Here Is Where: Discovering America's Great Forgotten History (39 page)

At NCAUR there was further cause for celebration. After working seventy-hour weeks sifting through a malodorous array of decaying fruits, old cheeses, breads, meats, and clumps of dirt contributed by U.S. aircrews and scientists from around the globe, Raper had finally isolated the “super” mold he’d been searching for. Approximately fifty times more potent than anything previously tested, the strain eventually became the primogenitor for almost all of the world’s penicillin. And it was found, by chance, on an overripe cantaloupe purchased at a Peoria grocery store. (The exact location, alas, isn’t recorded. Robert Coghill only noted the source in NCAUR’s records as a “fruit market” near the lab.) The miracle melon itself was neither preserved for posterity nor disposed of with any kind of ceremonial pomp befitting its historic significance. After cutting the mold off the rind, staff members sliced up the cantaloupe and ate it.

By June 1944, right in time for the D-Day landings at Normandy, drug companies were churning out an estimated 100 billion units of penicillin per month, enough for an estimated forty thousand U.S. and British combatants. Hitler’s forces had to rely on less effective sulfa drugs and, consequently, experienced higher fatality rates, more amputations, and longer recovery times for injuries, diminishing their overall troop strength. Thousands of German soldiers were also incapacitated by sexually transmitted diseases such as syphilis and gonorrhea, which penicillin would have easily treated. On and off the battlefield, penicillin cured an ever expanding range of afflictions—pneumonia, strep throat, gas gangrene, septicemia, spinal meningitis, scarlet fever, puerperal sepsis, to name just a few—and with virtually
no side effects. It became as indispensable to the Allied war effort as any weapon.

In late October 1945, Alexander Fleming, Howard Florey, and Ernst Chain jointly won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. Only three people, at most, can receive the award for the same discovery, and fairly or not, Heatley was shut out. (Moyer wasn’t even in the running, but he was the second microbiologist inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. The first was Louis Pasteur.) That same fall NCAUR stopped manufacturing penicillin and licensed all production to private pharmaceutical firms. After the war, demand shifted from military to civilian applications, and penicillin became wildly profitable. In 1951 drug companies were producing approximately 30 trillion units a month, and within three decades that number skyrocketed to 385 trillion units.

Clete opens the stairwell door to the third floor, and we walk into a bright fluorescent-lit hallway.

“All of this has been newly renovated since the 1940s, and even the walls have been offset by the new construction, but Moyer’s lab would have been around here,” he says in front of Room 3118.

We peek inside, and Clete explains that this is where they now store NCAUR’s one hundred thousand cultures. “About eighty thousand of the microbes are fungi,” he says, “and the other twenty thousand are bacteria.” Large double-door steel refrigerators, like those found in any modern household kitchen, line both sides of the laboratory, and down the middle are liquid-nitrogen containers the size of industrial drum barrels.

We step back into the corridor, and before we return to Katherine’s office, Clete starts talking about a medical innovation developed during the early 1950s by Dr. Allene Jeanes in the lab right across from Room 3118. As Clete goes into detail about its chemical properties—something about polysaccharides and carbohydrate structures—my scientifically challenged brain begins to shut down, and I stand there nodding reflexively.

Then he mentions the word
dextran
and I realize he’s describing the blood plasma substitute I’d read about in the lobby. Originally intended for U.S. troops fighting on the front lines in Korea, it’s commonly used in hospitals today and has prevented countless patients from bleeding to death.

The lifesaving blood extender was created out of a “slimy bacterium,” Clete tells me, that wasn’t exactly drawn from the lab’s official collection of microbes. Another NCAUR scientist had shown the mold to Dr. Jeanes after spotting it inside a half-empty bottle of old root beer that someone, fortuitously, had neglected to throw away.

