Letters from Sadie: Letters Written by Sadie Claire (Marcum) Montgomery from the Norton, Kansas, Tuberculosis Sanatorium (1932–1933)

By Darla Hedrick Quinn

Darla Hedrick Quinn served as primary caregiver and advocate for her mother, Mary (Montgomery) Hedrick, for eleven and a half years while her mother was a resident at assisted living facilities in Parsons, Kansas, and San Antonio, Texas. After her mother’s passing in April 2020, Quinn discovered letters written by her grandmother, Sadie (Marcum) Montgomery, to her husband, sister, and five children while she was in residence at the Norton State Tuberculosis Sanatorium, Norton, Kansas.
Written in the depths of the Great Depression from 1932 to 1933, these letters home to family record the faith, fears, hope, and love of a wife and mother while suffering from a debilitating illness that would eventually take her life. The accompanying photographs further demonstrate the life and times of her family.
In Letters from Sadie, Quinn shares this collection of letters and photographs along with a caregivers guide to offer insight for other families, telling what life is like when moving to and residing in an assisted living facility. It chronicles part of one woman’s life story, demonstrating a strong love for family and shows opportunities for advocating for a loved one living in a facility.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: Nov 24, 2021
• ISBN: 9781664246331

Darla Hedrick Quinn

Darla Hedrick Quinn, (shown here with her mother, Mary (Montgomery) Hedrick, Sadie’s only daughter) earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics and computer science from Pittsburg State University, Pittsburg, Kansas, and her executive MBA from Washington University, St. Louis, Missouri. She retired in 2008 as executive director, project management at AT&T after a thirty-one year-career. She is an avid book reader and photographer who has traveled extensively and enjoys hiking and golf. Quinn lives in San Antonio, Texas, with her husband, Francis, and their toy schnauzers, Turner and Hooch.

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Copyright © 2021 Darla Hedrick Quinn.

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permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy

of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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ISBN: 978-1-6642-4632-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6642-4633-1 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021920335

WestBow Press rev. date: 11/18/2021

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Dedicated to the memory of my grandmother, Sadie Claire (Marcum) Montgomery, whose words

show what love and strength mean to a family; and to the memory of my mother, Mary (Montgomery)

Hedrick, who was denied the time she should have had growing up with her mother’s love, and

who held on to these letters from many decades ago because they were her mother’s cherished

words. Mary demonstrated Sadie’s love and strength to her own family every day of her life.

Contents

Praise for Darla Hedrick Quinn’s Letters from Sadie

Author’s Notes and Acknowledgments

Sadie and Cordus, the Early Years

Introduction

The Letters

Part 1. Life in the Sanatorium and Concern for Family

The Parents and Grandparents in Photos

Part 2. Hope and Reality

Sadie’s Family

The Final Journey: A Guide for Caregivers with a Loved One in an Assisted-Living Facility

A Brief History of Tuberculosis

The Norton Sanatorium

Joe Dale Montgomery’s Discharge Instructions from the Maybury Sanatorium

Credits

Praise for Darla Hedrick Quinn’s

Letters from Sadie

This is the most inspiring, heart-touching, and valuable spiritual book I have come across as a retired neuroradiologist and a clinical professor in radiology sciences at the University of California, Irvine. The author gave me and my wife an early version of Letters from Sadie. I could not stop reading the thirty letters written by the author’s grandmother, who was kept away from her children, including the author’s mother, Mary, and passed away without a chance to see them the last year of her life. I was so touched and crying even when I was writing this.

Mary lost her mother at age five. I lost my mother at age five too.

TB killed Sadie and almost did kill me. After more than six months living in and out of a small hospital in Vinh Long, Vietnam, for TB treatment, I was so sick and thin and hopeless. So I went back to live with my grandmother, waiting to die. My grandmother was a traditional practitioner of Vietnamese herbal medicines. She knew I might die but suggested to me to try drinking the juice of a special herb, THUOC VOI (in Vietnamese). After about two to three months drinking this juice, I was cured.

There were so many touching notes in those letters. The book is so touching, so wonderful, so valuable to have in my life. I am seventy-five years old this year, just a few months older than Presidents Clinton, Bush, and Trump. I have been near death twice and want others to live long so they can enjoy the results of their hardworking lives.

I could never have imagined the coincidences that I could relate to the author’s grandmother, who died by tuberculosis, and the author’s mother, Mary, who lost her mother, Sadie, at the age of five. I had both circumstances in my life, with the loss of my mom, who I could never get back!

I highly recommend the book to you.

—Hanh V. Pham, MD

Board-Certified Neuroradiologist

Former Clinical Professor of Radiology Science, University of California, Irvine

Former Chief of Radiology and Nuclear Medicine

Recipient of a Lifetime Achievement Award for Radiology, University of California, Irvine, 2009

Author’s Notes and Acknowledgments

When I discovered Sadie’s letters, I initially decided I must share them with my family, both immediate family members and cousins. We never knew our grandmother Sadie. Through these letters written in her own words, we now know a little of the woman she was. My first thank you is to Sadie, for showing us her love of family and strength in bearing her condition. And to Sadie’s sister, Ree and Sadie’s daughter, Mary, for lovingly saving the letters and photos that became this book.

I built a Shutterfly photo album of the letters and transcriptions and added family photos and information about tuberculosis (TB) and the sanatorium where Sadie resided. After receiving this album, my cousin Dana (Montgomery) Valentine shared information and photos of her father, Sadie’s son Joe, who also had tuberculosis and spent time in the Maybury, Michigan, sanatorium. This work also brought me closer to another cousin, Cheryl Marcum, whose grandmother was Sadie’s sister and who also had TB and spent time in a sanatorium, but who was able to recover and return to her family. Family and friends encouraged me to think about who else might benefit from Sadie’s story.

I then reached out to the American Lung Association, formed 115 years ago to combat TB. I also contacted the Heartland National TB Center, funded by the Center for Disease Control and located in San Antonio. Many thanks to these specialists who continue the fight against contagious lung diseases by dedicating their lives to the treatment and future eradication of TB and other life-threatening diseases.

Specifically, I would like to thank Victoria Howard at the American Lung Association (ALA) for her encouragement and insight as to how this book might be useful. The ALA has a blog named Each Breath (www.lung.org/blog), which provides updates on the latest lung health news, including COVID-19 information, research, and inspiring stories, and which has included Sadie’s story, lung.org/blog/tuberculosis-sanitorium-sadies-story.

The Heartland National TB Center was interested enough to build a six-minute video on Sadie’s story, which it shared on its World TB Day live webcast provided to healthcare workers in the field of TB. RoShonda Booker did an excellent job developing the video, now available on YouTube,