by Dawn Raffel
“In the last year, he was very bad, financially very bad,” his niece, Ilsa, said. “But even in the last few weeks, he wouldn’t have hesitated to invite you out for dinner.”
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Every year, when the weather turned, the babies went home to their parents. They learned to crawl and they went to school and they walked in caps and gowns. They went to work in offices and factories and hospitals and boardrooms. They went to fight a war and then another. They married. They went to town in new cars. They threw away their hats. They walked around in new clothes that didn’t require an iron. They walked their children down the aisle. The sat in front of their televisions and watched a man walk on the moon. They took their children’s children to the ocean. They bought a new computer and got someone young to help. Some of them went to their graves, but others stepped out of one century and into the next, run on technology that no one, not even Einstein, could have foreseen. They had their knees replaced. They Skyped. They Googled the man who had saved their lives seventy, eighty, ninety years earlier, but all they could find were the things he had said.
In 1943, Cornell New York Hospital opened the city’s first dedicated premature infant station. That same year, Dr. Martin Couney closed his show for the final time. He said his work was done.
EPILOGUE
A cool, end-of-September breeze was blowing through New York. At 8:40 that morning, the plane carrying Pope Francis took off from JFK, ending a forty-hour visit that had gridlocked Manhattan and somehow bathed the city in a fleeting sweet mood.
Uptown at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of New York-Presbyterian, where William Silverman trained a generation of doctors, the treatment of preemies proceeded in its never-ending cycle. Intubated infants drew in exquisitely calibrated doses of oxygen or were assisted in their breathing by continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP). Food flowed through tubes into their mouths or noses, and medication dripped into their bandaged bodies intravenously.
The doctors and nurses on the floor are among the best in the world. Currently in charge is Richard A. Polin, M.D., William T. Speck Professor of Pediatrics, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, and director of the Division of Neonatology. He maintains that skilled nursing, hand hygiene, and the use of breast milk are all important—all things that Martin Couney stressed way back when, along with loving touch. Parental bonding, which has replaced the limited-visitation, hands-off approach, is also encouraged and considered important.
On that late-September day, as happened every day on Dr. Polin’s ward, mothers and fathers sat incubator-side or cradled their tiny newborns, holding them gently so as not to disturb the wires connected to monitors and the tubes delivering sustenance, singing softly, some of them, whispering, “I love you.”
Out at Coney Island, end-of-season stragglers sauntered down the new, improved boardwalk, which had replaced the splintery wood destroyed by Hurricane Sandy. They waded in their rolled-up pants into the chilly Atlantic and wandered up the beach toward the concessions. A couple of blocks inland, the residents of Luna Park Building 2 were sleeping in or going about their usual Saturday business, most of them unaware that their apartment complex sat on the site of an incubator sideshow.
Up the parkway twenty-some miles, in Long Beach, Long Island, Barbara Horn was preparing to retrieve her ninety-five-year-old mother, Lucille, from a nursing facility. The occasion was a reunion of Martin Couney’s babies.
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The last baby homecoming was held in 1940 at the World of Tomorrow, solely for the class of ’39. This twenty-first-century gathering—come one, come all—grew out of months of planning and logistics, after Barbara Gerber (class of ’34), told me she was coming in to visit from California. She was staying in Long Beach, close to our meeting place at Barbara Horn’s apartment. By six that morning, Kathy Meyer (’39) was en route from Connecticut. Her husband was ill, and her plans involved a relay of trains and family arrangements, but she was determined. “I missed the reunion in 1940 because I got sick,” she said. “I don’t want to miss this one.” Betty Heinisch (’42) was traveling 150 miles from Absecon, near Atlantic City. Beth Allen (’41) needed a ride from suburban New Jersey, so I’d be picking her up and we’d make the hour-plus drive together.
Had Martin Couney been in charge, today’s luncheon would have been over-the-top: Platinum cups for everyone, forget about the cost! Instead, it was I who had planned things. The best I could do was order a cake. “Write ‘Happy Reunion’ on it,” I told the baker.
