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Yes, There Really Was a ‘Typhoid Mary,’ an Asymptomatic Carrier Who Infected Her Patrons

Mary Mallon was a great cook. So great that she’d made a comfortable life for herself in the kitchens of the rich after arriving in New York City as a penniless teenager from Ireland.

She was especially known for her peach ice cream.

Later, she became known as “Typhoid Mary,” a moniker recalled over the weekend as young people flooded bars to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, and a Nevada school board candidate wondered why she shouldn’t eat at her favorite Red Robin restaurant amid the novel coronavirus pandemic.

In 1906, it wasn’t a chain restaurant that caught the attention of George Soper but Mary’s peach ice cream recipe. A doctor and “sanitary engineer,” he had been hired by a wealthy family to investigate a typhoid outbreak in the summer home they rented out in Oyster Bay. They were afraid that unless they found the source of outbreak, no one would ever rent it again.

Read entire article at Washington Post