THE MARTYRS OF MEMPHIS:

CONSTANCE AND HER COMPANIONS 9 September 1878

Sister Constance

(Photo from St. Mary's Cathedral, Memphis) In 1878 the American city of Memphis on the Mississippi River was struck by an epidemic of yellow fever, which so depopulated the area that the city lost its charter and was not reorganized for fourteen years. Almost everyone who could afford to do so left the city and fled to higher ground away from the river. (It was not yet known that the disease was mosquito-borne, but it was observed that high and dry areas were safe.) There were in the city several communities of nuns, Anglican or Roman Catholic, who had the opportunity of leaving, but chose to stay and nurse the sick. Most of them, thirty-eight in all, were themselves killed by the fever. One of the first to die (on 9 September 1878) was Constance, head of the (Anglican) Community of St Mary. by James Kiefer [Note: a short, unpublished book about the epidemic written not long after it occurred is available from Project Canterbury.]