100 + years ago - 1918 Spanish Influenza Pandemic
By Heidi Sproat
By Heidi Sproat
While the import of every newspaper, online article, newsfeed, and social media posting this March 2020 is replete with coronavirus information, news, caveats, and the like, we thought it might be interesting to take a look back in time. While much has been written and republished within the last few weeks about the Flu Pandemic of 1918, and ‘flattening the curve’, we thought we would invite you to step back in time – before such instant global news, before vaccinations, and before anti-viral drugs.
When I first saw this image in the Frank Titus collection (FLT0045), and entered it into our Truckee-Donner Historical Society Image Collection just this past December 29, 2019, I truly wondered what the backstory told. Obviously, it had something to do with the “Spanish” influenza outbreak in late 1918 into early 1919, but it wasn’t until we started digging through hundred year old plus newspaper clippings that we we’ve been able to piece a story together about what life might have been like in those dark days: influenza AND World War I. Now that the California Digital Newspaper Collection has included select issues of the Truckee Republican newspaper, we started to dig a little deeper.
When I first saw this image in the Frank Titus collection (FLT0045), and entered it into our Truckee-Donner Historical Society Image Collection just this past December 29, 2019, I truly wondered what the backstory told. Obviously, it had something to do with the “Spanish” influenza outbreak in late 1918 into early 1919, but it wasn’t until we started digging through hundred year old plus newspaper clippings that we we’ve been able to piece a story together about what life might have been like in those dark days: influenza AND World War I. Now that the California Digital Newspaper Collection has included select issues of the Truckee Republican newspaper, we started to dig a little deeper.
Former Truckee author Guy Coates authored an article entitled The Great Plague of 1918. Take a look at that article written sometime after 2000. Coates wrote that the Spanish influenza outbreak “hit Truckee like a runaway train.” He cites a passage from a former resident about the passing of her father, Peter Fay, and, as a young girl, the indelible affect the influenza pandemic had on her and her family. Chilling.
Now that we find ourselves this March 2020 in this surreal coronavirus pandemic together, we thought it might be telling to relay some of the historical information and articles we found.
In our research in area newspapers in Fall 1918 into early 1919, there were plenty of articles about various Truckee-ites who were suffering or in threat of “succumbing” to the Spanish Flu. A number of now familiar names appeared in the local Truckee Republican paper, and note was made of their health progress in battling the infection in the local paper: Dave Cabona, F. Finnegan, Dr. Earl McGlashan, Tony Polyanich, August Sassarini, and Robert Tonini, among countless others whose names did not make the paper.
As early as October 10th, the Truckee Republican published a list of DON’TS to look out for the ‘Spanish Influenza.” 1
Now that we find ourselves this March 2020 in this surreal coronavirus pandemic together, we thought it might be telling to relay some of the historical information and articles we found.
In our research in area newspapers in Fall 1918 into early 1919, there were plenty of articles about various Truckee-ites who were suffering or in threat of “succumbing” to the Spanish Flu. A number of now familiar names appeared in the local Truckee Republican paper, and note was made of their health progress in battling the infection in the local paper: Dave Cabona, F. Finnegan, Dr. Earl McGlashan, Tony Polyanich, August Sassarini, and Robert Tonini, among countless others whose names did not make the paper.
As early as October 10th, the Truckee Republican published a list of DON’TS to look out for the ‘Spanish Influenza.” 1
Truckee Republican, October 10, 1918, p. 4
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And only a week later, October 17, 1918, “Health Officer” G.W. Bryant urged that all public gatherings cease immediately. That same day, all schools were closed. There are articles that the mask was declared to be the “only safe method to stop” the influenza spread.2 And that same day, the U.S. Public Health Service issued an Official Health Bulletin with the latest word on the subject, “Uncle Sam’s Advice on Flu”,3 which included answers to questions like “How can ‘Spanish influenza’ be recognized?”, “What is the course of the disease? Do people die of it?”, “What causes the disease and how is it spread?”, “What should be done by those who catch the disease?”, “Will a person who has had influenza before catch the disease again?”, and “How can one guard against influenza?” Any of these questions sound vaguely and recently familiar?
