In 1832, William and Anne had five children and were living in the rural parish of Kilmacolm. Rural living had advantages over urban living, such as fewer communicable diseases and less civil unrest. Unfortunately, Kilmacolm was only sixteen kilometers from Paisley, a hotspot in the 1832 cholera epidemic. Cholera is spread by infected water or food and is particularly hard on sick or impoverished people. It had earned the nicknames “the blue horror” and “the blue death,” due to victims turning an eerie shade of blue from respiratory failure.
A victim could be healthy and active in the morning, and dead by evening. Once ingested, Cholera bacteria cause the body to uncontrollably purge its digestive tract through vomiting and diarrhea. The bacteria then create a protein that extracts water from the person’s blood and organs—as much as 20 liters in a day. The eyes sink, teeth protrude, and muscles convulse. Blood becomes so thick it cannot circulate to oxygenate the organs. Death is so agonizing the French called it mort de chien (dog's death).
Scotland’s National Archives has this paragraph describing the 1832 epidemic and its causes:
It was particularly severe in the industrialised towns and cities of the West of Scotland, and affected Paisley in particular, where around 450 people died. The outbreak was made worse by a lack of proper urban planning, no clean water supply, and serious overcrowding....[2]
The Archives has a letter on file from a Paisley resident who wrote to his brother about the events in the town. He described the panic and stated that cholera was “within a very few doors of us” and "In the Street where we live Seven Persons Have Died of it." He described mass burials in the town. To add to the panic, a recent high-profile case of body-snatching caused some people to accuse doctors of exhuming bodies. This culminated in a riot in March of 1832. Panic and hysteria ran rampant.
People felt helpless as the blue horror took the lives of their loved ones and neighbours. In nearby Kilmacolm, William and Anne Greenlees would also have felt anxious as this silent, unseen killer stalked their family. Fortunately, the disease did not take any of their children. But it did take Anne. The only details of her death are what Frank Darroch recorded: "Agnes Greenlees' mother died of cholera in 1832, aged about 40 years." [4] Therefore, adding that sentence to other research, I have written this vignette to capture the gravity of that day.
Anne was busy working in the house doing the morning chores. It was a wonderful day to be alive. Her six-year-old daughter, Jean, was entertaining three-year-old Agnes. Spring had sprung and Grandpa Finlay was visiting from Inverkip for a few days. He was outside tending the garden with Anne's two other children. Her husband, William, was plowing a nearby field.
Suddenly, Anne grimaced and clutched her abdomen. She thought little of the ache at first, but it soon turned to a steady pain and she felt queasy. She turned to her daughter and said, “Jean, will you please watch the baby for a few minutes? I need to lie down.”
“What’s wrong, Mother?”
“Oh, nothing. I just don’t feel well.”
Jean cheerfully played with Agnes and the baby. Within the hour, however, she heard Mother retching in the other room.
“Mother," she called, "I will get a pail for you.”
As Jean entered the bedroom, she saw Mother groaning, clutching her stomach. Then the diarrhea started.
Without taking her eyes off her mom, Jean called her older sister. “Anne!”
The panic in Jean’s voice brought eight-year-old Anne running. She arrived at the doorway and her jaw dropped. They both stared at their mother, usually so composed and smiling, writhing in pain.
Anne ran out of the house to the garden. “Grandpa Finlay! Mother is ill.”
Grandpa Finlay ran with his granddaughter back to the house. Watching her muscles spasm, he realized this was no ordinary cold or flu. He turned to his granddaughter, locked his eyes on hers, and said, “Child, fetch your father.”
Grandpa Finlay turned to the other children. "Jean, take the baby outside. Agnes, come to me.”
Three-year-old Agnes reached up. Grandpa lifted her into his arms and left the room.
Anne ran as fast as she could through the countryside to her father, plowing a field in preparation for seeding. She could see his form, limping behind the plow, and quickly caught up with him.
“Father! Grandpa says to come home. Mother is ill!”
They ran back to the house, William trailing behind his daughter, favouring his bum leg. He entered the house, halting to get his breath. His father-in-law, still holding Agnes, nodded toward the room. William entered the dimly-lit room where his wife lay. The stench of vomit and diarrhea hit his stomach like a physical blow. He recognized the telltale signs: pasty skin, muscle spasms, fever, vomiting and diarrhea. Anne weakly looked up at William. He walked over to her bed. She waved him away.
Rasping with pain, she said, "No! Stay away! You don't want to catch it!"
Ignoring her pleas, William dropped to his knees, embraced his sweetheart, and wept.
In 1832, about 50% of Cholera victims survived. Anne did not. Her untimely death left William with five children, the oldest being eight. Nine years after his wife’s death, the 1841 census lists William as living in Kilmacolm village with Agnes. The other four children are not listed. Where did they go?
Next post, we will explore that question and find out what happened to them and Agnes.
References:
[1] Coloured lithograph credit: Wellcome Collection www.wellcomecollection.org/works/v85vg2ka (retrieved 15 Sep 2022).
[2] As quoted at https://blog.nrscotland.gov.uk/2020/07/07/voices-from-our-archives-pandemic-in-paisley-1832/ (retrieved 15 Sep 2022).
[3] National Records of Scotland, 1832 letter (ref: GRO1/691) (retrieved 15 Sep 2022).
[4] Frank Darroch, A Darroch Family in Scotland and in Canada (Harriston, Ontario, 1974), 62.
Note: In Anne's generation, some of the Finlay family added the d to become Findlay. I have seen her father's name to be spelled only as Finlay, so have kept that spelling here.