DR. MAURICE HILLEMAN’S
widow, Lorraine, generously shared with me a copy of the autobiography her husband was struggling to complete while dying of cancer. Before meeting with his nephew Art Larson, here in Miles City, Montana, I was curious to read what Hilleman had written about his birthplace and its influence, if any, on his later achievements. “I consider it fortunate to have been born into modest means without a silver spoon in the mouth,” Hilleman recalled in rushed and uncorrected prose (understandable, considering the circumstances). “Work on the farm began at age 5 years of age [
sic
] where working with plants, animals, soil, mechanics and electricity gave a practical introduction into the workings of the biological and physical sciences.” Sadly, Hilleman had only made it up to the section about his high school years when he passed away at the age of eighty-five on April 11, 2005.

After he died, every major obituary echoed Dr. Robert Gallo’s sentiments about Hilleman’s contributions to global health and also noted that his research has possibly saved more lives than any other scientist’s. Some dropped the “possibly” altogether. “Among scientists, he is a legend,” Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said of Hilleman. “But to the general public, he is the world’s best-kept secret.” He’s a bit of a secret in Miles City, too.

Having spoken with half a dozen local residents before coming here to find the house where Hilleman was born, I already knew that there were no memorials or tributes to him anywhere in his hometown. This is all the more perplexing to me now as I’m driving down Main Street because I can’t help noticing that
every other house
appears to have its own historical marker. I’ve never seen anything like it. Most are mounted near the sidewalk on top of thin, waist-high stanchions shaped like a conductor’s stand, and the rest are bolted next to front doorways. I pull over to investigate.
CARPENTER ERNEST ANDERSON BUILT THIS LOVELY ONE-AND-A-HALF STORY BUNGALOW IN 1916
, notes one. A few lawns down:
CONSTRUCTED IN 1913 FOR DR. CURTIS N. RINEHART, A PROMINENT MILES CITY DENTIST, THE HOME REFLECTS THE
TOWN’S SECOND GROWTH SPURT
. And for another doctor:
RENOWNED MONTANA ARCHITECT CHARLES S. HAIRE DREW THE PLANS FOR PROMINENT LOCAL PHYSICIAN DR. FRANCIS GRAY, WHO WAS A CHARTER STAFF MEMBER OF HOLY ROSARY HOSPITAL
.

I pass the Montana Bar, which boasts a bronze plaque from the National Register of Historic Places, and continue on toward the local museum to check out what information it has on Hilleman. I’m scanning homes and business fronts for additional markers en route, and I almost swerve into an older man slowly puttering along the shoulder on a John Deere rider mower.

Inside the museum I ask the only staff member present, a gentleman in his sixties, if they have any memorabilia or exhibits related to Dr. Maurice Hilleman.

“That name doesn’t sound familiar,” he says, reaching for a thick binder. He flips through the pages and traces his finger down an alphabetical list of noteworthy residents. I look over his shoulder.

No Hilleman.

“You need to talk to Bob Barthelmess. He’s pretty much the town historian.”

“Do you know where I can find him?”

In walks the guy I almost clipped a few minutes ago.

“That’s him right there.”

Fortunately, Bob doesn’t seem to recognize me.

I say hello and explain that I’m in town to locate the birthplace of Dr. Maurice Hilleman and learn more about his early years in Miles City.

“Never heard of him,” Bob says gruffly. “What’s so special about him?”

“Well, among a number of things, out of the fourteen or so vaccinations that most people receive in their lives, Hilleman developed, like, half of them.”

“If that’s true, and he’s from here, how come I don’t know who he is?” Bob’s tone is more befuddled than accusatory, but there’s a hint of suspicion that I’m pulling his leg.

“I had no idea who he was either until a few months ago,” I say. “I’ve
been talking with Art Larson here in Montana, who’s going to take me to—”

“Yeah, I know Artie. Used to be involved with the museum.”

“He’s Hilleman’s nephew.”

“His
nephew
? He never mentioned that to me.”

“I’m seeing him later today. Anyway, I hear you’re the expert on Miles City, but is there someone else you think I should talk to, someone who knows as much about the town as you do, if that’s possible?”

“Yes,” Bob says. “But he’s dead.”

“Ah.”

“Where was this Hilleman fellow born?” Bob asks me.

“I think right down the street from here.”

