raymond's Cemetery in the Bronx. Nine people attended the funeral. Some sources claim that a post-mortem found evidence of live typhoid bacteria in Mallon's gallbladder. Soper wrote, however, that there was no autopsy, a claim cited by other researchers to assert a conspiracy to calm public opinion after her death.

And Sarah rescued some orphaned baby opossums (joeys)

Never a dull moment in the wild and wonderful San Gabriel mountains!