Diary Entry: Saturday, February 3, 1866

The forenoon of today has been spent making a bonnet to wear, and owing to a headache feeling unable to do much more. Anna French is better today. At two oclock an ambulance wagon came round to take us out riding and eight of our family took passage for the woods a mile or more southeast of Jackson. We found it a rather wild looking place unlike our northern forests in many things.  

There were cypress trees and around these the ground was thickly set with little projections from the roots called cypress knees, topless and leafless.

– Mary Jane Edwards

Today, it’s known as SAD, Seasonal Affective Disorder.  

As I sit writing with a disc emitting fake yellowish sunlight pointing at my face, I wonder if Mary Jane was impacted by the lack of sunlight in Mississippi’s wet, gloomy, cool February. 

Certainly her frequent headaches and occasional lethargy could’ve been related to the number of contagious illnesses swirling around. 

But the challenges she faced working in a place where she wasn’t welcome, with enormous classes, and among colleagues whose ideas about teaching were different from her own presented its own problems. 

Maybe even situational depression!

In her year-long diary, Mary Jane mentions someone being sick 41 times. She records several symptoms that plagued the northern teachers who went south, as well as friends and relatives back in Indiana.  Headaches, hoarseness, sore throats, coughs, chills, and fevers were common.  

She also  goes on to name ailments by names we don’t always recognize today, like “congestion of the lungs” and “sick headaches.” 

Other illnesses we do know, such as flu, “cholera morbus,” and smallpox.  

All scary business in a time without antibiotics! And bound to make one’s state of mind edgy.

Whatever Mary Jane’s physical and emotional struggles that winter might be labeled, one remedy still holds true today: an excursion into the wild woods can provide a restorative dose from nature’s pharmacy. 

How do you keep healthy–mind and body–during the bleak winter?