NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) – Daddy had tuberculosis, and not the kind romanticized by lonely poets like Lord Byron.
In the 1940s, the lung infection was an easily caught, easily transmitted, deadly disease – and people were terrified of it.
Quarantine signs were posted in front of his family’s East Nashville home warning others to stay away.
And his little girl, an only child named Lois, was left to play at home alone.
The objects around her, delightful and distinct, became her companions. A bee she pulled on a string, a miniature red school house, a fossil collection, a nurse doll named Mary Jane. These items became part of Lois Riggins-Ezzell’s story. And her future, serving as executive director of the Tennessee State Museum, became a study in them.