My grandparents - and their FOUR children (one of whom obviously grew up to become my mother) ALL lived through the 1918 pandemic.
Although I have read several websites about 1918, I havent managed to find any references to how people coped, except where it says they were going out to work, and many died on their way to or from work. There`s no references to stealing nor violence - even though back then people didnt have the warnings we have today, neither did they have either the knowledge nor the money to prepare.
Has anyone else managed to read anything about this? If so please quote a link.
THANKS.
Incidentally - and although NOT related to bird flu - but of great importance - if any of you are planning holidays… be careful where you go. At least read this first about places around the Indian Ocean :-
The mosquito-borne disease, chikungunya
http://www.care2.com/c2c/share/detail/53853
What rattles me most about this is how they say: they do not want the info made too public BECAUSE OF TOURISM - what a nerve.
Sorry - IGNORE THAT LINK (it was a link to a blogg on Care2) HERE ARE LINKS TO THE ACTUAL NEWS STORIES :-
My grandfather grew up in Dubuque, IA. His mother, my great-grandmother died during the 1918 pandemic. My grandfather, as a motherless child, watched his neighbors carrying their dead past their house to bury them at the top of the hill. He never talked about it, but my father told me. She left a husband and 6 children. Wish somebody would have kept a diary of what they went through. I do know that my great-grandfather was the only one permitted to leave their house to go to work.
Many farm families - and back then I think 90% of the U.S. population lived on farms or in rural settings - simply hunkered down and didn’t go in to town until things got better. Nowadays, of course, that won’t be a possibility… One story I read was of a family that lived off their produce - eggs, chickens, what they could get from their garden, etc - and had no contact with the outside world. No school, no church, no hanging around the town square shooting the bull… With one exception. Every week the mother would have her four oldest children walk down to the county store carrying baskets of eggs from her chickens, which they would then trade for money or items like salt or baking powder they couldn’t produce at home. While they were there, the children would also find out if the flu was over… When the kids came back home the mother would have them undress and leave their clothes and shoes outside, and scrub themselves clean before coming inside.
Apparently that worked, since it was one of the children telling the story.
FW
FW – at 21:58 “Many farm families - and back then I think 90% of the U.S. population lived on farms or in rural settings - simply hunkered down and didn’t go in to town until things got better. Nowadays, of course, that won’t be a possibility… “
I think there will be a lot of rural folk that will still hunker down and not go to town until things get better. If this thing goes h2h with a high mortality that is exactly what my family will do. If they could do it back then, then we can do it now.
I do understand that for alot of folks this will not be an option, but for us it is and will be.
In 1918 apparently 98 per cent of the world population was exposed to the virus. Only a few islands remained immune by closing their borders but that was it. 75 per cent of people did not get the flu at all, let alone those who got it and recovered.
I don’t have any family history of members being affected. All my grandparents survived it but I don’t know whether they got it or not.
Both sets of my grandparents were on farms in 1918. One grandmother had a baby in February, 1918. All survived.
My great grandfather survived world war 1 but got the flu on the way back and came home in a box. The rest of his family lived in London. All survived.
My mother lived through a different plague. I think it was Diphtheria. Her mother was a woman of medicine not a nurse..perhaps a midwife. She made them walk through a pan of disinfectant before they could come in the house. The neighbors on both sides of my mother’s house died. She attributes their survival to the pan of disinfectant that they had to walk through to come in the house. Apparently it was the variable. I am thinking Clorox.
My mother lived through a different plague. I think it was Diphtheria. Her mother was a woman of medicine not a nurse..perhaps a midwife. She made them walk through a pan of disinfectant before they could come in the house. The neighbors on both sides of my mother’s house died. She attributes their survival to the pan of disinfectant that they had to walk through to come in the house. Apparently it was the variable. I am thinking Clorox.
My grandfather had a sister who died from the flu of 1918. I’m not sure if anyone else caught it or not, but the rest survived, one way or another. I’m actually not even sure how many were in the family.
