5 STEPS to 160,000
When the pandemic hit Rosemont, Neb., schools were closed, public meetings were cancelled, and innkeeper Mrs. Cure began a daily disinfection routine at her bed and breakfast. After lunch was served and before the mail and guests arrived in the afternoon, the small town’s matriarch opened a closet, removed a container of chemicals, and “fumigated” the place until the building reeked and eyes watered.
Townsfolk were overcome with the noxious fumes and fled the warmth of Mrs. Cure’s hearth, flocking on the snow-covered street outside her door. Rumors began to circulate that this is what Mrs. Cure secretly wanted but was too polite to request outright: for the townsfolk to stay out of her place until the risk of illness had passed.
Her deviation from the community’s “neighborly expectations” edged on scandal. Some empathized with the hearty-but-aging woman’s desire to stay healthy; others upset themselves over it.
A few twists to Mrs. Cure’s story: It took place not in 2020 or 2021, but in 1919. She fought influenza instead of COVID-19, and used formaldehyde rather than our modern (more palatable) cleaners. Among her would-be customers were the Rose sisters, two little girls who remembered Mrs. Cure’s unconventional methods and retold her story.
More than a century later, in the midst of COVID-19, another generation of children took comfort in the stories of their Rose ancestors who braved their way through the chaos of a pandemic as children. Mrs. Cure’s story, passed down from one generation to the next, shows them how past and present intersect. Like their forebears, they adjusted to a different way of life—one that did not force them to shiver on snow-covered streets, but turned their worlds topsy-turvy nonetheless.
In the face of COVID-19, I began to tell the youngest
