by Dotty Wilhelm French, originally published in the Women’s History Project of Northwest Michigan newsletter, January 2015

When I was a child, I lived down the street from my grandmother, Kate Smith Wilhelm, who died of tuberculosis. Her death was to affect my growing-up years.

Kate was born on South Manitou Island in 1868. The islands were settled before the mainland as a place where merchants sold supplies and wood to ships, the major form of transportation around the Great Lakes in those days. Kate left the island and came to the mainland to work.

My grandfather, Anthony Wilhelm, had opened the A.J. Wilhelm Department Store in 1886 and, in 1891, he hired Kate as a clerk. In 1896, Kate and Anthony were married.

I was born in 1925 and lived just three houses away on the same street from my grandmother and I visited her often.

In 1932, Kate died of tuberculosis, the biggest killer in those days. When she did, the doctor said that, because I was so thin, that I must have contracted childhood TB from my grandmother.

The treatment for TB in those days was fresh air and sunshine, plus plenty of sleep. I had to take a nap every afternoon, although I often pretended that I was asleep.

To provide the fresh air and sunshine for my recovery, my parents bought property next to friends and built a cottage at Crescent Shores on Long Lake. Very few people had cottages in those days and those who did had no electricity or phone, and had to pump for water at the cottage. But my parents wanted to be sure that I stayed healthy and, as you were supposed to in those days, become chubby instead of stick-thin!

After graduation from high school in 1943, I went to the University of Michigan. In those days, students were checked for height and weight. I weighed 100 pounds and was 5 feet and 2 inches tall. I had very long legs and arms and a small body. Legs and arms do not weigh much.

After my exam, they said that I was too thin to take the required modern dance class and that I should take archery and golf instead. I was the envy of all the girls living in Betsy Barbour dormitory.

I graduated from Michigan in 1947, the year that Traverse City celebrated becoming 100 years as a city. Everyone wore the oldest-fashioned clothes that they could find for the celebration. The men grew beards. I wore a beautiful, 100-year-old blue dress, that fit my thin frame well.

I returned to college that fall and got a degree in Occupational Therapy. Part of the training was to spend time in each type of hospital, e.g., children’s hospitals, regular hospitals, and TB sanitariums.

While going a rotation at the Detroit TB Sanitarium (around 1948), the doctor called me into his office. He told me that I never had TB. My Mantioux screening test, which is a tuberculin sensitivity test for screening for TB, had been negative. I had never even been exposed.

All those childhood days treating me for TB- just because I was slender. Today they would say I was just fine!