September 26, 2015: Carol Heinisch, Barbara Gerber, Dawn Raffel, Beth Allen (holding a photo of Dr. Couney), Katherine Meyer, Lucille Horn, and her daughter Barbara Horn.
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Martin Couney’s driving was famously atrocious. Mine is not much better. Put me on a freeway with vehicles gunning from thirty directions and signage designed by sadists, and I freak. Now Beth Allen was in the car, along with the cake and the paper plates and the forks and the knives rattling in the back. Please, don’t let me kill her, I prayed, as we scrambled through honking traffic.
Life is full of unexpected outcomes. I got us to Long Beach without even getting lost.
* * *
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One by one the women arrived, in their black slacks and their colorful tops—red and green and speckled blue. They greeted one another not as strangers but as friends who had a deep-as-bones connection. In Barbara Horn’s small living room, their questions overlapped: “Were you a twin too?” “How much did you weigh at birth?” “How long were you on the boardwalk?” “Did anyone other than Martin Couney think that you would live?” Among them, they had celebrated 399 birthdays. Glossy autographed photos of Uncle Martin and Aunt Louise emerged from tote bags, along with yellowing newspaper clippings and tiny ID bracelets with names spelled out in beads. Kathy had her silver cup; she’d missed the reunion, but Martin had sent it to her mother anyway. Out on the porch, the women posed for photographs together, with the ocean in the background, the wind in their hair.
Lucille Conlin Horn, class of 1920, was the oldest. She had grown frailer in the six months since I’d first met her. Back then, her short-term memory had already lost its rooting, but her grasp of the distant past was firm. Her beauty was serene and her blue eyes filled with light. “They said I would never live a day,” she had said with evident pleasure in her graveled voice. She had told me the story of her birth, of her father taking her to the sideshow in a towel, and about the day she visited Martin Couney at the World of Tomorrow. In the end, she did not become a nurse; she married and had five children.
Now Lucille had moved from her daughter’s apartment to a nearby nursing home. Unsteady on her feet and slightly lost, she needed prompting, yet she was clearly happy to be there. As she remembered Martin Couney, her confusion seemed to lift. One more time she recalled the day at the fair, before the war, when she, a young woman, met the man who saved her.
At ninety-five, Lucille had the kind of radiant grace that very old people sometimes have when everything inessential falls away. “He was a very nice man,” she said, folding her hands in her lap.
Dr. Martin A. Couney died on March 1, 1950, and was buried with his wife, Maye, at Cypress Hills Cemetery in Brooklyn. Although the book of records he kept has never been found, every estimate puts the number of children whose lives he saved at between 6,500 and 7,000. There is nothing at his grave to indicate that he did anything of note.
Madame Amelie Louise Recht died the year after her boss, in the spring of 1951. She is buried in Holy Cross Cemetery.
Hildegarde Couney continued to work as a nurse but suffered for years from poor health. She never married or had children. In 1956 she was found dead in her Brooklyn apartment, and she was buried with “Aunt Louise.” She was forty-nine.
Dr. Julius Hess continued to treat and fight
for preemies until his death in 1955. He is widely credited as the father of American neonatology.
Lucille Marion Conlin Horn died on February 9, 2017, at the age of ninety-six. She is buried with her twin sister, who lived for twenty minutes.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The long list of people I need to thank begins with Dr. Lawrence Gartner, who generously shared his research and insights, not only during the Day of Couney but at several other points in the course of writing this book. Dr. Carol Gartner also contributed to the research and discussion. Without them, this book would have been greatly diminished, and many more puzzles would have remained unsolved.
The work of the original Couney buffs, in particular the late Dr. William Silverman and the late Dr. L. Joseph Butterfield, was crucial. Other Couney sleuths, including those who joined in the 1990s, are: Dr. Jeffrey P. Baker, Dr. Julia Whitefield, Dr. Leonore Ballowitz, Dr. Thomas E. Cone, Dr. Murdina M. Desmond, Dr. Lula O. Lubchenco, Dr. Russell A. Nelson, Dr. O. Ward Swamer, and Dr. Paul L. Toubas. I’d also like to cite Dr. Ray Duncan, webmaster at Neonatology.org, for keeping so much information accessible, and for pointing me in the right direction more than once.
