Wedding Wednesday

 

Pauline Dudley Powell

(1909-1990)

and

Vernon Eddie McDaniel

(1909-1934)

(Pictured above on their wedding day)

were Married

1933

in Kite, Johnson County, Georgia, USA

Sadly, Vernon Eddie McDaniel passed away just a year later from malaria. I had not seen malaria as a cause of death before so I asked Google Gemini and of course, learned something new.

Malaria is transmitted by infected mosquitos.  We have plenty of those here in the South.

Was Malaria Common in the U.S. in the 1930s?

Yes. During the 1930s, malaria was still a significant public health problem and a notable cause of illness and death across the Southeastern United States.
Geographic Spread: The disease was endemic throughout much of the American South—stretching from Texas and the Mississippi River Valley up through parts of the Midwest and along the Atlantic seaboard. Rural, low-lying, and swampy regions with high mosquito populations were hit hardest.

Economic hardship during the 1930s due to the Great Depression exacerbated the crisis, as many families could not afford window screens, quinine treatment, or proper housing repairs to keep mosquitoes out.

Malaria remained a persistent threat until the federal government launched intensive eradication campaigns during and after World War II. Utilizing widespread mosquito control (such as draining wetlands and spraying DDT) alongside the distribution of effective treatments, the U.S. Public Health Service successfully eliminated endemic malaria from the United States by the early 1950s.

Their child, Eddie Allen McDonald, was born less than a month before his father passed away.