Continued from here
Worried in Wales – at 06:30 The strange thing for me Anon in Uk is that when I talk to people about the 1918 outbreak they say “oh yes there was a flu pandemic” but no-one seems to have any first hand knowledge of relatives who were affected. I never seem to hear “oh yes, great grandma lost her sister” or anything of that nature. I wonder if some areas just weren’t affected at all because of isolation or whether there is just collective amnesia.
Anon in uk – at 07:02 worried in wales. 250.000 deaths in england wales i an not sure if those figures are for uk as a whole and the population was so much lower the but Donaldson says they had no antibiotids then or ICU facilities so we must consider at our now population how many infected i do not think the area location matters as if you only have 10 or so and 4 dies it would be the same as a lot more dying in a more populated area.I have never heard no one speak of it and at most i have heard was it will not happen again it was 100 years ago so how can it.no one wants to hear it because it is so not now here or in wales like the suffering in the coal mines it is not nice to think about and it cannot happen here,they will not let it will they the young mothers of today have no clue as to what can happen just what they know now in the 20 or so years they remember and the ones who have heard it do not want to think about it it is better to think about someone calling around with food.and who prey tell will be doing that for them.It may be in some houses parents wanted to protect their children from such things real suffering does not get recalled all the time they would never of healed.I have only said what i know as i felt it could be of use in helping everyone understand what pain they may face and if possible avoid it i am in my early fifties and before these last few weeks have never breathed a word of it as there was no need.aswell as there always gets a shortage in time of witnesses and some people want to keep their memories private while some people who do know just stock up in private and do not speak out,just my thoghts.wales in my memory are not dhort on memories of suffering
Let me begin part 2 by saying - simply breathtaking. This is a bump - and recommend reading from the beginning.
The following web site offers written and a few recorded oral histories of the 1918 flu:
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/13/
Philadelphia:
“Anna Lavin: The undertaker just ran, I don’t know how many, into their wagon and took them to the cemetery and that was it and had to dig your own grave. I mean, the families had to dig their own graves. Grave diggers were sick and that was the terrible thing.
Anne Van Dyke: They didn’t even bury the people. They found them stuck in garages and everything.
Elizabeth: Yes, oh, it was terrible, the flu.
Van Dyke: You had to go, my mother went and shaved the men and laid them out, thinking that they were going to be buried, you know. They wouldn’t bury ‘em. They had so many died that they keep putting them in garages. That garage on Richmond Street. Oh, my gosh, he had a couple of garages full of caskets.”
To Jefiner I called you Jenifer did i not sorry. I take it you want me to continue then.She did give quite hell over the book yes told him quite a bit before he stopped writting she wanted to speak to the organ grinder she had me write not the monkey,and about the shovels no one he assured her would need a shovel for any other reason than gardening had she forgotten this was Britain and we were British to which i had to write she knew which country she lived in and while her descendants would be burying their own dead he would be hiding under the table not her and he would be feeding his already fat face i wonder how she did not get arrested, i really do and me along with her.she did on one occasion get arrested during the votes for women however she refused to utter one word about that
Anon in uk - yes, please continue. Your nan must be very proud of you.
Grace RN @ 12:36: I am nearly overcome. Thanks for the link.
wolf very well i will log on later Toilet break and all that you are hard employers to work for.TTFN That means bye bye for now
I found your site quite a while ago and added it to my favourites list incase the time was ever right to return.About June i felt there was enough evidence in my own mind to say from news i had digged out that the flu was about to come back and there was a cover up.I had saved up just in case and after learning from your site stocked up on what i will need to last the duration of the first wave after nearly completing i wanted to return something to you who had learned me what to do.I did not feel i could contribute in a pradtical way of ideas and you seemed to have it all well covered anyway one thing i did feel is that you did understand what was going to happen but i did not feel you undertood the suffering and i wanted to give you what i had so you would be truely ready.If i am told everything in the garden is lovely and it is then i am so pleased about it.But if i am being lied to then i do not want to hear that i want to be told the truth,I have and will give you that truth as i feel it an insult to give the crap,If i can make you feel what i feel the dread i feel then it is not to be the bearer orbad tidings to upset you it is so you will have a better chance of survival what we are about.Fear makes us all determined to surviven Despair nan said makes us better people you have to pick yorself up or you will go under and all this will of been a waste
Anon in uk – at 12:45
Jefiner, Jennifer; my “nan” gave me the nickname when I was a tot becaue I couldn’t manage all those syllables! It’s been Jefiner to friends and family ever since.