My grandmother who will be 97 this June and the youngest of 9 children (10 born-one died at birth) lived through this, but in rural Iowa on the farm. She asid her next oldest sister, got it but recovered. I’m sure in 1918 the oldest siblings would’ve been out of the house, but still rural Iowa. I agree that here in the “boonies” we can hunker down, pump our own water, grow our own food, trade with neighbors for other produce ie: milk, grain, etc. I’m wondering how many small towns will impose strict quarantines on those trying to ENTER??
Three of my eight great-grandparents died in 1918.
The dead ones all lived in town settings, and had contact with ohter people. My grandmother lost one of her two siblings as well as her parents. She was 8 years old, and she and her 6 year old sister were raised by an aunt, who had lost 2 of her own 4 children.
The other 4 great-grandparents lived on farms. They avoided all contact, and all lived.
newguy I plan on having everyone enter through “the mud room”. We currently take our shoes off. We now have a place for “wipes”,hand sanitizer, and towels. At the minimum, shoe removal and hand cleaning will be required. I also will keep some hand sanitizer in the car to clean hands when entering if I go shopping. I know it sounds strange and a little paranoid, but it will be the little things that make the difference IF it really does goes global. But I am waiting for a confirmed H2H cluster before I set the “rules” in motion. About entering small towns- some of my friends are talking about having some city decals made up just so we can easily tell “locals”.
INteresting thought about the decal for “locals” thanks for the idea. I’m assuming for cars? Like a parking sticker in the window??
Yes, they would be simple stickers. Right now the “current wisdom” is to use a front bumper sticker. And right now they are talking about something non-discript like “A Proud XXXXian” in school colors (only one school here) and let them be handed out at the school. The idea is that it would just speedup any entry checks since we have limited police. We have forest fires here as well and we often limit access during fires. That keeps looting down and the our volenteers (we do limited deputy things) only have a few to check. Bumper stickers are cheap and easy to get and a simple one would not “brand” as paranoids.
Denniscra @ 15:04 - I don’t think that sound so paranoid at all. When my children go to school the teachers stand outside of the doors and give everyone a squirt of hand sanitizer. Same after the all use the restroom. Same before lunch. There is a bottle of sanitizer outside each classroom door, and visitors are expected to use it before entering. They are serious about not spreading disease, and I appreciate it because I never got sick until my kids went to school!
My grandparents lived in Northern NJ in 1918. They, with my uncle and my father (born July, 1918) their only children all survived. My grandmother was one of 11 children, but only 4 survived to adulthood. 7 of her siblings died in 2 years from diptheria- 2 were buried the day my grandmother’s sister was born. They knew alot of diseases we only read of, and fear. It was not unexpected to lose most of your children. My mother (born 1923) used to go crazy if we picked up bird feathers as kids, I wonder if that was possibly related to the 1918 flu? I wish they were alive to ask; I’ll try to call my uncle this week- still going well at 90!
My grandfather was in the Navy in WWI. (He joined early, at only 16). He caught the “Spanish Flu” somewhere in England or France — somehow survived even though all he could do was to go to bed (on a crowded ship, no less)and stay there until he was better. I don’t know what care he got, if any — I guess the shipmates may have helped one another. (He didn’t mention that to my mom, who told me this story).
Oh, he did say that he took a bottle of whiskey with him when he went to his sickbed. Not sure if that did any good, but he was a Navy man, after all. :-)
My husband’s grandfather died of the Spanish Flu at the age of 35.
Saw a story once on TV where current adults were interviewed and said that the only thing that kept them alive was the fact that their mothers would not let them leave the house. They could only go into the back yard.
Once was at a large, family cemetery down in New Orleans area. There was row after row of people that died in 1918. Never realized what it was from until now. Alot of mothers and their babies.
I wondered a few things about that time: -what happened to the virus? Did it’s potency less over time? Did it just “dissappear?” At some point everyone started leading their lives again, but what happened to the virus? - is there any information about rural vs urban survival? Your comments make me feel better that those “in the country” fared better. We live in a semi-rural area - suburban but wooded and typically large (2+acre)lots. - did they close the schools back then? for how long?
I really need to get that book!
