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Spanish Flu Pandemic Begins: March 1918

Spanish Flu: 401st Ponton Park
In early March 1918, soldiers with the flu began reporting to the infirmary at Camp Funston, an army training camp in Kansas. Within three weeks, 1,100 men at that camp had also come down with the flu. It was the start of a pandemic that would kill as many as 100 million people worldwide.

Though commonly called the Spanish flu (because of a highly publicized outbreak in Spain), it likely began in Haskell, Kansas, where it spread to Camp Funston and from there to the rest of the world. Wartime conditions, like troop movements and overcrowded cantonments, accelerated and aggravated the spread of the virus, which proved to be much deadlier than the normal flu, in part because of a particularly tough strain of pneumonia that often accompanied it.

119 out of 204 soldiers sick with Spanish flu; 3 die
The Spanish flu afflicted cities across the nation and around the world, but since it disproportionately hit young adults in their prime, the military felt its effects strongly. The US Navy would later estimate that 40 percent of its men had gotten the Spanish flu, while the Army reported 36 percent. Of the three waves of the flu (March–June, September–November, December–March), the second wave was the deadliest for both civilians and for the military. In fact, between September and November, the flu killed about as many soldiers as World War I did in that same time period.

The Spanish flu affected the war itself as it ravaged the armies of both the Allies and the Axis. While many soldiers were sick for three days or so and then began to recover, a substantial number either developed the deadly pneumonia as well or contracted a version of the flu that could kill in as little as 24 hours. For every soldier that died, another four or five were too sick for weeks afterward to carry out their duties. Military attacks and operations on both sides had to be postponed because of the huge number of soldiers incapacitated by the flu.

35 squadron members sick with Spanish flu; 3 of them die
Despite failed attempts by the medical community to control the virus, the pandemic eventually began to die down on its own, with the worst of the third wave finished in the United States by the end of March 1919. By 1920, the danger was finally over.

Learn more about the Spanish flu pandemic on Fold3. The WWI Officer Experience Reports are an especially good source for first-hand accounts about life in the military during the flu pandemic.

123 Comments

  1. LaHonda Jo Morgan says:

    Thank you for addressing this event. What was status of inductees on way to first post who became sick en route or immediately after arriving at Army facility? Were they counted as military casualties and recorded in military records OR were they not considered “military” as yet and treated as civilians prior to swearing in?

    Please bring us more information on the influenza epidemic and its fallout.

    • Pamela Melder says:

      John Barry wrote a great book that would answer all of your questions plus some. It’s called The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History. It was really fascinating and well-written as I recall (it came out in 2005, so it’s been a while since I read it – this article has me hankering to go dig it out of my library and re-read it). You can get a copy from Amazon and your local library should have a copy as well.

  2. L. Henley says:

    Were there any reports of the names of those that died and were buried at sea?
    Great article. I think I now know what happened to my grandfather – the story goes “he got pneumonia and died at sea”. Thanks for any help.

    • Tammy says:

      I too have a great uncle that got the Spanish Flu and died at sea. They have a beautiful obelisk in the small town in Arkansas where he was born.

  3. Brenda Fleenor Haynie says:

    Is their a list of name of the men that die with the Flu.
    I had two uncles that die, with in two hours of each other, one in a military hospital in Alabama and the other one in Cal. Military hospital
    Would love to find out if it was the flu.

  4. Sally Mitchell says:

    My mother’s oldest brother died of flu at Fort Dix while waiting to be shipped overseas.

    • Bobbie Day Stehling says:

      My granduncle also died at Fort Dix in Sept 1918. His surname was, Coley.

  5. Laren Tolbert says:

    According to family lore, my great-uncle died in New Orleans in November 1918, after reporting for induction in New Orleans, I have not found his death certificate, but I have been wondering if there is a list of flu casualties anywhere.

  6. Lucinda Copeland says:

    I have letters from my great-great Uncle Charley to his mother. He was an MP at Camp Travis, Texas. “…..and glad to tell you I am fine yet that is more than most of the boys can say. I was on Guard closest to the Hospital the other night and Mother I sure seen some sights. They were taking the bodys to the train to ship home all night. I cant tell you how many dies a day but there is enough, it is awful to see them handle the bodys (sic). The date of the letter was October 18, 1918.

  7. carol says:

    My father was 17 in 1918 and about to ask his parents for permission to go fight in the war. They lived in the country in central Ill. He contracted that flu and was very ill for several weeks. Everyone thought he would die. Finally, he began to get better, and, when he was able to look at himself in a mirror, he did not recognize himself. He was a strong and hardy man who did a lot of physical work in his lifetime and lived to be over 94. Perhaps his strength helped him survive the flu, or it helped him be so strong the rest of his life.

