Cookstown woman ‘Typhoid Mary’ was once ‘America’s most dangerous woman’

This week, Rock and District Historical Society will host a talk on Typhoid Mary.

Mary Mallon grew up outside Cookstown and emigrated to New York in 1883, at the age of 15. She gained a reputation as an excellent cook, and for many years worked in the kitchens of some of the city’s most prominent families.

However she was imprisoned after a series of tragic events in the early 1900s, and was destined to spend the final 31 years of her life in solitary confinement, labelled by the popular press as ‘the most dangerous woman in America’.

Her treatment divided American society and illustrates the difficult conditions under which Irish immigrants lived.

Doctor John Quinn will tell the tragic story of this 19th century Tyrone emigrant at a meeting of Rock and District Historical Society in the old Rock school on Thursday 12th November at 8pm.

This talk is supported by the Good Relations Department, Mid- Ulster Council.