Unicorn Chickens

Mary Mallon

Mary Mallon

Mary Mallon was born September 3rd, 1869 in Cookstown, Country Tyrone in Northern Ireland. She emigrated to the United States in 1884 ate the age of 15, where she lived with her aunt and uncle and cooked for rich families. She moved to Manhattan and cooked for families there. George Soper, from the Department of Health and Sanitation, was investigating typhoid outbreaks across the city, and found Mary Mallon had cooked in each of the households. He then tried to apprehend her various ways, the first at a house she was working at where she threatened him with a knife. One time he followed her to her house and she threw a kitchen fork at him as he tried to get away. He finally quarantined her with the help of the police and Dr. Sara Josephine Baker. Upon further investigation, she said that she did not wash her hands when she was cooking and did not see the need to do so. The doctors found that her gallbladder was teeming with salmonella, but when they asked her if they could remove it, she refused saying that she didn't have typhoid and had never had a sick day in her life. She never could understand or admit that she had typhoid and so they had to quarantine her. In 1910, they let her go with the promise that she wouldn't work as a cook anymore. So she got a job as a laundress - which pays less than a cook - but soon changed her name to Mary Brown and got a job as a cook again. For the next five years she worked in a number of kitchens, all of which got typhoid. Although Soper was looking for her, she changed jobs frequently and was unable to find her. In 1915, Mary started another major outbreak in the Sloane Hospital for Women. 25 people were infected and two died. Again, she got away, but was arrested when bringing food to a friend on Long Island. Agter arresting her, they quarantined her again on North Brother Island where she lived the rest of her life with her dog. Six years before her death, she was paralyzed by a stroke. On November 11th, 1938, she died of pneumonia at the age of 68.