Jackson-Madison County presents "Epidemics of Jackson-Madison County"

MADISON COUNTY, TN (WNBJ)-

As Madison County celebrates its bicentennial year, archivists at the Jackson Madison County library remind us that it hasn’t always been an easy walk.

“I think it’s important to remember all of our history. We learn from all of it and there is just an eb and flow with good, with bad things that we experience, and it just enriches us as a community,” said library Archivist Evelyn Keele.

Keele and fellow Madison County archivist Lorri Skelton shared about the epidemics of Jackson-Madison County

“There have been many of those and they tell us the story of what the people of Madison County have experienced in the past," said Keele.

The epidemics discussed were Small Pocks. Tuberculous, Typhoid Fever, Yellow Fever and Influenza.

Keele said we can relate to those Tennesseans that experienced the influenza pandemic,

“There has been a lot of interest of course in the likeness of the pandemic now that we experience with covid to the influenza outbreak of 1918, since it was so global in nature.”

Keele said this the topic today was somber and not as celebratory as some of the other bicentennial events, but she believes it is important to remember the struggles of the past.

Madison county survived the Influenza pandemic and Keele believes history will repeat itself with the Covid pandemic,

“We can look forward with optimism, one day this will be history and we will have come through it.”