Author: Elizabeth Mooney
Publisher: New York : Crowell
Year published: 1979
What it covers: A memoir of her mother's cure in Saranac Lake. In 1923, Elizabeth Mooney's mother, Bess Comstock, was diagnosed with tuberculosis. In the days before antibiotics, this diagnosis affected the entire family. The book details her mother's transformation from a vibrant young Gibson Girl, used to parties, dancing and exotic travel to a curing patient dutifully drinking endless glasses of milk, confined to bed rest and the cure chair in Saranac Lake. Mrs. Comstock spent seven long slow years recovering from TB, splitting her time between the Santanoni Apartments and a rented cottage on Park Avenue. It was a lonely and hectic time for Elizabeth's father. Because her mother spent so much time in Saranac Lake, when Elizabeth was such a small child, their relationship becomes one of aquaintences, rather than that of mother and daughter. In addition, because tuberculosis was contagious and there was no "cure", Elizabeth was encouraged to keep a physical distance from her mother: she could not take a chocolate from her mother's hand, touch a hand sewn dress her mother made as a gift, or share a salt cellar after her mother returned home. Her older brother contracts pleurisy and also spends time curing in Saranac Lake. Although he recovers relatively quickly, he refuses to discuss his or his mother's illness.
Citation: Mooney, Elizabeth, In the shadow of the White Plague : a memoir, New York : Crowell, 1979
