Spring's Mayflies are a Good Sign

Recently, some mayflies once again appeared in Lake Erie’s western basin. Sometimes called Canadian soldiers, shad flies, fish flies, or June bugs, these harmless insects are official known to scientists as Hexagenia. They live most of their lives in burrows in Lake Erie’s soft bottom. From late May to late August, whenever the water temperature is just right, they emerge, molt, swarm, mate, lay eggs, and die - all within 48 hours!

Their reappearance signals a healthier Lake Erie. While it’s great for the perch and channel catfish, it’s not so great for tourism. In fact, the size of the hatch in June 1996 caught residents of Port Clinton and other shoreline communities off guard. Suddenly mayflies were everywhere - covering everything! Picnic tables, cars, boats, porches, docks, sidewalks, and streets were piled high with them.

Attracted to bright lights, mayflies swarmed at an electrical substation near Lake Erie. They were so numerous that they began conducting electricity across insulators, causing brownouts throughout Northwest Ohio. When streets became dangerously slick with their smelly little carcasses, city workers posted warning signs, then rolled out the plows and scooped up 38 dump-truck loads!

The hatch of 1996 may have seemed large, but it was small when compared to the hatch that occurred on the evening of July 22, 1951. The following morning biologists at the Stone Laboratory on Gibraltar Island began making some calculations. They rated the density of mayflies on lawns at Put-in-Bay as 2,650 mayflies per square foot. Twelve bushels, weighing 38 pounds each, were scooped up from behind a single window of the laboratory. One pound was found to contain 8,100 mayflies. Therefore, the single pile was estimated to contain 2,380,000 mayflies. According to Dr. Thomas H. Langlois’ report, much larger swarms had accumulated around two lampposts on Middle Bass Island on the same night. He estimated conservatively that two tons or 32,400,000 mayflies lay under each lamp post! This quantity had emerged from only 50 acres of Lake Erie’s bottom.

Franz Theodore Stone Laboratory
Gibraltar Island, Lake Erie

The following year, mayflies met with disaster. By the mid-60s, they had disappeared from Lake Erie. Excessive algae growth resulting from high levels of phosphorous in the water hastened the rate of decay, consuming so much oxygen at the lake bottom that the mayflies could not survive. Little did we know that the ever-present green scum and rotting masses of algae could virtually destroy tons and tons of mayflies that had been part of Lake Erie’s ecosystem for thousands of years. So, when those pesky mayflies descend, TRY to give thanks for a healthy Lake Erie.

           

Anna Pittenger McMeens: Civil War Nurse

Anna McMeens (with purse) and Cooke Family Members

Anna Pittenger McMeens may have been one of the first nurses to serve in a military hospital during the Civil War. When her husband, Dr. Robert R. McMeens enlisted as the surgeon of the Third Ohio Volunteer Infantry, Anna assisted her husband at the military hospital at Camp Dennison.

She traveled with him to Nashville, Tennessee, where he served as Acting Medical Director of the Tenth Division. He oversaw the Union’s 800-bed military hospital. Anna returned to Sandusky when her husband left Nashville with his regiment. She immediately began working with the Sanitary Commission to provide medical supplies for soldiers in the field.

Cooke Castle on Lake Erie's Gibraltar Island, 1901

She never remarried after the death of her husband in 1862. She traveled to Washington, D. C., where she worked in military hospitals for more than a year. Following the war, Anna McMeens managed the summer home of Jay Cooke, financier of the Civil War. Cooke Castle is located on Lake Erie’s Gibraltar Island.

A sketch of Anna McMeens in Woman's Work in the Civil War (published 1867) highlights her contributions during the conflict. It states that after the Civil War, and while at Gibraltar Island, she took part in missionary work among the sailors of Lake Erie.

If anyone can identify the organization or the Lake Erie's sailors missionary work in which Anna McMeens participated as early as 1867, I would appreciate hearing from you.