  8. Steve Snyder says:

    My mother’s parents were living in Denver and both died 5 days apart, leaving my mother orphaned. Both death certificates gave the cause of death as pneumonia, with the secondary cause as influenza. While looking through the Denver newspapers, I found articles giving daily lists of victims. And a number of articles about the epidemic. An example is this page from the Washington (DC) Star Oct. 14, 1918, which reported 96 deaths that day: http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn84026749/1918-10-14/ed-1/seq-3/#date1=1918&index=4&rows=20&words=influenza+Influenza+INFLUENZA&searchType=basic&sequence=0&state=District+of+Columbia&date2=1918&proxtext=Influenza&y=9&x=14&dateFilterType=yearRange&page=1

  9. Frank Zwolinski says:

    Hello,
    Could you please make these entries printable?
    Thanks,
    Frank

    • Robert says:

      Click the PDF item above the page that is showing. It will download a copy of that page to your computer.

  10. Kathy Bee says:

    My husbands greatgrandparents died the same day in 1918 from the Spanish flu leaving eight children the oldest being 16.

  11. bill bachteler says:

    My uncles dad was in ww1 and he recorded it in his diary on the way to and back from France &in New York on his return. My wife’s grand mother died from it in New York in 1918.

  12. Donald Davis says:

    My Grandfather was drafted into the Army for WW I in 1918. He was 29 years old! Got the flu in boot camp and the war ended before he recovered. He was honorably discharged from Camp Gordon, Georgia in early 1919.

  13. Debbie Dial says:

    This is such an important time in our history and for you to share this help all the genealogist out there and we really appreciate Fold3.

  14. As a curator on Geni, an excellent genealogical site, have set up a series of projects for fatalities and survivors of the 1918 flu pandemic for most countries worldwide. l noted the question above about whether there were any lists of names -this is an attempt to list as many namesas we can and to pay tribute to those who lived and died as we approach the centenary of this tragic world event. Your ancestors may already be on Geni because it is a shared World tree.

  15. The Flu killed by great-grandmother, Anna Cleora Miller Van Buren. She was pregnant. Family lore says that my great-grandfather Samuel was so sick at the time that they didn’t tell him about her death for a week. My grandfather, his sister and his brother never got it.

  16. Tim vanraemdonck says:

    My wife’s great uncle died from the Spanish flu and camp Custer Michigan in 1918. If someone is trying to compile a list of casualties for this event I can give you his company and other information

  17. Tom Bogenschild says:

    My grandmother’s mother and father contracted influenza in Hornitos, California in 1918 and both died. As the oldest of 6 children, at 18, she took over the household.

  18. Carole Townsend says:

    My grandmother died of the flu in Feb 1919. My father was 2 years old when he lost his mother. What a horrible time in history that took the lives of so many young and hard men and women.

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  20. Judith Carlon says:

    My grandmother died in a rural town Northwest of Minneapolis, Minnesota in October, 1918 of Pneumonia related to the flu epidemic. She left 5 small children, my mother being the oldest at 7 years old.

  21. Diane DeLorie says:

    My grandmother lost a brother, a sister, her mother, and grandmother to this pandemic. The family was quarantined according to a letter from the coroner. My grandmother survived because she was married and not living with the family. They were from Somerset Pa.

  22. In the last couple of days before Christmas 1918, my great-grandfather Fredrick Jonker and two of his children died of pneumonia complications from the Spanish Flu. The remaining family suffered greatly, both economically and emotionally for decades to follow. This occured near Hudsonville, Ottawa County, Michigan. No WWI veterans were members of the immediate family.

  23. Sharon Cunningham says:

    Are you stating that this pandemic actually began in Kansas…. then spread, through our military, to the rest of the world???

    • Dee Flint says:

      That is indeed one hypothesis. It’s called Spanish flu since Spain was not at war and they did not censor the news of the outbreak like the belligerent countries did.

  24. Elizabeth Brigan says:

    My maternal great-grandfather, who emigrated to the U.S. from Germany as a young boy, died of pneumonia as a result of the flu in Philadelphia in October 1918, the worst month of the pandemic in that city. He was a civilian, a beer wagon driver. His children had to dig his grave because the cemetery was so busy. I had never heard of the Spanish flu or how it decimated Philadelphia before my ancestry research. Thank you for this article!

