Margaret Houston’s Breast Cancer by Danielle Brissette

By Danielle R. Brissette, Historical Interpreter

Quick, what do Queen Anne of Austria (1601-1666), First Lady Betty Ford (1918-2011), Julia Child (1912-2004), Sheryl Crow (1962), and Margaret Lea Houston (1819-1867) all have in common? Aside from the obvious that they are all women, these ladies share something with an estimated 2.6 million women in the United States today: breast cancer. Although the topic is not altogether pleasant, it is important and timely as October, in addition to being Archaeology Month, is also Breast Cancer Awareness Month. 

Cancer of the breast has been around for a long, long time. In fact, one of the very first references to cancer ever found was on an Egyptian papyrus scroll from circa 1500 b.c. which details tumors of the breast. Until the late 19^th century, however, breast cancer was a fatal disease. Before 1890, the likelihood of surviving twenty years after discovering breast cancer was just one in ten. Treatments ranged from radical surgery, to oils and concoctions, to a do nothing approach. It is facts like these that make Margaret Houston’s story all the more evocative. This article will recount Margaret Houston’s experience with breast cancer. If you are sensitive to descriptions of medical procedures, I recommend you avert your eyes and check back in next week . This article is as factual and honest as I could research.

In 1847, Margaret Houston was the proud mother of a son, Sam Jr., and a baby daughter, Nancy Elizabeth. Her husband, Gen. Sam Houston was a Senator serving in Washington, D.C., while she herself resided at Raven Hill, a plantation 14 miles to the east of Huntsville. Before the birth of her first child in 1843, she complained of tenderness in her right breast. The issue was seemingly ignored until February of 1847 when she finally wrote to Sam that “I have suffered two or three mails to pass without writing to you for the reason that my breast was in such condition that I could not write without detriment to myself. It has risen three times and presented such an angry appearance” that the family sent for the Doctor, an old friend of Sam Houston’s and probably the best physician in the state, Ashbel Smith. 

“The Father of Texas Medicine”, as Dr. Smith is now called, was worried about operating with Sam so far away. He gave Margaret a topical treatment and returned home. A few days later, Margaret’s breast had again swollen and become quite painful. According to one account, it even burst and liquid came out. 

Dr. Smith scheduled her surgery for early March and advised her to stop breast feeding until then. He told her that the operation would be a “mere trifle and easily performed in two minutes.” When he returned, however, he brought with him a bottle of whiskey which belied his earlier statement. There were no other pain killers available, no anesthetics to put Margaret to sleep, and no laudanum to quiet her senses. Just the whiskey.  However, Margaret was a lifelong Baptist, a teetotaler, and an advocate for temperance. She had spent years encouraging her husband to abstain from drinking alcohol and could not, in good faith, drink any herself. Despite the encouragement of her doctor and family, Margaret did what many of us could not do. She denied herself the whiskey, closed her eyes, and instead bit on a silver coin while Dr. Smith removed a large portion of her right breast. He later commented that she “bore the pain with great fortitude.” 

Later that day, as Margaret recovered, Doctor Smith wrote to Sam: “It was with some anxiety that I undertook so serious an operation in your absence, but an operation offered the only possible cure and its necessity was urgent.” And the operation was serious, very much so. To put it into context, in Vienna in 1870 (23 years after Margaret had her partial mastectomy) out of 170 cases where women had operations on breast tumors, 34 died during the procedure, 128 had the cancer return, and only 8 were cured. Given these statistics, it seems that Margaret Houston’s recovery was very lucky indeed. 

Margaret did not suffer from a return of her cancer. She did encourage her husband to sell the isolated Raven Hill plantation and bought a home in a more urban area, Huntsville. Margaret lived for another twenty years and passed away in 1867 in Independence, Texas, from Yellow Fever. Her story is similar to those of thousands, or millions, of women who suffered from cancers of the breast before the advent of modern cancer treatment. Her survival is remarkable, as are countless other aspects of her life. 

This story resonates because it reminds us of the hidden strengths in those around us. It shows us how far we have come, medically.  And it reminds us that our health is vital, for ourselves, and for our families. If you are a woman over 40, please get a mammogram every year. If you have a family history of breast cancer, talk to your doctor about it. And if you are a woman at any age, check yourself monthly. We have advantages Margaret lacked-- thank heavens—let’s use them!

 (References include the American Cancer Society, “Sam Houston’s Wife” by William Seale,  “Bathsheba’s Breast: Women, Cancer, and History” by James S. Olson, “Purgatory on Earth; An Account of Breast Cancer from Nineteenth-Century France” by Therese Taylor, and the Texas State Historical Association.)