Comments on: The Gospel of the House Fly

By: John Mansfield

John Mansfield — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 14:47:45 +0000

This reminded me too of the MIA destruction of mosquito habitat that Marjorie Conder mentions. My mother-in-law has spoken of that as one of the Personal Progress-type activities of her day.

By: Floyd the Wonderdog

Floyd the Wonderdog — Tue, 30 Jun 2009 11:22:10 +0000

Reminds me of the “Kill a Rat Day” in Korea. I still have a poster from that valiant civic effort.

By: Marjorie Conder

Marjorie Conder — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:48:51 +0000

Too lazy to plow through enough materials to get the exact dates, but it seems to me that it was in the early 1920s that the RS sponsored a “swat the fly” campaign. Sisters collected the flies they had killed in fruit jars and brought them to RS and together they celebrated their collective public health effort. I remember one RS magazine even had a “Swat the fly” skit for RS sisters to perform. This odd chapter of RS history was celebrated in the RS sesquicentennial exhibit at the Church museum in 1992. (I was the curator of the exhibit.) Yours truly caught a jar of flies, mostly at Wheeler Historic Farm in SL County and then put them in an antique canning jar from my MIL’s home.

At about the same time the Mutual girls were going after mosquitos by pouring kerosene on standing water.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:46:52 +0000

kevinf, I never thought about the pickup schedule being timed to the life cycle of the fly rather than the convenience of a 40-hour work week. I’ll have to remember this if any place I live considers handing out larger cans and collecting only once every two weeks, or anything like that.

By: kevinf

kevinf — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 23:23:06 +0000

This is why in urban areas garbage collection is weekly on a regular basis, as the life cycle of the fly, as noted, is 10 days. Even if the garbage is fly infested, it gets removed before the larvae have time to grow to adulthood. At least that’s the plan. A new garbage removal service for downtown Seattle FAILED miserably earlier this year. Rumor has it that they have worked out the bugs, finally. .

By: J. Stapley

J. Stapley — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:38:05 +0000

I had forgotten about that post and I hadn’t made the connection when I previously read it. But surely, it must be. Fascinating.

By: Ardis E. Parshall

Ardis E. Parshall — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 21:09:51 +0000

J., I’ll bet the fly trap the RS was promoting is the one in the first fly post I linked to in #4.

That’s some fierce passion, S.! You remind me of my parents’ admonitions, although they weren’t quite so passionate: “Close the door! You’re letting all the heat out!” in the winter, and “Close the door! You’re letting all the flies in!” in the summer.

By: S. Taylor

S. Taylor — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:42:27 +0000

My mother was raised a Baptist in Salt Lake, but hated flies with the passion of a Mia Maid who had read Professor Brown’s article. She used to quote statistics to us children about the potential number of Summer flies eliminated if one killed a fly in early Spring.

Leaving the screen door ajar was one way to elicit such passionately delivered statistics. This did not induce me to remember to close the screen door, but did cause me to visualize what would happen if all of those flies hatched early in the warm season survived until October. Not a pleasant thought.

I once brought up the fact that something else besides her fly swatter must be killing a lot of flies or we would be pretty much inundated, if her figures were correct. She just looked at me as if I had revealed myself to be a traitor in the Fly Wars. The thought still makes me a little uncomfortable.

By: J. Stapley

J. Stapley — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:32:15 +0000

This was surely in concurrence with the hygeine reform of the RS that championed a state-wide push to get rid of flies. For example the July 1914 RS a lesson on Health and Hygiene included this:

We are enclosing also bulletins for our public health committee. We urge our sisters to assist in giving publicity to these bulletins, and to do all in their power toward the extermination of the death dealing fly.

The fly trap should be made and used.

By: Paul Reeve

Paul Reeve — Mon, 29 Jun 2009 20:04:19 +0000

What do Mormons and manure and have in common?

Spread em around and they do a lot of good. Pile em up and they start to stink.