When I was turning six years old, I awoke on Saturday morning, the day of my birthday party, and my mother said "Oh, my God'' and starting dialing all the neighbors, canceling the party. I cried (probably for hours?), because I felt just fine and didn't understand why being covered with 'spots' (ie. measles) made a difference. I also had chickenpox and mumps at some point. My brother got mumps more than once, left side, right side!! He also got scarlet fever, but I didn't catch that one.
My son got chickenpox, which spread through his part time preschool and his daycare (the day care Mom was actually glad, so her son would get it too, before starting school) Don't know where he caught it as he seemed to be case 1 at preschool. His sister had a much worse case a few weeks later.
I also got the Hong Kong Flu in 1969 and was confined to the infirmary with 5 other people and the nurse wouldn't let us play cards on the hospital table that we put between adjacent beds because we were contagious. Hello, we all had the same thing who were we going to contaminate? The infirmary soon ran out of beds, as more and more people got sick.
Just the other day I sourced an ancestor, Burnham-2161 and found 4 of their 7 children sadly died within a few months of each other of 'throat distemper' in Gloucester, Massachusetts in 1738.
My gg aunt died in 1892 of cholera, and on the page of recorded deaths for that city just from July 5 - 26 there are 17 other children who also died of cholera, and more on the previous page and next for the subsequent dates.
And I have seen plenty of profiles of early NE ancestors or their children dying of smallpox. whooping cough, etc. Just can't remember which ones.