Yes, we are hard to work for, but it is because you are telling the story like no one has before. It is almost like I can hear your nan telling us, in her voice and her words, the horrors she lived through and the strength of heart and spirit it took to do so and live (and it was that same toughness that helped Britain survive WWII).
Sometimes it seems like the message coming out of the mass media is “everything is all right, everything is ok” and we all relax. Then we hear your stories, and the harsh, frightening reality of what a flu pandemic is comes crashing in. I know it must be hard to retell those stories, but by doing so you are helping everybody who comes here to read about the 1918 epidemic.
Jefiner. I t was so you could sit and think if you had 4 children what it would be like to have 2 when you woke up one day and which 2 and then to bury them yoursef with a shovel.That way you would not wake up and say you have had enough and stop that way you will die.If you follow my thought.She always said she would find some way of telling me and then i could warn a few others and of course she has not ever come back as much as i have willed her.In 1995 Or someplace around there i had what you would call a nightmare in that people were coming out of there houses into back entries starving and they were all dropping and dying.It was so vivid i thoght we here were going to be attacked this is it i thought it was going to be a war the thing i could not understand was i was not hungry and my kids were not and we survived and i was phoning other people i did not know stangers and from far away and they were the same not hungry and people were dying in there streets they were all in their house well fed and their family safe kids playing and christmas trees.They were all phoning me and we were all nearly that was left i definately thought a war then i slowly forgot it.On watching new york i consoled myself it was that but i knew it was not then it dawned on me what it might be that dream made me think of the French history lesson you need to stay focused and never wake up and stop it will come and if not this year then next and if not by then it will still come she said it was and it will.It has about 50 −50 death rate so if a family of 6 gets it you are looking at 3 dead maybe more
Anon in UK, there are few threads that I read outloud to my husband but yours has been one of them. We laughed to tears at your nan giving the government hell, but have also been sobered by her personal perspective and your dream. Thanks for coming here and sharing it with us. It’s quite powerful.
To Northstar That is what she told me to say ask them how many children they have and then that.She said exactly what you said and that was That will sober them up.Mark my words it will.
This 275 page document studies seven communities that “escaped” with low mortalities from the 1918 pandemic:
“In the summer of 2005, the Center for the History of Medicine at the University of Michigan Medical School was contacted by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) and asked to conduct research into and write a report on American communities that had experienced extremely low rates of influenza during the infamous 1918–1920 influenza pandemic [download a copy of the report]…We then undertook a historical evaluation of the non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) as employed by successful communities during the second wave (September-December 1918) of the pandemic.
Ultimately, we selected seven communities that reported relatively few if any cases of influenza, and no more than one influenza-related death while NPI were enforced during the second wave of the 1918–1920 influenza pandemic: San Francisco Naval Training Station, Yerba Buena Island, California; Gunnison, Colorado; Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey; Western Pennsylvania Institution for the Blind (WPIB), Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania; Trudeau Tuberculosis Sanatorium, Saranac Lake, New York; Bryn Mawr College, Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania; and Fletcher, Vermont. Because of the apparently reduced morbidity and low mortality these communities experienced during the second wave of the pandemic, we have labeled them “provisional influenza escape communities.”
Conclusions reached show SIP and self suffiency, are more protective than -quarantine of sick, social distancing, masks, hygiene information campaigns, etc. combined. From the pdf. document, page 2 and 3:
“(1) Protective sequestration (the shielding of a defined and still healthy group of people from the risk of infection from outsiders), if enacted early enough in the pandemic, crafted so as to encourage the compliance of the population involved without draconian enforcement measures, and continued for the lengthy period of time at which the area is at risk, stands the best chance of protection against infection. When implemented successfully, protective sequestration also involves quarantine of any outsider who seeks entry, self-sufficiency in supplies necessary for daily living, enforcement of regulations when necessary (including fining and jailing), and the ability of those sequestered to entertain themselves and maintain some semblance of normal life.