  25. My great grandfather WILLIAN RILEY ‘BILL’ SLATON died of the flu 1918, In Oklahoma. Have never found death record on him.

  26. jeffrey jurick says:

    I hope other states are forced to require standard immunizations due to the many lessons that has costs millions in lives.The past work of preventing disease has saved millions of lives and must be maihtained for our safety.

  27. Linda Coffman says:

    My grandfather told me about having to wear masks and bury many people in Greene Co Arkansas and surrounding areas as a teenager as a result of this flu.

  28. jon Gawne says:

    Kansas was old school thinking on the flu. The current theory, and pretty well backed up, is that it started at a major British Training Camp in France well prior. At that point it was a milder version, but mutated at some point to become the killer it is known at.

  29. Glenda Broadway says:

    My grandfather, Coley Clifft, died in July, 1918, from the flu in the “56” community near Bono, Arkansas. He was 37 years old and left my grandmother with 3 children to care for. My father was only 3. My aunt who was 5 told me her memories of his funeral.

    • Alan Burns says:

      Hi Glenda,
      Your grandfather and my great-grandmother were brother and sister (Nora Clifft Dollars). Her husband (my great-grandfather) died of the Spanish Flu also in 1918, leaving my 3-month old grandfather. I’d love to connect with you and compare notes if you’re interested.

  30. Jan Tessier says:

    My uncle Bernard Curran died in September of 1918. His cause of death was listed as lobal pneumonia. He was a brakeman on the Pittsburgh and Lake Erie Railroad. The flu spread rapidly along the rail lines. He was fine when he left Youngstown, Ohio for his shift. When he got to McKees Rocks, Pennsylvania he was deathly ill. He went to his step brothers house and then to the hospital in Pittsburgh where he died. No one in either family contracted the flu.

  31. George says:

    In doing my ancestry research I found that my great grandmother passed away due to the Spanish Flu. The death certificate indicated that she was taken very rapidly by the influenza.

  32. Karon Kelley says:

    My grandmother died on 8 Feb. 1919 of the Spanish flu. She was only 34 yrs. old and left three children, one was my mother who was turning 12 that month. She rallied a few times and they thought she was going to make it, but just couldn’t fight it. They lived in Lake Preston, Kingsbury, South Dakota.

  33. Bev says:

    My grandmother of Montreal, Ouebec Canada died of the Spanish flu in October 1918. Two weeks later my grandfather died leaving 8 children, four of which went to an orphanage. One of those children was my father. He told me they couldn’t bury the people fast enough as there were so many of them.

  34. Victor Dahlquist says:

    Since my aerospace job was taken away, have volunteered more for Active Duty, Vets Scouts, others. One thing was to expand my military historian time which others can do too.
    Heard a few years ago ( now need to find references) that medical researchers were trying to find out more of why this “flu” was so devastating. Finally someone discovered a preserved tissue sample in a medical museum from a soldier who died from this flu. With new research methods , it was stated that part of the issue was a mutating in a much more powerful “flu” which they did not have good countermeasures in 1918. Some of the these findings helped medical researchers.
    Victor Dahlquist
    Here to Support Customers with Innovative answers to problem projects.
    Handicap certified, but fully functional.
    See LinkedIn for more info on Safety Awards.
    SME,Subject Matter Expert, Aerospace, Defense, Govt, Safety Training, Security Analysis, can travel.
    Living history presentations of old tools and Military historical Archeology with enlighten demonstrations to inspire Folks to learn traditions

  35. Shannon W says:

    my grandfather died in a flu epidemic in the tiny town of Rocky Ford, GA., March 1920. I haved joked that it was so for out in the country that it took that long for the Pandemic to get there. I heard that his coffin was nearly lost in the swollen creek; leading me to suspect That there was Pneumonia weather (cold and wet) that spring. Was this just an annual flu season.

  36. Nancy Peregrine says:

    I am searching for the fate of Catherine “Kitty” Clover Hodges. daughter of Francis “Frank” Gordon Hodges & Harriette Augusta Warner. Kitty was born Aug 3, 1890 in NJ. The family moved to Loxley or Robertsdale, Baldwin Co, Alabama…Kitty was 19 in the 1910 census there. By the 1920 census, Kitty isn’t to be found. The parents are then in Fairhope, Baldwin Co, Alabama. Letters between family members a few years before 1920 talk about how sad it is about Kitty…but they don’t say what happened – I suspect she died of the flu, but haven’t been able to find mention of her death.
    Any info welcome!
    Nancy Peregrine
    [email protected]

  37. Jim Rogers says:

    A PA great grandmother was always said to have died of the Spanish flu. That was in mid-February of 1918, a month or more before it supposedly started in KS. She incidentally had a son in the Army at Fort Dix, NJ. I guess she may have been “avant grade.” I wish I could read the newspapers around the time of her death.