An otherwise healthy 23 year old training at Camp Kearny (near San Diego) died October 23, 1918. The title of the article: “Hobart Mills Boy Makes Supreme Sacrifice.”4 A young trainee Rudolph Summers, formerly of nearby Hobart Mills, and an only son, was seriously ill, and passed away from the flu. In November 1918, Father Michael J. O’Reilly, a Catholic priest who served Truckee citizens, also died from influenza after “ministering to the wants” of stricken Truckee residents.5 |
The only daughter of the McPhetres, Mrs. Millie Tappendorf, died of the Spanish influenza.6 A late January 1919 Truckee Republican article mentions that the heaviest death toll from the flu occurred in the more densely populated districts, and unbelievably, while estimates THEN relayed a 20 Million death toll over 4 years for World War I, “the influenza has proved itself five times deadlier than the war.”7
Letters from young men overseas in World War I written to family members in Truckee also mention that “all we hear from the states is what the influenza is doing in the way of causing so many deaths. Am glad they have it under control now.” (Dedicated column called Letters from our Truckee Boys, Fighting “Over There”).8
In a January 1919 article mention is made of Charles Fayette McGlashan’s only son Dr. Earl McGlashan and his wife both suffering from the flu, and even in August 1919, some six months later, it is reported that Dr. Earl was still exceptionally weak from his earlier “affliction.”9 Sadly, he passed away in December of that same year at age 37 due to some non-specified operation.10
There are dozens of other stories and letters home about effects of the Spanish Influenza of 1918-1919, and somewhere in the midst of all the illness and the apparent 1919 winter which brought incessant snow storms and trains that could not get through, somehow, Truckee came out on the other side of this pandemic. History teaches us to be prepared - so that we do not find ourselves in similar times that we’d like to forget.
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Footnotes
1 Oct. 10, 1918, p. 4, TR
2 Oct. 24, 1918 TR
3 Oct. 24, 1918, TR
4 Oct 31, 1918, TR
5 Sacramento Bee, Nov. 14, 1918
6 Nov. 7, 1918, p. 1,TR
7 Jan. 23, 1919, p. 1, TR
8 January 16, 1919, p. 4, TR
9 Jan. 23, 1919, p. 1 TR
10 Dec. 4, 1919, p. 1, TR
References
Sacramento Bee article
Truckee Republican articles
Gladwell, Malcolm. “The Deadliest Virus Ever Known”. The New Yorker. (1997).
Strochlic, Nina and Champine, Riley D. National Geographic. “How some cities ‘flattened the curve’ during the 1918 flu pandemic”. (2020)
Images of California from the 1918 Pandemic
Note: In case you didn’t see our March 2014 TDHS Echoes From the Past newsletter (p. 2), there was a April 16, 1915 letter from Truckee’s ‘Butterfly Princess,’ Ximena McGlashan, to a Fay Northcott, specifically referring to the War. “The war has demoralized our markets for Europe is our best buyer. I do not think America will be involved, but no one can tell.” So even as early as 1915, one very intelligent Truckee-ite was concerned about a possible American involvement in the ‘Great War.’
HCS 3/31/2020
Letters from young men overseas in World War I written to family members in Truckee also mention that “all we hear from the states is what the influenza is doing in the way of causing so many deaths. Am glad they have it under control now.” (Dedicated column called Letters from our Truckee Boys, Fighting “Over There”).8
In a January 1919 article mention is made of Charles Fayette McGlashan’s only son Dr. Earl McGlashan and his wife both suffering from the flu, and even in August 1919, some six months later, it is reported that Dr. Earl was still exceptionally weak from his earlier “affliction.”9 Sadly, he passed away in December of that same year at age 37 due to some non-specified operation.10
There are dozens of other stories and letters home about effects of the Spanish Influenza of 1918-1919, and somewhere in the midst of all the illness and the apparent 1919 winter which brought incessant snow storms and trains that could not get through, somehow, Truckee came out on the other side of this pandemic. History teaches us to be prepared - so that we do not find ourselves in similar times that we’d like to forget.
________________________________________________________________________________
Footnotes
1 Oct. 10, 1918, p. 4, TR
2 Oct. 24, 1918 TR
3 Oct. 24, 1918, TR
4 Oct 31, 1918, TR
5 Sacramento Bee, Nov. 14, 1918
6 Nov. 7, 1918, p. 1,TR
7 Jan. 23, 1919, p. 1, TR
8 January 16, 1919, p. 4, TR
9 Jan. 23, 1919, p. 1 TR
10 Dec. 4, 1919, p. 1, TR
References
Sacramento Bee article
Truckee Republican articles
Gladwell, Malcolm. “The Deadliest Virus Ever Known”. The New Yorker. (1997).
Strochlic, Nina and Champine, Riley D. National Geographic. “How some cities ‘flattened the curve’ during the 1918 flu pandemic”. (2020)
Images of California from the 1918 Pandemic
Note: In case you didn’t see our March 2014 TDHS Echoes From the Past newsletter (p. 2), there was a April 16, 1915 letter from Truckee’s ‘Butterfly Princess,’ Ximena McGlashan, to a Fay Northcott, specifically referring to the War. “The war has demoralized our markets for Europe is our best buyer. I do not think America will be involved, but no one can tell.” So even as early as 1915, one very intelligent Truckee-ite was concerned about a possible American involvement in the ‘Great War.’
HCS 3/31/2020