(2) Available data from the second wave of the 1918–1920 influenza pandemic fail to show that any other NPI (apart from protective sequestration) was, or was not, effective in helping to contain the spread of the virus. American communities engaged in virtually the same menu of measures, including: 1) the isolation of ill persons; 2) the quaratine of those suspected of having contact with the ill; 3) social distancing measures, such as the cancellation of schools and mass gatherings; 4) reducing an individual’s risk for infection,(e.g. face masks, hand washing, respiratory etiquette); and 5) public health information campaigns and risk communication to the public. Despite these measures, most communities sustained significant illness and death;”
Will our government notice this research and realize that history and commonsense says SIP and self-sufficiency make a significant difference; and broadcast that news, rather than -“wash your hands and don’t panic”.
I have posted this before but one thing I remember from reading a physician’s firsthand account of treating flu victims in 1918 was the importance of bed rest, fluids, and no solid foods. He mentioned that bedrest was important even after symptoms started subsiding to prevent hypostatic congestion of the lungs which led to pneumonia and death. Even just sitting up in bed was not allowed. This same thing was mentioned in our local newspaper when they did a historical series and one of the stories in the series was on the 1918–19 Spanish flu epidemic. A survivor of the flu (from Wrightstown, WI) did just that (survived) by staying in bed a full 2 weeks after symptoms subsided. This person mentioned that he knew of other victims who did not stay in bed to convalesce and ended up dying because they developed pneumonia. Maybe that is one reason why the sailor mentioned in another person’s post who went to bed with a bottle of whiskey survived?
Hi everyone and thank you for your contributions. I’m sorry I’ve let this thread sink a bit but I was quite busy in the last week. I have finished posting the last part of Anon in UK’s story, but it will need just a bit more aesthetic touches, which I’ll try and do next week. Then I am going to take everybody else’s stories here and add to the Wiki at the same place, and I hope we’ll end up with nice chapters for everyone who’s willing to contribute. Please don’t hesitate to feed my newly acquired editing skills! After that, I’ll just have to sift in the various other threads to dig out more info. It will take some time before we have something really nice, but I think it’s well worth making an effort.
This is the Wiki link again 1918 Testimonials. Any suggestions welcome of course. Again many thanks to all.
As the original writer of The 1918 Testimonials i have been deeply upset by the remarks made on the survive the flu site about my grandmother.My intention was to share my memories of her with this site in return for the knowledge i had obtained from this site.On occasions i had great difficulty in writing about her i did so as i say as a thank you.I also made it clear you could use that collection in any way you did wish by that i did mean this site it was not intended as an open letter to all the internet.However it is an open forum and what is done is done.It was a very personal account and on reflection with what has been said i should not have written it.It is my honest opinion that although her life was affected by the horror she did witness it was not in a way as to render her mentally ill Anon in uk
Dear Beatrice Elizabeth in UK - at 03:49
I am thankful you have brought this up. I have been greatly saddened and very angered by the comment posted on that site regarding your Nan. Since I edited your posts, I have therefore chosen to reply to it. My answer is below (web address: http://tinyurl.com/fq3p2)
Please do not regret having posted what you did, because your Nan’s testimonial is wonderful; it’s important; it’s helped us better understand. You have given us something invaluable.
Don’t let ignoramuses hurt you. Invariably people making such insensitive comments will earn their own rightful retribution through their life experiences.
I am the editor of the testimonial given to us by Anon in UK at FluWiki.
I am adamant that you cannot infer from the text that the Grandmother was in any way suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This is armchair psychiatry. With this blatantly insensitive diagnosis you have greatly distressed the person who wrote it for us.