  38. Virginia Kopach says:

    My Father John J. Sehulster was 17 when he came down with the flu in October of 1918. He was the 2nd oldest of 7 children and lived with his parents and maiden aunt in Newark, N.J. At the time of the flu outbreak in Newark many of the medical doctors were overseas because of the war.. Those who were seriously ill were taken to isolation hospitals and placed in large wards to be taken care of by the overworked M.D.’s and nurses. My father never forgot his fear that he would die and his parents would never be notified. He often told the family of hearing the gurneys carrying bodies out at night for burial in common graves. When a friend from the neighborhood was brought in to the hospital they made a pack that if the other one died they would make sure that the families were notified. Fortunately both survived. My father was unable to work for over a year because of “weakness in the lungs”. He recovered his health after spending a year on his uncle’s farm.

  39. Gene King says:

    The flu did not stop altogether for several years. My Ancestor, Jesse Kitchen of Pittsburg, KS, suffered with the flu’s effects before dying in 1924. He was a professional Photographer and took self images of himself to show his rapid decline in health.

  40. Rebecca Starr says:

    My great grandfather and his two year old daughter died in October of 1918 of the flu leaving his wife and four remaining children destitute. My father was sent to an orphanage and his sisters were sent to live with relatives. Eventually, they got back together.

  41. marcie lee says:

    My great grandmother (my mother’s mom) died in Dec. 1918 of the flu in Minneapolis, MN. Mom was her only child born in May 1918. Great grandmother’s death left mom with no knowledge of her mother’s side of the family with her father & new stepmom not even letting her know she had a real mom until she was a teenager & then only when another family member let it slip. Be that as it may, mom’s maternal grandfather & some uncles, etc. lived only about two hundred miles away when she was growing up so if they had been truth telling she would likely have known them. Instead she spent her life wondering what happened to her real mom & her side of the family, Sad to say she died two years before through much dogged pursuit & research I finally found them & we have new relatives in the US & Yorkshire in England. Always had a strange desire to go to York for some unknown reason, guess it was an inbred ancestral memory calling.

  42. Julie Pearce says:

    My fathers Great Uncle, Clarence Ephraim Kidd (Byrne) died of Spanish Flu on 8th October 1918 in Port Hope Ontario Canada

  43. Marianne S says:

    My grandfather was injured in an industrial accident at the factory where he worked, and was sent to the hospital. He contracted the flu in the hospital, and eventually died of pneumonia on Nov 23, 1918. My mother, who was 9 at the time, per family custom sat up with his body in the parlor of their home the nights before the church service.

  44. Larry Rizzo says:

    I found this article very interesting. My grandmother (probably in her late 20s or early 30s at the time) died in the influenza epidemic of 1918, leaving behind her mother, her husband and 3 children (1 boy, 2 girls). My mother was about 7 or 8 years of age, and her little sister about 3 years old when their mother died. The brother was older and away at school. My grandfather did not remarry for about 3 or 4 years. The family lived in a Chicago suburb across the state line in Indiana. My mother remembered that they left the body of her mother on the bottom front step of their house, and a wagon came by and collected the body (and other victims). My mother did not like to talk about this because it made her so sad, but losing her mother was a very important event in her life. So far as I know, no one else in the family contracted the influenza at that time. I want read more about this. Thank you.

  45. Carla says:

    My 37 year old grandmother died in early Jan 1920, in Maine. Strangley enough just stumbled upon an uncle who died in 1918 and I never found his death certificate, but just recently found his d/c, sure enough, the flu. He died in Maine as well, so it looks like this flu went all over the USA.

  46. Paula says:

    My Mom’s family had 10 deaths with 2 months from this Flu in Pittsburgh PA…she was just a baby and her mom died……leaving her to go to an convent for nuns to take care of her.
    When my Granfather went back to get her…. they ( the Nuns) told him… she ( my Mom ) died…when really she was adopted… I have had so much trouble trying to trace her family roots.

  47. Dave Key says:

    The Hursley Park Military Hospital nr Winchester in Hampshire, England (the hospital was later renamed Base Hospital #204) took in many influenza victims in 1918 and the records of the Officer in Charge record the attempts to stem the spread of the disease by using sheets strung up between the beds (amazingly a photograph of the arrangement survives). At it’s peak over 900 patients were being treated in the hospital, mainly influenza cases.

