It was December 23, 1910, and a plague of diphtheria swept through
eastern Czechoslovakia that Christmas season. In the tiny village of Velky
Slavkov, lying in the shadow of the High Tatra Mountains, a solitary man walked
a deserted street. Pushing his hat lower
on his head against the bitter wind, the man pressed ahead, passing homes with
drawn shades and tightly shuttered windows.
For weeks, diphtheria—an acute infectious disease that strikes the
upper respiratory system—had ravaged the small towns along the foothills of the
Tatra region. Nearly half the townspeople of Velky Slavkov had fallen to the
plague; many of the victims were young children less than 10 years of age.
Carrying a pail of black paint, the man climbed a flight of outdoor
stairs and swabbed an “X” on the wooden doorpost of the Boratkova household. Another
home was quarantined.
After the man left, Suzanna Boratkova kneeled at her doorpost, weeping
and praying in Slovak. In less than a week, she and her husband, Jano, were
suddenly childless. Their oldest child, 5-year-old Malena, had succumbed to the
disease a few days earlier. In the back yard, Jano labored in the woodshed,
pounding the last nail into a coffin he was building for his two sons, who had
died earlier that day from diphtheria.
Between sobs, Jano coughed and wheezed, because he, too, had contracted
the deadly plague.
Suzanna returned to the house. Crying in agony, she cleaned and
wrapped her sons for the final time, carefully laying them into the handmade
pine caskets. She and Jano lifted them onto the wagon, and with a quick jerk of
the reins, started the slow journey to the town cemetery.
Driving the horses through the foot-high snow, Jano and Suzanna
braced themselves against a chilling wind that stung both body and soul.
“Another trip to the graveyard is more than I can bear!” Suzanna
cried out, as they passed house after house marred with the black death mark. The
couple empathized with those families, but they didn’t have the strength to
offer sympathy or encouragement. They
were too wrapped up in their own grief, much like the cotton muslins tightly
swathed around their sons.
Two more grave sites had been dug into the frozen earth. Now, all
three children were together for eternity. Suzanna struggling through the
Lord’s Prayer, hugged the cold ground and wouldn’t let go. Jano finally pulled
her away with what little strength he had and led her back to the wagon. She
clutched her empty arms and crossed them over her broken heart. She reminded
herself that she would never hold her babies again.
Tomorrow was Christmas Eve. As Jano and Suzanna re-entered their
barren and branded house, they needed comfort. They needed solace from their
village friends. But no one dared come near. There were no Christmas greetings.
No sympathies were extended. The black “X” spelled “DEATH” and “DO NOT ENTER”. Their
dark house was a frightful, forbidden tomb.
Little high-laced brown leather shoes were still lined up against
the wood stove—as they usually were when the children were tenderly tucked into
the same bed. But now, the large feather bed was empty, and the old stucco
house had never felt so cold.
“I won’t see another Christmas,” Jano whispered weakly to his wife.
“I don’t think I’ll see the New Year in, either.”
He pushed away the soup and bread that he could not swallow. It was
as though the diphtheria had tied a noose tightly around his throat, neither
allowing food nor sufficient air to sustain him. The village doctor had
shrugged his shoulders when he visited Jano a few days before. He had no cure.
Suzanna gathered some kindling wood and lit a fire for the night, sure
that her husband was about to die.
Morning arrived—Jano was still alive. Snowflakes fell from a gray sky
and the wind blew a white mist over the frosted windows. Suzanna, exhausted
from a restless night with little sleep, dipped her cloth again in cold water
to cool Jano’s burning fever. Then, rubbing the icy glaze off her lattice
window, she fixed her eyes on the Tatra Mountains. Her mind contemplated Psalm
121:1-2; “I will look to the hills from whence cometh my help.”
Suddenly her gaze was interrupted as she saw a peasant woman
trudging through the snow. The old woman’s red and purple plaid shawl, draped
over her hunched shoulders, hardly seemed warm enough against the morning
chill. A babushka, or kerchief, was wrapped around her head. Her long peasant
skirt was a bright display of cotton and linen patchwork, and her woolen
leggings and high-buttoned boots allowed her to successfully trod the
snow-filled street. In one of her uncovered hands she held a jar of clear
liquid. Suzanna stood half-stunned as she watched the old woman shuffle up the
forbidden walkway.
Suzanna heard the knocker strike twice. She cautiously opened the
door and saw an unusual face, one wrinkled from years of farm work and severe
winters. But her eyes expressed a warmth that filled Suzanna’s heart.
“We have the plague in our home, and my husband is in a fever right
now,” Suzanna warned her.
The old woman nodded, and then asked if she could step inside. She
held out her little jar to Suzanna.
“Take a clean, white linen and wrap it around your finger,” she
instructed. “Dip your finger into this pure kerosene oil and swab out your
husband’s throat, and then have him swallow a tablespoon of the oil. This
should cause him to vomit the deadly mucous. Otherwise he will surely
suffocate. I will pray for you and your family.”
The old woman squeezed Suzanna’s hand and quickly stepped out to
the frigid outdoors. Never before had Suzanna’s heart been touched in this way.
Here was a poor woman appearing—in love—on her doorstep in the midst of a
plague. Her unexpected gift was folk remedy against diphtheria.
“I’ll try it,” she called out to the old woman, with tears in her
eyes. “God bless you.”
Early Christmas morning, Jano retched up the deadly phlegm. His
fever was broken. Suzanna wept and praised God. A flicker of hope lightened her
heart for a moment; surely God would someday bless her and Jano with more
children.
There were no presents under a trimmed and tinseled tree that
Christmas morning. But the jar of oil glimmering on the window sill was a gift
of life for generations to come.
Postscript: In the days following the miraculous healing of Jano,
Suzanna shared the folk remedy with neighbors. In the 1920’s, Jano emigrated to
America to find work, Suzanna joined him later with their eight children.
Their ship reached Ellis Island on
Washington’s birthday, February 22, 1926, and the family settled near the steel
mills of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. The family consisted of a set of triplets,
two sets of twins, and two single births. Two of the triplet boys were named
John and Paul after the two sons who died from diphtheria. The other triplet
was named Samuel, who today is the father of this author.
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