1918 Flu Pandemic

"Ash78, voting early and often" (ash78)
03/13/2020 at 14:00 • Filed to: None

My dad, the official family genealogist/historian, just reminded me that my great grandfather was the only child of three to survive the 1918 pandemic. All of them were roughly my current age at the time.

I’m seriously about to reply “ OK, Boomer”

DISCUSSION (29)

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > Ash78, voting early and often
03/13/2020 at 14:07

Do it

facw > Ash78, voting early and often
03/13/2020 at 14:10

As long as we are talking about the Spanish Flu, let’s pause to make fun of the president’s ignorance : Trump ‘didn’t know people died from the flu.’ It killed his grandfather.

Chariotoflove > Ash78, voting early and often
03/13/2020 at 14:12

Understanding history gives perspective. Reading about the flu pandemic and also polio with its vaccination squads a century ago is fascinating.

jimz > Ash78, voting early and often
03/13/2020 at 14:14

what’s the context? Does he mean “this isn’t that bad?” Then yeah, scoff away. SARS-CoV2 is just getting started.

how things play out in the next week or two are going to define how bad it gets. As much as I don’t like cancellations of all these events I was planning on going to, they’re not that important.

Ash78, voting early and often > Chariotoflove
03/13/2020 at 14:16

The hard part for me to grasp is just how differently we must have treated life in those days. Infant mortality was incredibly high, the flu wiped out about 1/4 of the population...our own grand/great-grand parents would often have 10+ kids and only 5-6 of them would live to be adults. It had to be a completely different perspective or else you’d go insane from grief.

I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker > facw
03/13/2020 at 14:17

I feel like he should have known that. However, I’m 23 and until this year, I didn’t know people died of the flu until my friend told me after I had the flu. So it’s probably a more widespread lack of knowledge than one might think.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > Chariotoflove
03/13/2020 at 14:17

Yeah, the history’s fascinating. “Isolation” actually worked.

Medical care is obviously better, but some communities were very hard hit 100 years ago. Must have sucked to be back from the war to an epidemic. My GGF discharged out in mid 1918 and went back to Iowa to start a family and farm. He was probably happy to be back to the rural life and less affected by the flu that came as the war had wound down .

Chariotoflove > Ash78, voting early and often
03/13/2020 at 14:20

Society was completely different in general. This was pre-New Deal, and even people’s view of what government could or should be doing for them was alien to what we take for granted now. People expected to live their whole lives like acrobats without any safety net other that what they could construct within their family units .

ttyymmnn > Ash78, voting early and often
03/13/2020 at 14:20

Recent scholarship indicates that the vast number of people who died were not killed by the flu itself. Rather, they died of super bacterial infections they got at the ramshackle field hospitals where they collected everybody, in an era before any sort of antibiotics.

Chariotoflove > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
03/13/2020 at 14:21

Amazing to me that we’ve come to a time when “educated” Americans forget the hard-won lessons of the past and become anti-vaxxers.

Ash78, voting early and often > Chariotoflove
03/13/2020 at 14:26

I never really thought about it in these terms, but it’s like we’ve slowly allowed government to take the place of extended family — including care for the elderly. I feel like most people’s entire perspective (even if you study history) still skews toward the post-FDR, post-WWII era.

This isn’t an anti-government commentary, just an observation.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > Chariotoflove
03/13/2020 at 14:29

Yeah. Preach it.

There’s some irony that many of the “enclaves” perpetuating the anti-vax thing are actually “well-educated”, “coastal” and “wealthy”. As much as they like to denigrate The Flyover Zone? Those Marin County anti-vaxxers can hold some pretty ignorant beliefs...

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Chariotoflove > Ash78, voting early and often
03/13/2020 at 14:29

I agree. That’s the kind of reflection history leads to. It’s so sad that our schools teach it as a dry collection of sterile facts.