    I am the historian for Hursley Park and would be very interested if anyone has details of any relatives who were at, or passed through, Hursley or any records relating to the US Hospital there.

    email: [email protected]

    Regards
    Dave

  48. Terrence MacArthur says:

    They were NOT the “Axis”. In WWI, Britain, France and Russia were in the Triple Entente, and Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy were in the Triple Alliance. The Axis came onto being a couple of decades later, and consisted of Germany, Italy and Japan. It grew out of the 1936 Anti-Comintern Pact between Germany and Japan (which Italy joined in 1937), for the stated purpose of resisting the international Communist movement. In 1939 they signed the Pact of Steel, which turned the so-called “Rome-Berlin Axis” into a military alliance, .Finally, in 1940, they signed the Tripartite Pact, which coordinated the militaries of all 3 countries, similar to today’s NATO alliance.

    • Lawrence Ledgerwood says:

      Thanks, Terrance for noticing the wrong names of the two sides or WW1. To take it a step farther the two sides were called the Allies or Allied Powers and the Central Powers. The pre-war sides were as you mentioned: the Triple Alliance and the Central Alliance. Once the war started they then became Allies and Central Powers.

    • Ken Callison says:

      Ken Callisoon Was not Italy on the side of Britan in WWI?

    • John William Duke says:

      Thank you for correcting an obvious error on this page. My Great-Grandmother died from Spanish Flu in 14 December 1918 in Dayton, Ohio.

    • James Horn says:

      Italy was on the side of Britain and France. The Battle of Caparetto was a major defeat of the Italians by the Germans and Austrians in the eastern Alps. Rommel came to prominence for actions as a small unit leader against the Italians

    • James Horn says:

      In addition to the Italians switching sides between the wars, Turkey was on the German side in WW I (Lawrence of Arabia fought against them) and were neutral in WW II and Japan was on the Allied side in WW I and, of course were part of the Axis in WW II. Russia was on the allied side in both wars, but were horribly incompetent in the first war. The Netherlands were neutral in WW I but were not given that option in WW II. Belgium was overrun in both wars by the Germans.

  49. Joyce Devorss says:

    I know that the Spanish Flu pandemic took at least 2 members of my mothers family, her sister ad an older relative. Does anyone know if there are Death Lists available for Virginia?

    • Margaret Worrall says:

      My grandmother died of Spanish flu in 1918 when my father was 9 months old. Are there death lists for MD as well? That’s about all I know about her.

    • I have ancestors in Virgina as well. Going to check into this pandemic further. I may have lost some to it as well. I do know there was a young woman among my ancestors who died in her early twenties, but I don’t know the cause of death … just that she died young. Young even for that generation where people lived into their fifties or so.

    • Linda Keefer says:

      My grandmother’s mother died too at age 25. Leaving 3 children under the age of 7. She was from Virginia too but living in Maryland near Curtis Bay(near Baltimore).

  50. Ollie Woodard says:

    My 18 year-old mother caught the flu in 1918. She was nursed in a home along with four others who died.

  51. Robert C. Rice says:

    My maternal grandfather died in Los Angeles of the “Spanish Flu” at the end of October, 1918, when my mother was seven years old. She, my uncle, aunt, and grandmother survived him, and I regret never having known him.

  52. John Waigh says:

    My Grandmother died of the flu in 1918 in K.C Missouri. Are their any death lists for Missouri ?

  53. My father was a teenager when the pandemic hit and he used to tell of people dropping in their tracks–or off park benches–who would die in that place. There are a couple of really good books about the pandemic, and make for really great reading.

    • Cathy Oldham says:

      Missouri has a great website called Missouri Digital Heritage where you can print death certificates for anyone between the years 1909 and 1950. Cause of death is on their certificate.

  54. Mary McIntosh says:

    My great grandmother, Julia Barnes (Estill County, KY), died of the Spanish Flu, exactly one day after giving birth to my grandfather, Glen McIntosh.

  55. Kat says:

    My great-great grandmother died while she was pregnat with her 23rd child from the spanish flu…

  56. Paula says:

    My material grandmother was 4 and survived. Her sister was 6 and died in Toledo, Ohio.
    Do any of you seem to have gain antibodies to flu because of a surviving grandparent? Except for swine flu in 1968, I have never had flu.

    • James H Swor says:

      Seven people in my family died of the Spanish Flu during 1918-1919. My second cousin was born in Dec 1918 while several people in the household had the flu. They subsequently died within days. At the age of 96 my cousin is still alive and has never had the flu even once during her life.

