Measles Shuts the Schools and Empties the Pews
With 62 absentees at the high school, the board closed the building indefinitely and barred all schoolchildren from churches, Sunday schools, picture shows and public gatherings.
The story, cleaned up
A cleaned-up reading of the newspaper page: spelling and layout repaired, one story lifted off a crowded page. It follows the original closely but it is not a transcription. The original page is below; read it if a detail matters.
In the hope that the community may be more speedily freed from the grip of the measles, last week's quarantine has been made to apply to all school children regardless of age. This means that until further notice all school children will be excluded from church, Sunday school, picture shows and all public gatherings.
The hope that the high school might weather through the epidemic was abandoned Monday when the roll showed 62 absentees in the building, or an increase of about 100 per cent since Friday. The board immediately ordered the building closed indefinitely.
City Health Officer Dr. Crosby says that it is impossible at this time to say how long it will be necessary to keep the quarantine in force. A canvass of the situation will be made the last of the week in the hope that the schools may be reopened by Tuesday or Wednesday of next week. The epidemic will soon be over, the doctor says, if parents will cooperate with the authorities in seeing that the quarantine is strictly observed. But it may be weeks yet before the contagion can be stamped out if children are permitted to go where they may become exposed or expose other children.
“It may be weeks yet before the contagion can be stamped out if children are permitted to go where they may become exposed or expose other children.”
A century before COVID-19, Kennewick closed its schools and banned children from public gatherings to stop a measles outbreak. The same tension between collective safety and public patience is familiar now. Then as now, the hardest part was persuading families to keep the quarantine until the contagion was truly stamped out.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.