My grandpa was very emotionally affected by the flu of 1918- and it interrupted his schooling in 3rd grade (and he never got to go back!). Grandpa said in the mornings he,being the eldest boy, and his Dad would get on horses and go in opposite directions to make rounds of the ‘neighborhood’(all farms).He remembers sometimes his Mom sent food, but usually the main thing he did was carry water into the houses.(Water came from wells that had to be pumped by hand, and thawed first in winter).Grandpa thought he’d saved a lot of lives with that water- people were too weak to walk outside and get it themselves. On Sundays the men would go around and bury the dead- and carry news (talking through windows, usually). Grandpa said every Sunday they would bury at least someone who had been helping do the burying the week before. The reasons they thought they all survived (Grandpa, his folks and 7 siblings!)- they had gotten a flu a few months before the big pandemic and thought that had made them immune, also a diet rich in fruits and veggies- especially strawberries, and that they all had especially strong ‘constitutions’ (NO childhood diseases!They claim EVER)
We never seem to read about any `breakdown in society though. Not everyone lived in the countryside. For example, my grandparents & their children lived in a town.
Mind you, back then, of course, people tended to be kinder & more helpful than what many ppl are today. They perhaps helped each other whereas nowadays they will seek to rob & kill instead. I dread to imagine whats going to happen when drug addicts dont get their `fix and alcholics cant visit a pub or shop selling wine or beer. All hell will probably break loose.
laura B: http://www.fluwikie.com/index.php?n=Science.1918Pandemic its all in the wiki ;-)
Remember, too there were a LOT of other ‘bad’ things going on-WWI, and extreme financial depression for farmers. Maybe people then just had lower expectations!
My friend in South Carolina’s grandparents reported that though they and their children did not become infected with the flu in 1918 their neighbors did. Her grandfather took food over to the neighbors and then went back to pick up the dishes for the next round. They lived in a rural area. My own grandparents lived with their parents and siblings in a city (Pittsburgh)-all survived.
My dad and my uncle both got the flu. He said a country doctor came to see both of them. He was seven. He remembered the doctor telling his mother that if they lived through the night they would survive. He was too afraid to go to sleep and fought it most of the night and then in the early morning he drifted off to sleep. Both boys survived. I think that is why he wanted me to sit with him in his last days past midnight. Once we had gotten into the morning he would say it’s ok you can go to sleep now.
A good point - people were more willing to help out a neighbor back then. Sadly we live in a very selfish society these days. I live in New England now but have lived all over the US and internationally. I know I shouldn’t stereo-type as there are always exceptions, but I find people in NE the hardtest to get to know/least friendly vs any other place I have lived. I look at some and wonder what they will do if TSHTF. And back then they were more accepting/experienced with tragedy. My grandpa had 17 siblings. He would talk rather matter-of-factly about who died as a child and why, and how he lost his own mother to appendicitis at the age of 7.
lauraB – at 10:25 --- people in NE the hardest to get to know/least friendly
Laura, I find that interesting. When my wife and I moved to CT in 2000, all the folks in the neighborhood came to visit within a month of getting moved in. We landed there in the middle of December (coooooold!) And folks still made it a point to come over and welcome us. We spent 4 wonderful years in that neighborhood, with people I will remember all my life. I ended up getting a job at a large health insurance company and most of the people there were also very friendly. 4 years later, I was xferred back out to my home state, CA, and find that what you say has always been more true here than anywhere in New England that we visited.
Sorry to hear that you’re finding people unfriendly there. I imagine DemFromCT is even a friendly guy…. ;-)
My mother could not recall hearing any stories about the 1918 flu but did rememeber that her uncle had been in WW1 and was “shell shocked” and struggled for years to overcome his PTSD. I checked various family trees (fortunatly my family has done extensive research on several lines and were kind enough to have had them printed and bound making it easy to scan thousands of deaths). I have found only one death in 1918. The families lived in a rural part of Virginia and had self-sufficient farms and home businesses such as milling and lumber. The one death was a 30 yo female who had trained as a nurse serving in France. She had died from a “gasoline accident while trying to clean her white gloves” .
Does anyone know if there is any collection of memories from our elders- just anecdotal, everyday stuff about the big flu?
