In his autobiography, Always the Young Strangers, Carl Sandburg wrote of a family who lived in the house at 641 East South Street. The Sandburgs had rented the house after selling the cottage where Mary and Carl Sandburg were born. The third child, Martin, was born in the house on South Street. The family moved to a larger house on East Berrien Street three years later.

Carl delivered milk to the three-room South Street house. The family included six children. The husband and father worked in the Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad shops as a laborer. He paid his bills on time and had a good reputation. They were Swedish immigrants like Sandburg's own family.

The man became ill with tuberculosis and was unable to work. Tuberculosis was the scourge of the nineteenth century. It was commonly called consumption because of the effect it had on the bodies of those afflicted. One in seven deaths were caused by the bacillus. The disease was rampant where people lived too close together in unsanitary conditions. It was spread by coughing. The cause of the contagion was discovered in the 1870s, but the medical profession failed to recognize it. Another twenty years passed before the science of contagion began to develop.

The sick man's wife took in washing to make a little money to support the family. Sandburg saw her at the tub rubbing cloth on a washboard to get out the dirt. Then the articles had to be hung to dry and ironed. The children delivered the cleaned clothes in a wagon to the homes of the customers.

The mother worked until she was thin and pale, but she never wavered from her goal of keeping her children with her. She took care of her husband until his death.

As the children grew older, they were able to help their mother with the laundry work. They also sought jobs which would help support the family. They became upright and stalwart citizens, just like their parents.

People having the disease and who could afford it traveled to warmer and drier climates. The railroads and city governments in the West and South advertised places which were thought to relieve the symptoms of tuberculosis. Obviously, this family was unable to take advantage of milder weather in other places.

By the turn of the twentieth century, public health departments were conducting campaigns to inform the public about tuberculosis. City, county and state governments were establishing sanatoriums for the care of victims of the disease. The discovery and use of antibiotics during World War II finally began to conquer the disease.

Sandburg didn't mention the name of the family, but he wrote that he heard the mother say, “I did my best with what I had. Sometimes I nearly give out, but I went on. My husband was a good man. The children were such handy little helpers. All we can say is we did the best was in us.”