Hero of the Yellow Fever Epidemic
She was a woman of tarnished name,
Annie Cook of Mansion House shame,
And one day the angel of death swooped down,
Thru Memphis streets, and the harvest was brown.
And many a saintly Pharisee fled,
In the awful fear from the dying and the dead.
But Annie Cook threw wider her doors,
And nursed the sick and dying in scores.
She spent her money in every way,
The hand of the terrible plague to stay,
Until she fell in the deadly fray.
And what are the words the World should say?
All honor to her! and a tear and a prayer,
And a wreath of flowers for the sleeper there.
She paid to her Maker the highest price,
That a mortal may — self sacrifice.
NOTE — During the terrible epidemic which nearly depopulated the City of Memphis, Tenn., Annie Cook, (a prostitute), the keeper of a notorious, resort — known as the Mansion House, threw open her doors: turning her place into a hospital, and spent all she had to comfort the suffering. While many ministers of the gospel fled to the mountains in abject fear, Annie Cook stayed and at last fell a victim of the dreaded disease.