Our house was built in 1908 and the original owners lived here many years until their deaths. Sometimes I look around and try to imagine what they were doing during the 1918 pandemic. I have seen old newspaper articles where this town was pretty much shut down for a couple months.
We have a few pictures of the house right after it was built and two from the 1920s or so. I wonder, did they have a garden? I don’t see one, although there may have been one in the back. They must have gone out for supplies. We’re in town, so they couldn’t have had livestock, although they had a horse and carriage, the old stable and carriage house is now our garage.
I think I’ll check with the museum, they have the original pictures of the house that our copies came from, maybe they have letters and correspondence too.
I just checked with my “family historian”. My grandparents met and were married at Ft. Dix in 1918 in the Flu tent city. They had both gotten it, but survived. I guess that is one way to cope.
If you haven’t already done so, you simply MUST read The Great Influenza, by John M. Barry. I finished it yesterday. Also, I just finished Flu - The story of the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918 and the Search to find the Virus that Caused It. Both books are excellent. Barry’s book goes into more detail about actual accounts from across the country and around the world - especially in Philedelphia - yikes!!
My family must have been very fortunate because I don’t know of anyone having died in the flu outbreak. It would be interesting research to see why some families escaped without a single death, while others were completely devestated. A great study in genealogy would be to look at family lines and deaths that occurred between 1918–1920.
My mother was born in 1917 and she had about 6 siblings born after that. They lived out in the country and no one died until WW2 when one died in the war.
Never any talk about the 1918 flu at all, guess they were isolated.
Two of my great-grandparents died from the 1918 flu, orphaning my grandmother, who immediately got married because she couldn’t, as a young woman, live alone. She never talked about it—my dad (who has since passed on) told me. They lived in a small town in upstate NY and I assume they got it from my great-grandfather going out to work—he was a police officer, so probably had lots of contact with sick, dying, or dead folks.
My grandparents were living in South Philadelphia in 1918, had just arrived from Italy. They hadn’t any children yet, and unfortunately I don’t know too much of thier history there regarding the pandemic. Although they went on to have five children in the 20′s. My father, who recently read “The Great Influenza”, told me a story about when he got very sick in the early 1920′s. He said they thought it was the Spanish Flu (although we don’t know for sure, they had seen it before and could probably recognize it). He said he was very sick, and doesn’t remember much of it, maybe four years old. He said he remembers only the end of it, when he caughed a baseball size wad of phlegm from his lungs, and how happy his parents were to see it. Yes, kinda gross but if it’s your kid you’re happy to see it’s out of the body. After that he got a lot better.
I’ve lived in South Philadelphia for a while, until a year ago. I’m sure there are people there who remember it. One guy on that block must have been a million years old. The thing is, it’s a very close knit community there mostly, though now it’s changing, so things like “civil unrest” weren’t as likely as you might think in a large city. People who have come from far away and settle into a city together can take care of each other very well. I’m sure this will happen in parts of many major cities should another pandemic occur. I noticed that South Philadelphia’s previous immigrant population of Italians has been replaced by a new influx of Asian immigrants, who have the same sense of community that immigrants had when they came to the city a hundred years ago.
One thing that is important to note is the difference in heating and cooling between 1918 and now. Back then, fuel was cheap, and insulation expensive. It was thought to be very bad for the health to be “shut up” indoors. If the weather was nice, everyone opened their windows and doors and turned on the fans. There were no such things as climate control, central heat and cooling, high rise office buildings, or windows that didn’t open. Dad may have gone off to work but you can bet it wasn’t in a cubby space on an office floor with 140 other people. Compared to 1918, we’re living in a Petrie dish.
My dad who is alive and in his late 80′s was born just after the 1918 Influenza Pandemic. He grew up hearing the stories and just told me this much. Of his immigrant family of approx. 20, one uncle, the strongest and also youngest (mid 20′s) died from the flu. My grandfather took responsibilty for the body, which was embalmed and placed in a wooden coffin and placed in a mass grave (that my grandfather helped dig, since there was a shortage of workers) at a Catholic cemetary (spelling?)outside of Philadelphia. Years later, my grandfather and his sister, the wife of the deceased, purchased a family plot at the same cemetary and had his body exhumed and moved to the new plot. My dad actually was old enough to remember this part. Then, the aunt insisted that the coffin be opened so that she could be sure it was her husband who was removed from the mass grave, fortunately, it was he. My dad says that none of the others got the flu, including my grandfather who was out in public and helped bury the dead. I have other relatives that I may question about this event-one who is a funeral director and has been in business in Philadelphia for close to one hundred years.
