Mary Ellen (O’Rourke) Mattimore, mother of Harry and Joseph, died tragically young. She was 27 when death took her near Tucson, Arizona in 1901. Her husband Henry Mattimore was left a widow with two young boys, Harry, then almost six, and Joe just three. How did Mary die? What was she doing in Tucson so far from Buffalo? Read on for her story…

When I say “our” great grandmother, I’m speaking for all those in my generation. Obviously for children in the next generation, she was their great-great grandmother. And sadly, for our elder statesmen Richard and Hank Mattimore and all those of their generation, she was the grandma they never knew.

Before getting to Mary’s death, let me tell you a little about her life, gleaned mostly from passed-down stories from her sister Kate — the famous Aunt Kate — who helped raise the two boys when Mary died, and from archival documents and records.

Mary was born in February 1874 to Cornelius “Connie” O’Rourke and Catherine (King) O’Rourke in Oswego, New York. Mary’s life could not have been an easy one. Her father was a saloon keeper in Oswego, and on Christmas night, December 25, 1875, under the influence of drink, he threw a beer pitcher at a patron who ended up badly cut, nearly losing an eye. Cornelius fled rather than face arrest. Mary was not yet two. The next time we see her, she is six years old living with her grandparents along with her mother and two sisters in Oswego per the 1880 census. Her father is nowhere to be found. Nor is her older brother Frederick, who would have been about 10. Unfortunately I cannot find any information about what happened to her brother.

Sometime after the 1880 census, Mary, her sisters and mother, moved to Buffalo. Less than a year later, Mary’s 5-year-old sister Alice died shockingly on a swing accident. At the time, Mary was just seven and Kate was nine. My mom said that Aunt Kate was always fearful of kids on swings because of what happened to her sister.

I’m not sure if the family lived again with Cornelius, who also ended up in Buffalo, or if they were separated. Aunt Kate never liked to talk much about her father, but when she did, she said he was bad news and referred to him as a blaggard. My mom took that to mean he was a drunkard or scoundrel. It was in Buffalo where Cornelius died in 1887 at the age of just 43. Mary was 13 years old when her father died.

The rest is history as they say. About two years later in 1894, Henry and Mary were married. Son Harry was born in 1895 and Joseph in 1898. But tragically, Mary would die just three years later.

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Harry wrote a family history that includes this: “My father moved the entire family, including my mother’s sister (Aunt Kate) and her mother (Grandma O’Rourke) to Los Angeles in 1899. Unknown to my father, a smallpox epidemic was raging there when we arrived, and I promptly caught the disease. As soon as I recovered, we moved to Tucson, Arizona, where my mother died in 1901 at a mountain resort hotel in Mount Oracle. She was buried in Tucson and we then moved back to Buffalo, in 1902.”

But what made the family move to Los Angeles in the first place? We now know from Mary’s death certificate that she died of tuberculosis (called phthisis on the certificate — an archaic name for TB or consumption back then). The duration listed on the certificate indicates she had the disease for three years and contracted it in New York. So the move in 1899 had to have been right after her diagnosis. In an effort to give his young wife the best possible chance to recover, Henry packed up everyone, belongings and in-laws included, and headed for the dry desert climate that was said to be best for those suffering with tuberculosis. With smallpox raging in LA, and the enticements of the “health hotels” of Tucson, it is not surprising they moved there.

At the turn of the century, Arizona was still just a Territory — and a magnet for those lured by the romance of the Wild West. Penicillin and antibiotics had not yet been discovered. In the early 1900s, tuberculosis killed one in seven people living in the U.S. and Europe. Between 1880 and 1945, if you had tuberculosis, the prescription was Arizona. Tucson, in particular, was “the destination” for the disease. At one point there were more than 30 sanatoriums or hotel-style facilities holding permits in Tucson. Initially sanatoriums were like resorts for the affluent. But most patients in Arizona were working people who couldn’t afford private care. However, many of the mining companies and railroads subsidized the cost of their treatment in hospitals — and Henry worked for the railroad in Tucson.

Nearby Mount Oracle gained international fame as an ideal cure for those suffering from pulmonary and rheumatic diseases. Those with tuberculosis were known disparagingly as “lungers.” In polite society, tuberculosis was called “consumption” because it “consumed” the body. Europeans knew it as “the white plague.” Symptoms were fatigue, night sweats, coughing, chest pain, bloody sputum, and weight loss. The disease sometimes affected the kidneys, brain and spine as well as the lungs. After an article was published in the leading medical journal, many came to Oracle in the belief that plenty of fresh air, sleep, wholesome food and exercise would restore them to good health. 

Before 1920, Tucson had 7,000 people who had come for treatment of tuberculosis. So many people came to the West that not enough housing was available for them all. But this influx of the infected is what gave Arizona the population it needed for statehood. Arizona became a state in 1912.

There was no cure for tuberculosis until the advent of antibiotics in the mid twentieth century. By the 1950s, tuberculosis was no longer a major public health threat. Most sanatoriums were already closed by then or had been demolished years before. But before then, tragically, our great grandmother Mary Mattimore fell victim to the disease on August 1, 1901 in Oracle, Pinal County, Territory of Arizona.

My next post, sort of a part 2, will tell of the search for Mary Mattimore’s burial site in Tucson.

P.S. Does anyone have any other photos of Mary O’Rourke Mattimore? My mother thought the one included in this post was the only known photo of her.

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