Mother of the chapel

Ten people lay dead across the road from where Mary Jones lived on Winchester Street.

The neighbourhood was like a ghost town. Schools and churches had closed. Bodies were taken from the streets and disposed of where they could do no harm to the living. Those with money had fled the city. Those without remained, and prayed that the fever wouldn’t find its way into their home.

It was 1867, America was a few short years out of the Civil War, and a yellow fever epidemic was sweeping through the streets of Memphis, Tennessee.