Famine, Flood, and Fever is the second book by Anne Stanton. This work of historical fiction is inspired by the life of Mary Fisher, an ordinary woman whose life touched extraordinary events of the early 20th century. She graduated in 1918 with a degree in nursing at a time when the Spanish Flu was ravaging communities around the world. With advanced training in social work she worked to house homeless men during the Depression and helped refugees from the catastrophic flood on the Ohio River in 1937. She also worked as a relief worker in China for the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) after World War II. Her extraordinary life of service to others is the basis of Famine, Flood, and Fever.
Famine
The photos below were taken in 1946-47 when Mary Fisher worked for the newly formed United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA), an international agency created in 1943 to assist countries devastated by World War II. Mary was stationed in Canton (Guangzhou) China for nearly a year as a Dependent Group Specialist, observing distribution of UNRRA supplies of food and medicine during the short window between the end of World War II and the beginning of the Civil War in China.
Read about Mary’s experience with UNRRA in China (1946-47) here or download it below.
Flood
The photos below are from the 1937 flood on the Ohio River. Mary Fisher served in one of the many temporary tent cities that were built by the Red Cross to house the hundreds of thousands of people displaced by the flood.
Read about Mary’s experience as a Red Cross volunteer in 1937 or download that section below.
Resources
- Staff of the American Red Cross, The Red Cross Courier “Year 1937”, American National Red Cross Publications, 1937.
- David Welky, The thousand-year flood : the Ohio-Mississippi disaster of 1937, University of Chicago Press, 2011.
- Staff of the American National Red Cross, The Ohio-Mississippi valley flood disaster of 1937 : Report of relief operations of the American Red cross, American National Red Cross Publications, 1938.
- Richard Lawrence Beyer, Hell and High Water: The Flood of 1937 in Southern Illinois, University of Illinois Press, 1938.