The fact that one may be traumatised by any catastrophic event, that one remembers it, and wishes to take future precautions against it happening again, does not mean the person was functionally or mentally impaired in any way in his/her life. In addition to which the old lady lived in a context where any bad experience was taken into account in order to protect oneself or to avoid future ones, in this instance by some prepping and observing flu sickness patterns.
All people of that generation kept ready for any war or sickness or natural catastrophe, and you cannot infer that learning from past experience and applying learnt lessons to better conduct one’s life, is some sort of deviant mental state. There is nothing in this testimonial that shows some incapacity of dealing with normal life.
What you have implied would be akin to saying that rape victims taking self-defense courses and being wary when going out at night would be suffering from PTSD and therefore mental illness.
Or that victims of earthquakes remembering loss of their loved ones who built solid houses and preached measures to protect oneself from these catastrophies would be suffering from mental illness.
Or that victims of the tsunami recalling their experience and learning about the signs of the sea withdrawing and keeping an attentive watch to the sea while enjoying holidays would also be suffering from mental illness.
Or that those people victim of a very bad car accident may choose not to drive again, taking the train instead, would be suffering from an illness impairing their daily mental functioning.
Nothing in this testimonial shows any mental impairing on such a frequent daily basis that it could be labelled PTSD. I suggest you re-check your latest DSM-IV-TR which reads: “…the disturbance must cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning…”. Besides, one cannot make a diagnosis without having ever met the person in question.
Such diagnosis shortcuts are lamentable.
I very much regret your comment and hope you will be more careful in your writing in future.
FrenchieGirl
Beatrice Elizabeth in uk - I cannot ever thank you enough for sharing your grandmother’s testimony. Her love and concern for you to survive a pandemic, and your passing that love and concern on to all of us, is something that all people of goodwill will cherish and be grateful for. Your Nan and you are saving lives. She would be incredibly proud of you for reaching out to thousands upon thousands of people. One cannot help but be motivated by your eloquent writing. Children will live because someone will read your posts and realize that they need to take action and make preparations to protect their loved ones. As your Nan would want.
I can only imagine how difficult it must be for you to have shared all of this. Please do not let any callous people in the world stop your courageous spirit. You must have inherited it from your Nan. I am profoundly grateful to you and to her.
To Frenchiegirl and nightowl Thank you for your kindness.To add one last and very important item that the other site did bring up was a mental agility programme i do have board games and books as recommended for things to do but i feel i should point out that as my grandmother said nothing like this will take your mind off what is happening outside your front door you will not escape this way.She did however have her own mental fitness plan that i did inherit on her death and that was a well worn Bible she did usually find in the book of corinthians a verse that she felt was for that day and underlined it in pencil still faintly visible mostly by the dent underneath.she did always refer to corinthians as being able to find all the answers you will ever need in that book of the Holy Bible. nothing will ever lessen what is going on outside. not with a game of monopoly most certainly,however if you can feel closer to God at the end of each day then that is your mental agility programme. She did continue to maintain that as a life mental agility programme until her death.
Dear Beatrice Elizabeth in uk – at 07:00
The comment made on that site has been withdrawn and apologies have been made. Please I hope you will accept them and feel relieved that this person has been mature enough to recognise his error. If you will, let’s let the matter rest now.
Form the bottom of our hearts here at FluWiki, many thanks again to you and your Nan, blessings and take care.
Beatrice, I came in on the situation late, but let me add my voice here. I think your Nan was an amazing woman who survived many crises through strength, intelligence and faith. It is clear that she has bestowed all those traits on you as well. Don’t let idiot trolls on another site tear you down! All I know is that I love hearing the stories you share about your Nan, and her teachings can instruct us all!
(and if the trolls start giving you trouble, let me know, and I will grab that shovel from behind the door and start whacking their pointy little heads with it!)
And that was some of the finest writing I have read, Frenchie Girl—well done!
Thank you all for participating. This thread will be closed by request of the initiator, see more on the ask the mods thread.
note: Beatrice Elizabeth in uk can you write me at demfromct@earthlink.net re a wikipage about 1918 testimonials. Should it stay up?