Sally Edelstein

Word Count 826

Flies were the nemesis of both my mother and grandmother. Since summertime threatened to bring a squadron to our suburban home, my father would lug the cumbersome galvanized steel screens up from the basement, replacing winter’s storm windows. In the days before air conditioning, open windows were a necessity; a window without a screen was tantamount to a door without a lock. 

While my Dad brushed flies off as a harmless nuisance, my mother felt truly threatened. In her mind, jet setting flies carried germs from one port of call to another, a direct route from the slums to the suburbs, with pit stops along the way to refuel in piles of manure, But it was Sadie, my grandmother, who was most shaken at the sight of a fly. 

Summer days days spent as a guest of my Nana at her Long Island beach club would bring out both the flying insects and her lifelong fears. For Nana Sadie, days at the club were spent sitting outside the pink painted cabanas playing mah jongg, nibbling on "Blum’s" salted mixed nuts. Along with the sounds of the ocean waves and the staccato Click Clack of the mah jongg tiles was the constant sound of the fly swatter. Thwick Thwack.

One day, just as I was about to sink my teeth into a downy, yellow peach plucked from a brown paper bag, Mom let out an audible gasp and snatched the fruit away from me.  My eyes downcast, I was admonished to make sure it was washed. More memorable was Nana’s look of panic at the notion that the fly - this most feared and dangerous beast that feasted greedily in uncovered garbage cans on rotting food, could have landed on my nice ripe peach . 

 “Why are you so afraid?” I finally asked Nana. It was then that she told me the story about the terrible 1916 polio epidemic in her beloved Brooklyn.

That outbreak of infantile paralysis was unexpected, leaving health officials clueless at how to control it. It brought panic, sudden death, and medical bafflement, causing suburbs to create roadblocks against city children. The effects on the people were calamitous.  Public health authorities could not agree on the right approach and the public knew it. Tempers flared and contradictory recommendations fed a growing hysteria. 

When the front pages of the dozens of daily newspapers began printing in bold black type the growing number of cases and deaths from polio, the public panicked. Anything and everything –from wet laundry to dollar bills–.came under suspicion. Danger could be lurking right around the corner- yesterday a shared sarsaparilla in a soda fountain, today a sneeze on in a streetcar, tomorrow-who knows- a borrowed book from the public library.

But the favorite source of blame was the fly.

Since the polio epidemics had occurred in hot summer months when flies were so prevalent, a very popular theory circulated that in the hot sun the skin of fruits nurtured the infantile paralysis germs which had been left there by the dastardly fly.

If the CDC  had existed when Nana was a little girl, there is no doubt in her mind its number one most wanted, most dangerous menace to society would be the American housefly. In the public’s mind they were more menacing than the German or even the Anarchist. To nerve-jangled New Yorkers, uncovered garbage cans were a ticking time bomb - breeding grounds for thousands of flies poised to crawl all over babies’ bottles and lips.

Ominous warnings appeared in advertisements and articles. Like this one from Ladies Home Journal:

“The Fatal Housefly. Swat him is the seasonal slogan- for this multitudinous Pest is as serious a Menace to our soldiers as German Bullets and as deadly a blight on the whole community as Poison Gas.”

The anti-fly campaign was the cornerstone of the Board of Health crusade against polio. It was at the numerous city-sponsored “Swat the Fly” contests held that summer that Sadie honed her considerable fly-swatting skills. The campaign was based on a 1910 nationwide Boy Scout “Swat The Fly” drive encouraging Scouts to sell swatters to family and friends for health reasons. 

The fly swatter became summer's must-have accessory as grown men and women walked the streets in syncopated rhythm swatting flies. There were sporty swatters with wooden telescopic handles and some with mesh screening attached to a yardstick. It was thought prudent that every home should have one in every room.

 As I listened, I could feel my ankles being bitten by the notorious no-see-ums that appeared in the afternoon. These invisible sand flies, impervious to screens, could infiltrate anywhere and short of a true SWAT team, getting rid of them was a losing battle. The constant sound of slapping now accompanied the clicking of mah jongg tiles. With each slap, I wondered to myself if maybe somehow these were the very flies that carried polio.  

By early fall 1916, the polio epidemic disappeared as did the menacing flies. In time,  a vaccine would rid the world of polio. But every summer those buzzing pests would return like clockwork. As would the old fears. And the fly swatters. 

Sally is an award-winning collage artist and writer who considers herself a visual archeologist digging deep into American mythology. An incurable collector of vintage ephemera, that serves as a source for both her hand-cut collages and her writing, she draws heavily on popular culture and how it both informs our identities and fragments it.  

Along with feminist icons such as Judy Chicago, her work is currently on view in “Agency: Feminist Art and Power” at The Museum of Sonoma County, CA until June 2022.