LOCALadk Magazine

LOCALadk 52 one of the larger sanitariums doing crafts, putting on theatricals, and enjoying outdoor activities. I'd roman- ticized what it would have been like to "cure" here. But between 1887-1932, the time period that my project happened to span, "the cure" consisted of isolating, resting as comfortably as possible, and oftentimes waiting to die. It wasn't until the major medical ad- vancements in the 40's and 50's that a diagnosis of tu- berculosis was no longer considered a death sentence. After visiting twelve cure cottages and logging only 29.51 miles of my tour, my purpose had shifted along with my expectations for the outcome. I was no longer wandering around just looking at cool old houses. I now looked at these build- ings with a new respect for the suffering their occupants endured and the fear they must have felt in the final decades before a true "cure" was devel- oped. I was aware now that since my list spanned the years of 1887-1932, I would likely find more sad sto- ries than not. Yet along with the sadness, I would also find beauty and ultimately, an end to great suffering. These are just a few of the stories I found. In 1915, at the age of only twenty, Kathleen McPar- land Hammond arrived in Saranac Lake after contract- ing tuberculosis. She stayed briefly at the Santanoni Apartments, but later settled at Morgan Cottage on Park Avenue, where she would succumb to the disease in 1919. She was originally from Kingston, Ontario, where she enjoyed a wealthy lifestyle. I read in a few sources that she was a composer of music revues in Canada, but unfortunately, I was unable to find any of her compositions. Just months before she was sent to cure, she and her husband of six years were sailing together on that fateful last voyage of the Lusitania. She was one of the fortunate 764 survivors. Yet, sourc- es say she never really recovered from the loss of her husband, suffering from "nervous prostration" before developing TB. As I stand in front of Morgan Cottage with its stone foundation and octagonal cure porch, I like to imagine husband and wife reunited somewhere, Kathleen once again compos- ing music. Edward and Isabel Shaw, along with their two small children, moved to the village in 1923 so Isabel could take the cure. Edward built two cottages on one parcel of land. The first cottage had a cure porch where Isabel mostly stayed. The porch win- dows faced a smaller cottage where the children lived. Edward moved between the two cottages, tending to both his wife and his children. Isabel died three years later, and the family moved away for good. Christy "Matty" Mathewson was a beloved pitcher for the New York Giants and was one of the first base- ball players inducted into the Hall of Fame. An early 20th century sportswriter, Granyland Rice said of him, "Christy Mathewson brought something to baseball no one else had ever given the game. He handed the

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