The Hoof and Mouth Disease of 1914: A Vignette

   As Mokena continues to sit tight in a world gripped by COVID-19, many of the peculiarities of this new existence have become normal. Social distancing, isolating at home, and even shortages in stores are things villagers of 2020 have slowly become used to. As we have seen in my last article, quarantine and surviving infectious disease aren’t new concepts in Mokena’s long history, the community having made it through everything from the dreaded Spanish Flu, to smallpox and measles, among a host of other illnesses. However, especially unique in our village’s experience is the flare up of hoof and mouth disease that began in 1914 and carried on into 1915. 

   What makes this malady different from so many of the others in our past is that it mainly attacks animals, specifically those of the cloven-hoofed variety. In rare cases, it can also be passed to humans, and is characterized by fever and rupturing blisters on the feet and mouth of those infected. It is a highly contagious and often fatal viral disease, one that struck fear into the hearts of so many of our forefathers in and around in Mokena, as many of them gained their living from animals. 

  At the end of 1914, the feared hoof and mouth disease was noticed amongst cattle herds in eastern Will County. To prevent its spread, dairy farms around Mokena were placed under quarantine, as was the Cleveland school, a small country schoolhouse that stood on the northeast side of what is today the intersection of Wolf Road and the Lincoln Highway. Gradually, by the end of November, the quarantine had been lifted on most of the farms where the illness had exhibited itself. The stockyards at the eastern edge of the village, where large numbers of cattle passed through on a regular basis, were completely disinfected and also newly whitewashed.

   The outbreak was taken very seriously; by the time January 1915 was wrapping up, a ban was slapped onto all local farmers from not only shipping cattle and milk over the Rock Island railroad into Chicago, but a new one also prevented them from transporting grain as well. Mokena livestock handlers such as John Cappel, Emil Krapp, and George W. Maue met at the Union Stockyards in Chicago on February 22^nd to confer with other Will County cattle men on how to handle the situation, and the realization was reached that before long, the whole county would “classified as exposed territory.”

   As the quarantines first started to be lifted in November 1914, one farm remained under tight control, that of dairyman Christian Warning. Making their homestead along the Lincoln Highway, the Warning clan originated in the tiny village of Warnow, in what is today the northeast German state of Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. In the fall of 1881, they left home and hearth and made their way to America’s shore, and came to call Mokena home. After marrying Elizabeth Clausen in 1892, 33-year-old Christian Warning purchased the old 160-acre Leffler farm almost two miles south of Mokena, where he and Elizabeth would raise six children.  

The former farmhouse of Christian Warning as it appears on today's Lincoln Highway. 

   A man of no small influence, Christian Warning was elected highway commissioner of Frankfort Township in 1913, and took office after a brief but intense scandal in which the legitimacy of his American citizenship was questioned. As hoof and mouth disease appeared on his farm a year later, the language of the surviving historical record hints at the notion that not all was being done to combat the malady by Warning as could be. The seriousness of the situation at the farm was spelled out in black and white in the Mokena column of the November 25^th, 1914 edition of the Joliet Herald-News. Amidst a blurb detailing the theft of a valuable horse and two buggies from a farm east of town, the correspondent issued a stark admonition. Addressing him by name, a sentence was tacked on that read “Christian Warning! Sick cows will be killed. The trench is being dug.”

   Whether any of his animals had to be condemned has been lost to time, but before the hoof and mouth debacle was over, Warning’s livestock herd was decimated, having lost 74 head of cattle, 35 hogs and 100 ducks. In mid-February 1915, a state inspector was on the property and finally gave the all clear. While the Warning family could count their blessings at having stayed healthy, their livelihood was irreversibly wrecked, and had to make the switch to general farming. 

   Looking back at the hardships endured by our forefathers in their wrangling with various contagious diseases over the years, it becomes easier to be thankful all the more for the advancements of medical technology and the hard work of our doctors and nurses.