    • I almost never get flu. I’m wondering if that could be the reason as well. I don’t know the cause of death of any of my ancestors but do know a few died quite young. If it was the flu, perhaps that’s why. We build up immunities to pathogens were exposed to, and sometimes those can be passed along genetically.

    • Donna says:

      Both my husband and I have parents who survived the flu in Toledo, OH and neither of us nor our siblings have ever had the flu. In the last couple of years we’ve gotten flu shots (doctor’s orders) but otherwise we’ve never gotten a flu shot. Maybe just coincidence.

    • Mary Ann says:

      My father was born in 1902 and survived, my mother born in 1911 also survived, both sets of parents were told their children would not survive. I have never had the flu, altho I do always get the flu shot, never thought about possibley having immunitries from it.

    • K Dvis says:

      Not the flu, but my grandmother got smallpox when she was pregnant with my father. Neither he nor I have ever had a smallpox vaccination “take”.

  57. Paul Baltzer says:

    This flu destroyed my Balcer family line that arrived from Poland and died in Lorain, Ohio. Killed Jacob Baltzer. the father on 23 March 1900 and 7 days later killed his wife Mary Baltzer Rossa who was the mother of Helen Baltzer. This left Helen Baltzer without parents at the young age of 11 years old…welcome to America.

    • Virginia Murray says:

      My grandmother told me that during the Spanish Flu time she cared for neighbors in Jackson, MI. She kept onions under her bed so didn’t get the flu. I saw an item a few months ago that stated onions can collect bacteria.

  58. E Wood says:

    The military death lists for WWI are contained in the book ” Soldiers of the Great War”. It’s in three volumes divided into the volumes by states, and a soldiers death is listed in his home state. The books contain many photos. Ancestry.com has copy’s . The Washington state archives also has all three volumes on their web site…free. Cause of death is listed.

  59. My great grandfather died from the Spanish Influenza on March 27th, 1918 in New York,N.Y.. He was put in quarantine where he died leaving behind a pregnant wife who didn’t speak any english and four small children. Is there a list of people who passed from during this pandemic in New York?

  60. Glenford Baket says:

    My Grandmother died of Spanish infuenza 1918 she had 11 childern she died in New Britten Conn, the youngest was 4 years old

  61. Twyla Hinzman says:

    My Dad was in Camp Lee, Virginia, when the flu broke out there. He said as he spent time in the infirmary, big guys would be brought in one day, and by the next, they had been replaced by someone else. He said the “little guys”, like he was, survived better than the bigger one. He thought it was really strange.

  62. NITA GILREATH DAVIS says:

    My dad (born in 1903) lived in Snow or Finley Oklahoma
    when the flu hit. I think, 4th in the family. He had a younger
    sister die from the flu and I always heard that he and his dad
    had to bury her them selves because everyone else in the family
    had the flu. I often wondered how people living far enough back
    in the mountains that they had to ride a horse to a town to
    get mail contacted the flu. I have thought about how hard that
    would be for a 15 year old. sad times.

  63. Jane Arends says:

    My mother’s 4 yr old sister, an older brother and father had the flu; perhaps because there were hundreds of soldiers hospitalized in the local Iowa State College Armory, Ames. The preacher conducted her funeral while standing outside the house. He changed his clothes before he left and the family burned them. She had been a local celebrity as she had donated her small pig to the Red Cross auction. It was returned to her by the buyer and she raised it until it could be slaughtered.

  64. riki destine says:

    My husbands grandmother Florence Weingartner Schaefer did of it in 1918 when she was 20 leaving my husbands father motherless…if it wasnt for her I wouldnt have my hubby..she is honored

  65. Julie Chitwood says:

    “The World After WW1, 1918-1921” is a book of letters written during that period of time (about 700 pages). A lot of information is given about the Spanish Flu (SI), including the description of a small child and a very fit young man. Three sisters, one based in St Louis, one in Chicago area, and the third serving in the Red Cross overseas, keep each other informed as to what was happening in the world. It is like reading a ‘you were there’ history book written by the people living it at the time. The book is available in both paperback and Kindle format. The three sisters were my 2 great aunts and grandmother.