“Looks like somebody’s been asleep at the post,” Bob says, finally sounding convinced that this required further investigation. We exchange contact details, and I promise to update him on whatever else I find.

Art and his wife, Nancy, live an hour north of Miles City and are driving down to show me exactly where Hilleman was born. In the meantime, I’m meeting with the town’s mayor at a coffee shop called Kafé Utza.

Not that I’ve hung out with a lot of mayors—in fact, I believe this is a first—but I can’t imagine any of them being cooler than Joe Whalen. Bored working as the manager of an Internet provider company in North Dakota, Joe hopped on his motorcycle in May 2000 and headed west. While passing through Miles City en route to his native California, he stopped at the Montana Bar, had a cold beer, and right then and there decided he had found his new home. Joe opened up a bookshop in 2002 and, four years later, filled a vacant seat on the city council. Two months after that he was asked to serve out the previous mayor’s term, which he did, and since then he’s been “properly” elected.

In his early to mid-forties, I’m guessing, and ruggedly good-looking, Joe is friendly and approachable but not in a slick, political way. Just laid-back and personable. He’s well familiar with Maurice Hilleman and wants to see him honored. “I think we can get the town to do
something,” Joe says, “and he certainly deserves the recognition.” After we chat for a good thirty minutes or so, Art and Nancy pull up in their Ford Bronco and Joe comes out to say hello before returning to work.

Art, a seventy-eight-year-old rancher, had a stroke earlier this year and doesn’t say much as we drive through town. “He wasn’t the chattiest person before the stroke,” Nancy tells me, “but this has been a hard couple of months. He’s doing better though.” Nancy is an accomplished local artist, and she, too, was born in Miles City. I ask them both where they lived, and Art chimes in: “My old house used to be the town brothel.
Before
our family lived there.”

“What do you all remember of Dr. Hilleman, as a person?” I ask.

“He was extremely modest,” Nancy says, “and serious, although he had a kind of wry sense of humor. Obviously he was very smart, but he never talked about his work.”

Art nods and adds, “He also knew how to hypnotize chickens.”

We drive along Main Street for a few minutes and, five hundred or so feet past the museum, turn onto Water Plant Road, which curves to the right for three-quarters of a mile and dead-ends directly in front of a dilapidated, light-blue two-story house.

“That’s it,” Nancy announces. “That was Maurice’s first home.”

I ask them if they want to walk around the property with me for a few minutes, and Art shakes his head.

“That’s okay,” Nancy tells me. “We’re fine right here. Take your time.”

Art and Nancy don’t know when the Hilleman residence was last occupied, and from the outside it’s hard to gauge. Much of the exterior paint has been worn away by rain and frigid winds, exposing patches of brown wood. Waist-high weeds poke through broken planks that were once a front porch. Half the windows are shattered, and yet a mysteriously clean white curtain flutters gently in and out of a front window. Behind it there’s a white metal birdcage hanging from the ceiling. Otherwise the interior looks forlorn and empty. I step back and notice cinder blocks neatly stacked near a side door. On a tree about
ten feet from the house is a rusted shovel blade nailed into the bark about six feet off the ground.

Maurice Ralph Hilleman was born in this house on August 30, 1919, the eighth child of Gustav and Anna Hillemann. There was a ninth, Maurice’s twin sister, but she was stillborn. Gustav buried the baby girl hours later, followed by Anna the next day; during labor, she had developed eclampsia, a swelling of the brain, and died on September 1. Per his wife’s final request, Gustav dug up their infant daughter, tucked her into Anna’s arms after she passed away, and laid them both to rest in a single grave.

“I always felt that I cheated death,” Hilleman later said of his birth, and, by all accounts, he kept cheating throughout his childhood. Before reaching the age of ten, he had come close to drowning in the roiling currents of the Yellowstone River, getting crushed by a freight train on a railroad trestle (he leapt to safety with half a second to spare), and suffocating to death after a diphtheria infection puffed up his throat. “I was proclaimed near dead so many times as a kid,” Hilleman recalled. “They always said I wouldn’t last till morning.”