I was told that my grandmother’s youngest brother died from the Spanish Flu. I found out after my grandmother and mother died, that cemetery records show that he died in 1921. I didn’t see how that was possible, until I read in The Great Influenza that the Spanish Flu was reported through 1922 in sporadic cases.
Native friend here in alaska once showed me the old indian cemetary that wiped out 30 of 32 families living in the village during 1918 flu. Also said the only reason their grandparents survived was because they were halfbreeds; were able to get some supplies & what little meds there were then from their white relatives. It wiped out complete villages all over alaska.
RiceWiki,
I know you were looking for this yesterday, just bumping it up.
My story about the 1918 Pandemic is that my fathers mother my grandmother died of the pandemic. Her husband and children survived. My dad had pictures of white pop tents all in a row in a field out side the hospital..He said he delivered water to the tents. Not much was said about the flu. My mom survived she was only 5. My dad was 11. I only remember my mom drilling in my head clean the house. Keep the walls clean. And that the woman wore white gloves not for fashion. But for keeping their hands from touching germs that may be on railings and door knobs. They would bleach the gloves and hang them out to dry in the sun.
Read John Barry’s “The Great Influenza.” There was also a “great forgetting” afterward.
My Eskimo friend who lost relatives in the 1918 ordeal says the virus killed off 80 percent of the Alaskan artic people. That is a shocking thing to hear.
Funny you should ask about this. A relative sent my husband a six page research about my great grandparents and family that we never knew. This was my father’s side of the family.His dad had died of lockjaw when my dad was three. My Great Grandfather became sick during the flu epidemic it says . Their two sons along with one’s pregnant wife unborn child and one other child died in the 1918 flu. My Great Grandfather was put in the Kankakee Stae Hospital. His obiatuary says twice pronounced dead during the great influenzaa epidemic, grieving over the death of his children who died one day after another in October, 1918 It says his mind gave way under the strain two years later. He died on June 13, 1923 One of his children died Oct. 26 , a little grandchild on the 27th, another son died on the 28th and the son’s wife died on the 30th.
To continue the obituary states that my Great Grandmother was unable to leave home because of the serious illness of her daughter and two grandchildren bedfast at her home. He died in 1923. Was the flu still going on then?
I wonder if the survivors became The Greatest Generation because of their having to live through so much (WWI, Flu, Depression). Kind of reminds me of Proverbs that speak of pruning the vine. Hope I’ll be around to be more fruitful.
My maternal grandfather, a 37 year old businessman in the lumber business supplying the largest paper mill in Europe of the early 1900′s, along the Vistla River in Poland, died within a week of getting sick in 1918. He died of pneumonia. He left a wife and two young daughters. Life went from comfortable to impoverished and dependent on his brothers and his wife’s family. My guess is that the flu traveled along with the traveling businessmen of the time, who moved from seacoast to the capital, Warsaw, and back. Until I read Barry’s book, over a year ago, I never could understand how a healthy man, in his prime, could succumb to pneumonia so readily. None of the other relatives died, at least none I’ve heard of. I’m in the US because the brothers had already emigrated to America and already successful, paid the passage and secured the papers to bring their brother’s family to America, then a place where foreigners imagined the streets to be paved with gold (seriously!).
The cost of the loss of a family member is not a one time fee paid and forgotten. The cost is multigenerational; the wave from that event carries forward. I’m active in this arena because I have taken a personal oath, “Never Again.” My extended family both despise me and appreiciate me as I’ve driven home the prospective message, “It’s back.”
Gaudia Ray. Well said…thanks.
Gaudia Ray, so you’re biased by oath. You won’t be objective.