Dr. Gerald Oppenheimer, professor of clinical sociomedical sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, studied Martin Couney in the process of writing an excellent history of the beginnings of neonatal public health policy. He took the time to discuss not only his research but also this book and the shape it would take. It was he who first suggested that I carefully examine midway entertainment, including the treatment of “freaks,” indigenous peoples, and even animals.
Ruth Freudenthal, Martin Couney’s grandniece, welcomed me into her home and shared her past in a way that deepened my understanding of this remarkable family. Thank you.
While conducting my research, I had the good fortune of being an Allen Scholar at the New York Public Library, which offered space to write and a wealth of archival resources. The Brooke Russell Astor Rare Manuscript Division was a godsend, as were the genealogy and map divisions. In particular, I want to acknowledge Amanda Seigel in the Dorot Jewish Division, and Carolyn Broomhead and Melanie Locay, who run the Allen Scholar program, offering constant support and keeping everyone sane.
The Coney Island Museum sparked this quest, and I extend gratitude to artistic director Dick Zigun and to Jay Singer; the latter helped me sort out exactly where Martin Couney’s concession stood, and clued me in to the odd fact that in 1888, arriving immigrants’ first sighting of the New World was the Elephant Hotel. Thanks, too, to Charles Denson at the Coney Island History Project.
At the Queens Museum, Richard J. Lee helped me sift through images of the New York World’s Fair and connected me to collectors, including Paul Brigandi, who in turn led me to George C. Tilyou III.
Arlene Shaner, reference librarian at the New York Academy of Medicine, fielded multiple long-shot requests and offered me access to, among other things, a history of New York’s Sloane Hospital, and Arnold Gesell and Catherine Strunk Amatruda’s Embryology of Behavior, filled with images taken at Martin Couney’s show. The New-York Historical Society’s extensive collection of world’s fair clippings and memorabilia helped put events in perspective. Michael Simonson, archivist at the Leo Baeck Institute, shed some light on Martin Couney’s hometown, Krotoschin.
In Chicago, I found initial inspiration at the Chicago Historical Society. The records of Julius Hess and Evelyn Lundeen, along with press releases from the Century of Progress, were to be found at the Regenstein Library at the University of Chicago, while the administrative records of the Century of Progress are held by the Richard J. Daly Library at the University of Illinois in Chicago; the librarians and staff at both institutions were extremely generous in their assistance. Sarah Kirby also helped with preliminary research and Eliot Fackler tracked down photos in Chicago.
The archives at the American Academy of Pediatrics, outside Chicago, hold many of the Couney buffs’ records. My thanks to Veronica Booth for arranging for my visit, which included the pleasure of seeing rare video footage of the incubator doctor himself. Allison Seagram provided additional assistance.
Cynthia Van Ness, director of Library and Archives at the Buffalo History Museum, went the extra mile to help me find information about the Pan-American Exposition and the assassination of William McKinley, sending the microfiche of Dr. Matthew Mann’s scrapbooks downstate so I could find his century-old ticket to the incubator show. Elaine Mosher, library coordinator and assistant research professor of pediatrics at Women & Children’s Hospital of Buffalo, provided me with information about the incubators themselves and gamely conducted a search to see whether any of Dr. Couney’s machines might still be somewhere on the premises (sadly, not).
Valuable intel about Martin Couney’s activities in Omaha came from the Omaha Public Library and the Omaha Historical Society. Timothy Schaffert, whose novel The Swan Gondola is set at the Trans-Mississippi Exposition, provided perspective.
Finding the original, signed naturalization papers for “Martin A. Coney” was a yearlong goose chase through the files of the National Archives, as well as various courts in Omaha. Thank you to Vikki Henry, a research volunteer at the Greater Omaha Genealogical Society, who finally found them.
Molly Kodner, archivist at the Missouri History Museum Library and Research Center, made it possible for me to get copies of transcripts and correspondence crucial to understanding the debacle at the St. Louis World’s Fair; she also provided a copy of Dr. John Zahorsky’s book.
