Influenza

I think I am the only person of my age who has any memories of the influenza pandemic of 1918. The memories of which I speak, are passed down, for there is no one left alive in my family who was old enough to have actually experienced it first hand. There are, however, vivid reminders of it at my aunt’s house in New Hampshire in the form of a small, white christening dress and a china headed doll, which once belonged to my Aunt Grace.
Grace was the oldest child of my grandparents, a bright, honey haired child, the darling of the neighborhood according to all accounts. In 1918, she and my uncle, who was about four years old and my two grandparents were the beginnings of a family which would, over the years, produce six children. My grandfather was working in Memphis, TN, designing sporting equipment, and my grandmother had returned with the two children to Chicopee, MA to be with her parents while she awaited the arrival of my father, whom she was carrying at the time.
Coincidently, my maternal grandfather was working in Springfield, MA as a civil engineer for the Boston and Maine Railroad.
The epidemic, by all accounts was frightening and ugly, for it cut down children and young adults in their prime, with extreme swiftness. Combat operations in World War I were held up as both sides dealt with devastating casualties, not from bullets but from viruses. It spread with such an alarming speed that it is still not known today, how and why it spread as fast as it did. Many, who would contract the disease, would survive and start to recover only to be stricken with pneumonia, which their weakened bodies could not resist.
Among those stricken were my Aunt Grace and Uncle Jim. My frantic grandmother called the local doctor, who came and made his assessment, “The little girl will be fine, but I’m afraid for the lad.” Grace began to recover but quickly worsened and became a casualty of the great epidemic. My uncle, however, did survive. But in her way, Grace lived on. When I was small, the whole family spoke of her as if she were just someone living too far away to visit, even though Uncle Jim was the only one who had known her. In that doll and small dress, she is still present in the family home.
My other grandfather, in the meantime, fell ill, and while lying abed in the front room of the house he was renting, could see the continuous funeral processions going by his window. Not a comforting sight, I am sure. Every home on his street lost someone.
Now, perhaps to even the score, I have never had the flu at all. In fact, I have only had one flu shot, inflicted on my by the Army in 1968 when there was fear of another big outbreak. In Vietnam, a medic flew out to the field to re-inoculate us against bubonic plague, but not the flu. As a 6th grader (1957-58), the Asian flu swept through emptying out schools. In my class of 25 or so, only Billy Field, who came to school in the winter with no socks, ill fitting hand-me-down shoes and no lunch, and I were the only ones untouched. In the panic of the ‘70’s even though, as a teacher I lived in the bacterial/viral soup that is an old school building, I was unaffected. And, I’m not losing sleep over H1N1. Maybe Aunt Grace is looking out for me. If she is, “Thank you.”