My mother and most of her family lived through and survived the 1918 flu. This was in a suburb of Boston. My aunt was 11; she told me that she was the only one in the family who wasn’t sick and she was running up and downstairs constantly, caring for the others. Neighbors used to leave food on the front porch; they were afraid to come in. My grandmother was recovering and came down to help care for the others, and at that point my aunt just keeled over, and was put to bed with the flu herself. One of my grandmother’s brothers died, who lived with them, and one other relative. My aunt said that every family lost at least one person, some more.
If you’ve every done any kind of genealogical research, you’ll quickly find that it doesn’t even take a space of one generation before you have historical revisions, selective memories, and rose colored glasses.
The 50′s weren’t really that great an era yet most Americans tend to think of it with extreme fondness to the point of wanting that era to return.
Things get glossed over or forgotten. It has been happening for thousands of years and will continue to happen in the future. It is human nature.
Real data from around 1918 prove out how bad it was statistically … but do you really think your family would record if they went crazy during that time period? Many things were simply taboo to discuss, and certainly weren’t written down. Just because something wasn’t recorded in the family diary doesn’t mean it didn’t happen.
Yes, Kathy in FL- my mom’s family has passed down a couple of stories from that time period and shortly thereafter, including one eventual suicide and one woman( later, in the 20′s) who freaked out when her husband got ill, and dragged him out to stay in the chicken coop. When he died she burned every single one of his possessions and the chicken coop, and locked herself and the kids in the house, refusing to let them go to his funeral. They stayed isolated until some other relatives went to court and got custody.
Found this on a cool web site collecting oral histories- has some from Phildelphia 1918 re: flu!
“I Remember When: What Became of the Influenza Pandemic of 1918.” (1983)
Real Media. MP3. Time: 34:51.
“What Became of the Influenza Pandemic of 1918″ was also part of Hardy’s I Remember When series. Initially aired on January 18, 1983, it focused on the worst pandemic of the Twentieth Century and its impact on Philadelphia, the hardest hit of American cities.”
In 1918 my grandfather took food and water to homes, brought bodies out to be buried and did all he could in Fort Worth, Texas. He said that he felt he didn’t get influenza because he kept a slice of lemon in his mouth the entire time he was exposed to sick people. In 1918 in Elko, Nevada my aunt remembers that everyone wore mask on the streets and people acted as if they didn’t want to stand too near other shoppers. In Anaconda, Mt it affected people so quickly. They would attend a funeral and fall ill the next day. It was very difficult to keep people from going to funerals or attending church.
birdwatcher – at 18:45
My mother (89 now) wears white gloves and another sheer pair under them when she goes out. She says it’s to avoid catching something, and she may be right. I just thought she was eccentric, but am realizing from these stories that it may be because she was born right before the pandemic and grew up with the mindset everyone had then.
she’s made it to 89…must be somethng in it!!
Thanks, Grace! I look forward to listening…
My husband’s paternal grandmother lost 6 siblings in a 24 hr period. I emailed my father-in-law to find out where they lived (rual or city) and for any other info I can get.
I found out she had 5 siblings that died, not 6. She was around 21 and three were older, 2 younger. They lived on a farm.
I guess it didn’t matter if you were rual or urban.
My mother’s parents both immigrated from Ireland in the late 1800′s. They were both very young and met each other in NYC, where my mother was born. My grandmother was 37–39 years of age when she died from the flu in 1918. It devastated the whole family. According to my mother, all the children were farmed out to relatives, because a widower could not rear children alone.
My mother went to to work and live with a horrid aunt, who gave her a nickel on Sundays to give to the Church. My mother went to Mass, kept the nickel and then bought some candy and ate it on the way home.
My mother scrubbed my hands all the time, when I was growing up. She was always concerned about germs.
I think I’m finally realizing why.
My great grandparents lived in Chicago in 1918. Great grandma Emma had five brothers and sisters. One sister and her two brothers died in 1918. Her sister was a nurse and cared for the brothers until they died and she died also. Grandma Emma was a very strong lady but she never spoke of any of the details of the epidemic. I did ask what caused the Spanish flu and why it stopped and she said “They don’t know”.