Lorna Kirwin at the Bancroft Library, at the University of California at Berkeley, helped me access the records of the 1915 San Francisco World’s Fair. Quentin Robinson at the Tippecanoe County Historical Association Library and Archives uncovered information about Maye Couney’s mother, including the contents of her will. Stephen R. Wilk brought to my attention to Martin Couney’s concession in Revere, Massachussetts.
Many other individuals helped me find “babies” and information. Carrie Brown, the author of The Hatbox Baby, a moving novel based on a fictional Dr. Couney, connected me with Lucille Horn, for which I am eternally grateful. Michael P. Onorato, an author and historian who wrote the epilogue for the reissue of Edo McCullough’s Good Old Coney Island published in 2000, clarified for me that Martin Couney was at Steeplechase, not just Dreamland and Luna Park.
Thank you to Steven Pressman, whose book 50 Children: One Ordinary American Couple’s Extraordinary Rescue Mission into the Heart of Nazi Germany sheds light on the difficulty faced by Jews trying to escape Hitler’s Germany. Steven connected me with Ron Coleman, reference librarian at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, who helped me find records of some of the people who came to the United States with Martin Couney as their connection.
Richard Polin, M.D., director of neonatology at New York-Presbyterian Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital, graciously gave me a tour of the NICU so that I could see the most cutting-edge treatment available today, and answered my layperson’s questions.
My gratitude to the “babies” knows no bounds: Beth Allen, the late Lucille Horn (and her daughter Barbara Horn), Katherine Ashe Meyer, Barbara Gerber, Carol Heinisch, Norma Coe, Jean Harrison, and Jane Umbarger—you are the heart of this book.
Thank you to Emanuel San Filippo for sharing treasured mementos of his brother, to Ryna Appleton Segal for taking the time to talk with me about her mother’s remarkable life, and to Nedra Justice and Joy (Musselwhite) Aimetti for providing their families’ stories.
Nanette Varian always seemed to see relevant clippings before I did; I am lucky to have a friend who is a gifted investigator. Brendan Raffel Evers conducted a couple of reconnaissance missions—in particular, retrieving the deed to the Couneys’ house. Among the many who made suggestions, served as a sounding board, or offered a strong arm pulling me back from the ledge: Cherie Raffel, Terese Svoboda, Tracy Young, Cindy Handler, Dia
ne DeSanders, Pamela Ryder, Erika Goldman, Judy Sternlight, Bonnie Friedman, Charles Salzberg, Ona Gritz, Etta Jacob, and Joyce Raffel (who provided me with my grandmother’s souvenirs from the Century of Progress). Thanks, as always, to Gordon Lish. I’m indebted to “the salon”: Catherine Woodard, Helen Klein Ross, Chip Brown, Kate Walbert, Will Blythe, Claudia Burbank, and the rest of rotating gang.
My extraordinary agent, Melanie Jackson, believed in this book from the outset—wait, let’s go back. She also believed in my previous books from the outset. For this endeavor, she offered critical encouragement and suggestions countless times along the way. “This book couldn’t have happened without her” is a well-worn cliché, but in this case, it’s entirely true.
My editors patiently waded through multiple drafts: Thank you to David Rosenthal for beginning this journey and to Stephen Morrow, who understood exactly what I needed to do to complete it, helping me make this a far better book. I’d also like to thank Katie Zaborsky and Madeline Newquist, as well as Kathleen Go, Anna Jardine, Loren Jaggers, and the rest of the publishing team.
Above all, I am eternally thankful to my husband, Michael Evers, and our sons, Brendan and Sean, for allowing Martin Couney to move in with our family and make himself at home for several years. And finally, thank you to Pierre the rescue terrier for waiting patiently while I wrote and reminding me to get up and play once in a while.
NOTES
Prologue: Breath
The pains came too early: Lucille Conlin Horn (the baby) and her daughter Barbara Horn, interview with the author, April 12, 2015. The account of the birth, including the dialogue with the obstetrician, is from this interview.