Ash78, voting early and often > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
03/13/2020 at 14:36

Here in flyover country, I don’t even know of any anti-vaxxers at all (let alone know some). Our stereotype is the “Portland Granola Mom” more than anything. Here we’re all about medicating everyone for everything :)

ranwhenparked > Chariotoflove
03/13/2020 at 14:47

My dad used to get sent to stay with relatives in the country almost every summer at the first sign of polio in the city, remembers going to school with several kids who were pretty badly messed up by it. Crazy that that was something people just accepted and lived with not that long ago.

jimz > Chariotoflove
03/13/2020 at 15:36

you can educate people about stuff all you want, but if they’ve never experienced it then it’s only of limited effectiveness. it’s hard to explain to someone how bad measles can be.

haveacarortwoorthree2 > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
03/13/2020 at 16:05

What part of Iowa? From DSM, wife from CF but has farmers/ranchers in her family from throughout Northern Iowa (Go Wapsie Valley!).

haveacarortwoorthree2 > I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker
03/13/2020 at 16:06

But your grandfather? Assuming you were old enough to actually know him, wouldn’t you remember the cause of his passing? If nothing else, it would come up every time you filled out a medical history form.

gettingoldercarguy > Chariotoflove
03/13/2020 at 16:15

Hands on experience is always more valuable than classroom lessons.

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > Ash78, voting early and often
03/13/2020 at 16:33

When 65 was old, taking care of 80 year olds is a much more modern issue.

Ash78, voting early and often > gmporschenut also a fan of hondas
03/13/2020 at 16:37

True...however, almost everyone in my dad’s family (including the great grandpa above) lived to their 90s. Even back then.

My current grandmother just hit 98...which is far less amazing in the modern medical world. But still. There comes a point where it’s like “I don’t think your body was meant to last this long...”

I like cars: Jim Spanfeller is one ugly motherfucker > haveacarortwoorthree2
03/13/2020 at 16:39

Assuming he filled out his own medical forms...

Chariotoflove > gettingoldercarguy
03/13/2020 at 16:39

Ha! So true.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > ranwhenparked
03/13/2020 at 17:02

Makes me a bit sad that many today don’t recognize how much better health, safety and sanitary standards are relative to even recent history ... And that those came at a cost.

“Tainted food” and “Poisonous Spirits” were both real risks in America 100 years ago. And, polio. Smallpox. Whooping cough....

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > Ash78, voting early and often
03/13/2020 at 17:03

A good short doc on the subject

ranwhenparked > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
03/13/2020 at 17:41

Hell, look at what cities and roadsides were like before emissions controls and unleaded gas, it was like present-d ay China.

glemon > Ash78, voting early and often
03/13/2020 at 23:02

My grandfather was born in 1898, he wrote memoirs, story of his life, lots of fascinating stuff. He wrote about the tiny coffin for his little brother who died a few days after birth. Said it made him very sad, and he didn’t really mention being sad much other than that. It had an effect, but as you said, it was fairly common and I think people were busy enough just living that they moved on.

He also had a hay fork go through his hand and almost lost the hand to infection, got sick during the flu epidemic of 1918 and doctor told him he was going to die. Lots of other interesting stories , but just thought I would mention the stuff relevant to the conversation here.

SBA Thanks You For All The Fish > haveacarortwoorthree2
03/14/2020 at 12:03

He was born, and lived, in Tama County. His father and uncle had come over in 1872, farmed wheat in the Red River Valley and got wiped out in the Farm Crisis of the late 1800s. They relocated to Iowa and lived there for a couple of generations. My family settled in North Central IA.

I had college buddies from Valley High, in West Des Moines. Couldn’t believe how Des Moines was booming last year when I visited.

haveacarortwoorthree2 > SBA Thanks You For All The Fish
03/16/2020 at 07:45

Tama County, I know it well. lol

Agreed about DSM area . My f olks and brother’s family still live there, but they all moved to Johnston. When I was growing up, no one went to Johnston for anything. Now it is “huge.” And both my nieces have been on state champ softball teams and leveraged that into Big 12/Big 10 college scholarships. I’m just a lowly UNI grad.