The Shack on A Street: A Mother’s Defiance Against the County Physician
Mrs. McGinnis of Tacoma refuses to let her afflicted child be taken to a hospital, insisting she can care for him better than doctors while living in poverty with four other sick children.
A mother in want refused this morning to allow her afflicted child to be taken to a hospital for treatment. Rather than accept the services of the county physician, Mrs. McGinnis of 3121 A Street gives her child what little attention she can herself.
She lives in a shack with her four little ones, who are all suffering from some malady. The case will probably be taken up by the poor commissioner.
The police ambulance answered the call of the county physician to go to the home of Mrs. McGinnis. Upon the arrival of the ambulance, the mother absolutely refused to allow the child to be removed. The physician said that the child, while not in any great danger, is badly in need of better care.
The mother is a woman who believes herself capable of doing equally as well as a doctor and, disregarding the advice of the county physician, doctors the sore which is a superficial ulcer on the leg, with fat pork and oil. The house contains very little furniture. The little children are compelled to sleep on the floor. Every child in the family except the eldest is afflicted in some way. One of the other three is suffering from blood poisoning, caused by a splinter into its foot, and the other two have severe colds.
The eldest boy is said to be a brakeman on the Northern Pacific, running from Tacoma to Elma. The county physician claims that these people ought not to be charges of the county, as the pay of a brakeman if he works steadily is sufficient to supply their needs.
This 1903 account of a mother in a shack refusing medical intervention for her children mirrors modern debates over parental rights, medical neglect, and the failure of social safety nets. It highlights how poverty forces impossible choices on parents, where the 'shack' conditions described here are a stark precursor to today's housing insecurity and its impact on child welfare.
From readers
No comments yet. If you know something about this story — a correction, a family memory, a source — it belongs here.