  66. Leslie Nichols says:

    My grandfather and grandmother met and married in Montana. They were both from Sweden. Gust Swanson, and Beda Marie Larson. Marie gave birth to her 5th child, Gust brought her home in a buggy, and then went up stairs ( and died from complications of the flu). Marie had phlebitus in her leg, and had to stay off it. The oldest two children were 10 & 12. When dinner came, the children came and said ” dad won’ t wake up.” Marie couldn’t get help or let the authorities know for several days. There was a blizzard out side, and she had no phone, and lived to far from a neighbor to send a child for help. Her phlebitus was so bad, she couldn’ t even attend her own husbands funeral. 6 months later, his sister Anna also died of the same flu. 2 sisters had married two brothers, so John, Gusts brother, and his wife, Beda Maries sister, and Marie and her children all movrd to Queen Anne hill in Seattle Washington, shortly after arriving, John was in the car with some other, and the cars brakes failed, the others jumped out, but John did not get out as it plumeted down Queen Anne hill, and he died. I can t imagine the grief of their parents in Sweden, who sent their young adult children to America for a better life. First Gust, then 6 mo later, Anna, then 6 mo later John.

    • Leslie Nichols says:

      Are there any death lists for Milltown , Montana, very close to Missoula?

  67. Kelly Smith says:

    My paternal grandmother’s first husband died from the flu right at the end of the 3rd wave on March 24, 1919. Then, 55 years to the day I was born. In a weird twist of fate, if it wasn’t for the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918-19, she would not have met and married my grandfather, my dad would not have been born and I would not be here today.

    • Laina says:

      I’ve, knock wood and thank God, have never had the flu. Horrendous and untreated ear and throat infections until my teens, but no colds. Does anyone know WHAT reason for the Kansas origin of that?

    • Laina says:

      Had her first husband not died, I assume there would have been children!

  68. howard tyler says:

    My grandfather, greatgrandfather’s wife and one of their girls died in 1918. Also my great great great aunt died in 1918.

  69. cathy moore says:

    My father, now 96 years old was born in August 1918. He is a triplett
    All three boys had the flu and my father’s identical twin died in December 1918. My father was very ill and had multiple seizures but survived .

  70. candy reeve says:

    Camp Funston is part of Fort Riley in Fort Riley, KS which is located in Haskell County, KS. There is no town called Haskell, KS. Camp Funston was not only a training camp but also a detention camp for conscientious objectors, most of whom were Mennonites and Quakers. Because of delays in determining who and what consisted of suitable conscientious objectors and alternatives to active duty, many of them were imprisoned, beaten and tortured. It is not a proud moment in Kansas or U.S. history.

  71. Jim Bousman says:

    This website is worth a read:

    https://virus.stanford.edu/uda/

  72. Mimi says:

    Laina, I believe what Kelly was saying is that she herself would not have been born because her mother would have not met her father, not that this woman would not have had other children by the first husband.

  73. Betty Schatz says:

    i don’t know if there are official lists of victims anywhere but I do know our local newspaper, during that time, printed lists once a week and sometimes oftener. I assume they received the names from the hospital or local medical persons.

  74. Catherine Knowles says:

    My mother, her father, and other family members and relatives living in the tight-knit small neighborhood of Italian-Americans outside of Syracuse, NY, had the Spanish Flu. My Mom was born in September of 1915, so was 3 or 4, depending on which wave of the flu she was in. My Mom (of course) and her father survived but I know others didn’t. There was an Army encampment outside of Syracuse on the State Fair grounds, and I’ve read that it spread from the camp. I don’t recall my mother every having the flu in my lifetime – she passed 5 years ago – but I’ve had it once or twice, my sister has, but I don’t remember hearing that my brother ever did. I’m not sure there’s an immunity for flu that gets “passed down”, especially since the flu virus mutates so much.

  75. Deborah Jordan says:

    I have three original family letters, one from my great-aunt to her brother, my grandfather, telling him their mother had taken the train from Ohio to Arkansas to where her son, my grandfather’s brother was stationed. He was a lieutenant. The CO had sent a letter to their mother, my great-grandmother, Hannah Lambert Mayne, telling her that my Great Uncle Daniel Mayne was very sick with the flu, but there was no one left to nurse him, or any others who had come down with the flu, or those who would later contract it. He asked her if she would make the trip to Arkansas to nurse Daniel, warning her that she may, herself, become ill, and there was no guarantee he would still be alive when she arrived. The third letter was from Hannah to my grandfather, dated Christmas Day. She told my grandfather Dwight, that his brother had eaten some turkey brother that morning and kept it down. He was conscious, but very tired, and she expected him to make a full recovery, unlike many of the men she saw while she was there. Hannah did not contract the disease, and Daniel not only recovered, but he also returned home healthy after The Great War, and later became Vice President of Patents for Eastman Kodak. He was the only member of my family to contract the disease, though three of the four sons served in the military in WWI.