The only detail ever repeated was as her sister Annie was dying the remaining family was standing around her crying and she smiled and said, “Don’t cry for me, Jesus just came for me” closed her eyes and died. Even as a child I found this story comforting.
I now understand why Grandma was so clean (everyone called her Dutch Cleanser). After washing and rinsing the dishes in hot water she would boil water and pour over the dishes. They would be so hot you could not touch them. She used a wringer washer in the basement and would boil the towels and sheets in a large copper tub (which I still have) before washing them. She would fill the sink, toilet and tub with boiling water and Lysol from the little brown bottle. Even in the winter the bathroom window would be open during this cleaning or the fumes would choke you. I could go on and on about her cleaning methods.
The threat of a pandemic is real to me because of my association with family members who survived one.
There was the same ‘profit from tragedy’ going on then as now. http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/web/20051012-flu-influenza-1918-epidemic.shtml “…The acting health commissioner of Buffalo, New York, announced that his city would begin the manufacture of coffins. “The casket business,” he said, “is a worse trust than oil.”
http://www.schenectadyhistory.org/health/morris/4.html “The task of preparing and burying the dead was more easily said than done…Private undertaking house were working around the clock at full capacity, and many were trying to turn misery into profit by raising their prices, sometimes as high as 600%. Some cemeteries were charging burial fees and then making the relatives of the deceased dig the graves themselves.”
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bump
My father was in WWI. He lied about his age and enlisted. Each morning a cart was brought around to collect the bodies of those who died the previous night. He did not take the flu. In rural communities, people handled the flu like TB or anyone of a half dozen other illnesses which took away entire families. They were more accustomed to premature deaths than our present generation. Today people believe these were events which will never happen again given the advances of modern medicine.
My father, who was born in 1912, carried a large scar on his side from a tube inserted to drain fluid, after his having contracted the flu/pneumonia as a young boy. I remember him telling us he was bedridden for months and had to learn to walk again. I’m wondering now if he had the Spanish Flu. I’m also understanding why he literally “panicked” when I developed pneumonia as a child…
Sharon Boling: i would like to hear more of your grandmothers cleaning methods
I wish safe time travel was available. I read these stories and try to imagine how it was. I wouldn’t want to go forward in time but I would like to go backwards for a time.
Woodstock - at 16:59 Walls and ceilings were washed twice a year with a large brown sponge - cannot remember the soap but always lysol added to water. Walls and ceilings were always washed before fresh paint - you never painted on top of dirt. Pantry and china cabinet cleaned twice a year using method I described earlier. Floors (hardwood) dustmopped daily and washed once a week on hands and knees (rubber pad to kneel on). She used a putty knife covered with a rag to get into space between baseboards and floor. Windows were cleaned with amonia and water. Window screens taken out and scrubbed with a brush every month, weather permitting. Combs and hair brushes soaked every week in amonia and water. Basement floor was kept immaculate as in the winter she hung the wash in the basement. Garbage was not kept in the house. She had a small garbage pail which she kept on the back porch and it was never more than half full.
We were constantly reminded to wash our hands. Fruit and vegetables were always washed, sometimes soaked and usually scrubbed with a brush. Meat was scraped with a knife and then washed in cold water. You were never allowed to eat or drink after anyone. To this day when I am cooking I never take a taste and put the spoon or fork back in the pot as this was forbidden. A dish towel, bath towel or wash cloth was never used more than once.
I hope I did not make this sound like she was a tyrant - she was a grand lady.
She sounds very vigilant about germs! tell me …did she live a long life and how healthy were those in her household?
I just reread a family history article written by a great uncle born in 1902. Although I’ve had the letter for 30 years, this time I noticed his reporting on surviving the 1918 flu. He said he recovered from the flu that killed millions in 1918. He was 16 yrs old and had damaged lungs. He was sent to live in Texas for a year, as they believed a dry warm climate would be good for him. There was no information about his neighbors and other relatives regarding the flu as he was reporting briefly on basic family tree info. That he mentioned the flu at all, shows that it was an impressive event in his life. He did go on to live to be 86 yrs old.
