Ursula Frasier

Ursula Frasier came to Saranac Lake as a child to cure as a T.B. patient. In 1987 she gave an oral interview to Ree Rickard on her story. To read more of Ree Rickard's interviews, click here Ree Rickard Oral History Interviews

A caring and sensitive second grade teacher from Burlington, Vermont, Ursula Frasier, spoke in hushed tones of her childhood experiences as a T.B. patient. Occasional bursts of mirth belied her self-effacing matronly manner.

WHEN DID YOU LEARN THAT YOU HAD T.B.?

When I was a little girl, my parents separated so I went to live with my grandparents in Montpelier, Vermont. My grandfather had T.B. but he and my grandmother never acknowledged the fact. The first time I heard the word “tuberculosis” was when I was eight or nine. My friend, Mary Claire Miller, told me she was no longer allowed to play with me but didn’t know the reason. I asked their maid, “Why?” She said, “I can’t tell you.” So I asked Mr. Miller and he said, “Because your grandfather has T.B.” Grandpa did have all of the signs. He was thin, he couldn’t eat, slept most of the time and coughed. When I told my grandmother what he had said, she informed me that, “Grandpa doesn’t have T.B.; he’s just sick. If he had T.B. we wouldn’t let you stay here.” That always stuck in my mind. I never felt any meanness towards my grandfather, but it was kind of strange because soon I got it.

In Vermont tuberculosis was rampant in the ‘30’s but they didn’t call it by that name. Instead it was referred to as the “stone cutters’ disease.” The main industry at the time was cutting memorials. You just didn’t discuss it. It was just like cancer.

Most people wouldn’t go to a sanitarium because they thought it meant sure death.

I guess I caught it because of the way we lived. I was very close to my grandfather. I remember sometimes taking him a glass of water on the porch. I’d help myself after he’d finished. Why bother to carry a full glass back?

When I was a eleven I was sick that school year and our doctor told us I had tuberculosis. The very next day he arranged through a friend of his for me to go to the sanitarium in Saranac Lake. My family wanted me to stay home in bed to cure like Grandpa but the doctor wouldn’t budge an inch.

WHAT WAS YOUR REACTION?

I was terrified. I had never before been inside a hospital. To me going to a sanitarium meant you were going to die.

For four months I received pneumo treatments. The worst part was wondering whether or not your name was on the list, that day, to go down for treatment. To me it was painful because I was just a kid. I hated mealtime because that’s when you were completely alone. The first month my family wasn’t allowed to visit because the doctors wanted me to get used to the environment. When nighttime came, you could hear patients coughing and moaning in the other rooms. It bothered me because I was afraid no one was watching out and caring for them. Of course, there was help there, but I was a little girl and I worried. I was afraid I’d get like that, like the ones I could hear at night.

DO YOU REMEMBER YOUR DREAMS?

I think the medications caused me to have nightmares.

HOW LONG DID YOU CURE?

I stayed in Saranac for four months and then transferred to a preventorium in Pittsford, VT for another two years. There were cottages on the grounds of a large sanitarium that were used exclusively for children.

Being an only child, I was excited to go because I was told there would be lots of children of all ages. For the first two weeks I was kept in insolation to be sure I was totally cleared, then I could go out to the dorm to join the others. There were 50 children. It was a cottage community for boys and girls. The very, very sick were in the infirmary. The Johnson cottage was just for the crippled children who had the disease in their bones. They could never join us in their activities because they had braces and couldn’t walk, but we could visit with them. Not all the children had T.B. but someone in their family was infected and they might contract it. The children were sent there to get built up so they’d be immune when they went back home.

WHAT WAS YOUR DAY LIKE?

We went to a one-room school for an hour in the morning and for an hour and a half in the afternoon after rest hour. I enjoyed it. When you were supposed to be doing your seat work, you could listen to the older children reciting and pick up also what they were learning. It was like a boarding school. The boys and girls were separated for sleeping but came together for everything else. We took walks in the woods. There was a swimming pool, skating rink, and a recreation hall. Everything was geared to getting you well and keeping you happy. We played parchesi and Chinese checkers. I still love board games.

We slept on dormitory porches with open windows winter and summer. We wore night hats, socks and blankets. You got used to the cold because it was part of the treatment. It was a freezing atmosphere but you didn’t mind so much because everyone was doing the same thing. If it was above 15 degrees, those who were able had to put on sunsuits and boots and exercise outdoors for five or ten minutes. I didn’t have to do that.

You got crushes on doctors, nurses and other children. There was a lot of teasing about that.

You never saw anyone down. Even the children with braces thought, “I’m going to get better and get out of here some day.” Some never made it from Johnson Cottage. When they got real bad, they’d be taken away and just never came back. We thought they just went home.

Sometimes we’d be taken into Pittsford where we weren’t allowed to talk to anybody on the street and no one spoke to us. We had to avoid other people. Once they took a group of us to church but we had to go at a time when no one else was in the building. It made me feel kind of sad. I thought of the gospel stories where the lepers had to shout, “Unclean, unclean.” I was afraid it might happen when I got home, but it didn’t.

WHAT WAS IT LIKE WHEN YOU GOT HOME?

My grandfather was so happy to see me because when I left, he had thought he never would see me again. I was now 14 and had gained 60 pounds. When I returned, I wasn’t allowed to live with my grandparents. That summer my parents came back together again so I could live with them. They had decided to try living together again before I got home and it worked. I was only allowed to see Grandpa once a week, but I managed to stop at his house every day on my way home from school. We were close. He had been my father figure for so any years. Grandpa died of tuberculosis 18 months after I got home.