Pandemic Perspective 2020

My father, William Thomas, was eight years old when the “Spanish flu” attacked in four waves from February 1918 - April 1920, causing an estimated 675,000 deaths in the US and 17-100 million deaths worldwide.* Dad was the middle child of seven. The family lived in the small community of Swan Lake, Idaho. His older sister, Margaret (age 10 or 11 then), later wrote the following description of the family’s experiences during that era (abbreviated for 21st Century readers):

“The winter of 1918 brought not only World War I but the great flu epidemic. Everybody everywhere seemed to get sick at the same time . .  Everyone (in the family) took to their beds of affliction except me . . . There were beds everywhere. Eleanor seemed to be in the worst condition. . . . Dad made a bed for her out by the dining room table, where she could be watched closely. She was also in the warmest part of the house. She says every time she opened her eyes, Dad was bending over her. 

Dad and Mother tried in every way to care for the family. But a few seconds out of bed, then back they went exhausted . . . I made soup, carried drinks, slept in the big chair sometimes and answered everybody’s calls. I remember Dad telling me what a good nurse I was. 

The whole town was sick at the same time, and the nearest doctors were in Downey twenty miles to the south with no transportation but horses and sleds.

The first death in our area was that of Ray Gambles, who passed away and left a wife and two small children . . . I can still see the huge sled draped in white with a casket being laboriously dragged up the cemetery hill through a trail that had been previously made by horses, wading through the crusty snow. Two brothers walked by the side and drove the team. 

One morning Dad stepped to the front window just in time to see a sled and a team of horses and three men struggling up that bleak old hill. He pulled his blanket close around his shoulders and said, “I wonder whose turn it is today.” 

We carried coal oil lamps from room to room, stoked coal stoves and all in all, life was a struggle just to keep things going …One night I slipped up to Dad and Mother’s bedroom door and listened to my father as he knelt by the bed and pleaded with God to spare his little ones and his Emily whom he loved so dearly and who was so very very sick.

Like all things, the flu epidemic passed into history, and our family was untouched by death. How grateful we were to return to the routine of living.”

*  https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html