One of my great-grandmothers was married four times. Her first husband died of a measles epidemic in Memphis in the early 20′s. They also had a yellow fever epidemic there a couple of years before the flu. I do a lot of genealogy research and have spent a lot of time in old cemetaries, and it’s interesting to read the headstones of those who died from these diseases. Some of the doctor’s have huge memorials built to them because they kept working to save patients until they caught whatever it was, and died. Think of what courage that took.
Here is one personal account by 1918 flu survivor:
I dont know if anyone has heard this, but is it true that people starting using plastic cups as a result fo the 1918 pandemic? My boss heard it on a tv show and i cant find anything on the internet to support this fact. thanks
Probably not plastic, but I’d be interested in seeing when Dixie (paper) cups became popular!
We all must remember that when President Wilson took the country to war in 1916, everyone and I mean everyone planted a Victory Garden. Anyone who was anyone was a member of the Red Cross and it was huge across the country. There was meat less Fridays and no Gas Sundays everyone conserved and “prepped”. Still the virus of 1918 all but shut down the country. We are not as strong or as ready as our fore fathers.
Anon 451. You have really hit the nail on the head with this post…
…at this point, if I could get one message across to authorities and citizens alike, it would be that they were tough, resilient and self-reliant in 1918…they didn’t require gasoline to get around, they grew their own food and ‘prepped’ every summer for every winter. They knew how to live without electricity and were self-sufficient in heating and water as well.
To say that we are more advanced then they were in 1918 (I have heard this repeatedly) and therefore immune to infrastructure collapse and anarchy in a pandemic is in a word idiotic…and as far as our advanced healthcare system…unless things change in a hurry we are going to be back around 1830 with no hospitals and no medicines of any kind if the remnant of a hospital survives.
Thanks for starting the argument so eloquently and please continue.
I believe that 95% of persons in North America lived on farms in 1918…the advantages of this should be obvious…today I believe it is 1 or 2%.
Anon 451. I should have said: Thanks for starting the discussion so eloquently and please continue.
To further that though those who have read Barrys book will recall that hospitals had thousands of bed. Not hundreds like we have now. The “Let me Bury my head in the sand” political leadership has not changed, if any thing it has gotten worse. That no one listened to the Health Departments until it was too late is the same problem we have today, and who is in charge of AI, health departments. Most small towns did not know what electricity was. Auto’s were just starting to catch on and no one flew anywhere. That Wilson and his “troops” were able to keep the country focused on the war, AI was still everywhere and it was UN American to talk about it. No one was immune, in the end even Wilson caught it in Paris at the Peace Conferance, the results of which was WWII.
Anon 451. I barely have the knowledge to post on flu wiki and would never attempt to start a thread. I am not sure whether you are more knowledgable about these things than me…but maybe it would be a good time to specifically discuss the differences between 1918 and today on a thread…and hash this thing out once and for all.
In the end we must convince authorities to get off the vaccine and antiviral bandwagon because even if they worked…and they won’t…the distribution will be so limited as to be insignificant.
They must switch to economical drugs that we know work, gloves masks etc., and infrastructure and specifically preparing our farmers to provide needed food supplies.
This will get us…if we are lucky…close to where they were in 1918 and that’s probably the best we can expect.
I have just started reaading the book “Black November - the flu of 1918″ which is about the flu in New Zealand. It contains a collection of peoples ‘memories’ of the time. The book was first published in 1985 but was updated last year and re-published.
When I finish it (which could take some time as it is quite a tome) I will add any helpful hints for how people coped.
In the introductory section I read last night, it appeared that one ‘advantage’ of the flu hitting at war time was that there were special community groups in place to support people on their own etc and these groups just changed the focus of their activity to support those families with flu. Mostly this meant lighting the coal ranges in the kitchens each morning and ensuring there was hot soup available at each infected house.
What was alarming for epidemiologists was the speed with which the virus made its way throughout the entire country - 2 weeks was all it took. The speed of spread has yet to be explained. This was far faster than anything since …
AnnieB, would you mind sharing more of the book as you go along? :-) thanks
Good thread, getting long. Continued here
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