  76. Carol Teinert Moravec says:

    I don’t know about my family or my husband’s family having the Spanish Flu. We seem to not get the flu, but we have allergies. A member of my church lost his parents, a day apart, to the flu. None of their nine children took the flu. My husband’s cousin was a missionary in Nain, Laborador some years ago. He commented that the Inuits were told not to go out to the ship to sell items to them. A generation of parents were lost to the flu.

  77. Cathy Warner says:

    My maternal grandfather was stationed in Georgia during the Spanish flu epidemic. He said they had them carrying bodies of flu victims and stacking them like cord wood. I couldn’t imagine the horror.

  78. Michael Boyle says:

    My grandfather’s sister, Ethel Tice of Peekskill NY died in 1918. She was dressing to go to a dance and collapsed.

  79. Roberta says:

    It is believed that the homes that stored onions in the cellars were the homes that were spared the wrath of the flue. The doctors who treated people during the out break made these conclusions as they smelled the onions while making their house calls. Onions ward off illnesses. I have one on my bedside table all the time and I eat a lot of onions. I am rarely sick.

  80. Jeanne says:

    My grandparents lived down the road from a cemetery. My aunt told me that they would see hearses taking bodies all day long. My grandmother would go and help her sick neighbors. Another aunt, who was 4 years old at the time, went to her sick friend’s house and sat with her. Her friend died but my aunt never got the flu. My grandfather made all of them wear garlic around their necks. Don’t know if it helped but no one in the family got the flu.

  81. Gayle Hegland says:

    My great-uncle Reginald George Manley, Birth 15 May 1899 in South Dakota, died while in the Army during WWI, 15 October 1918 in Llano Grande, Hidalgo, Texas, USA of the Spanish Flu. He ENLISTED IN THE 16TH CAV. TROOP H. on OCT 24, 1817. Yet with all this specific information, I can find no trace of him listed on any WWI documents. Why? Thanks!

  82. Gayle Hegland says:

    Also, my Grandmother Hilda Josephine (Bjorklund) Hegland (1884-1978) of Plentywood, MT took the local school teacher in and nursed her back to health from the Spanish Flu. This was quite risky, of course, and she also had a husband and 3 small children to care for in their very small home. Apparently, as I have been told, no one wanted to care for the young school teacher when she fell ill, but my grandmother said she would as it was her Christian duty to do so. My grandmother was a very strong-willed, religious Swedish immigrant, and with the help of prayer they all survived.

  83. VJ McDonald says:

    Ken Callison– Yes, Italy was on the Allied side in WWI. Good article at http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/16380/Allied-Powers

  84. Frances Vlahos-Rohm says:

    My great grandfather’s journal tells of his first days in Camp Rosencrans in San Diego. He arrived there on November 2, 1918. He writes of recieving his shots and vaccinations, and after his 3rd round of shots, reports feeling bum and feverish. He was sent to sick bay on Nov. 12th, the day after the Armistice was signed. On November 14, he reports feeling a bit better. The final journal entry is a note penciled in much later by my grandmother stating “on November 18, my father died.”

  85. Erma says:

    Hi everyone! First, let me say the stories on here very interesting. My grandfather’s first wife also died from the Spanish flu. Him and his wife, Helen Pearl Tanner and their 3 young daughters move from Alabama to Cincinnati Ohio in 1917 during the first wave of African Americans who left the south for a better life. She stayed at home while he worked in a factory that was making tanks for the US army. One day she was walking outside and slipped and fell hit her head on the icy sidewalk sometime in February of 1918. The fall caused a head concussion. That same month while at work my grandfather had an accident which burned the lower part of his body. Now both of them were incapacitated; however, family came to their rescue and waited on them hand and foot. Nevertheless, Helen caught the flu which turned into pneumonia. She died April 30 1918. I’m sad to say that if she had not died my grandfather would not have married my mother’s mother and I would not be here. He married my grandmother Lucile Payne Tanner and they had 18 more children and 13 lived into adulthood.

  86. Debbie Brock says:

    I always thought it was strange that my Grandfather who fought in WW1 for the British, never mentioned the flu epidemic. He was in a prison camp through most of the war and I’ve wondered if they might not have taken notice of it In a German prison camp.

  87. Peggy Blackmore Peschell says:

    My maternal Grandfather died of this disease in Cleveland I believe 1918 or ’19. His last name was Brown, that’s about all we ever learned about him. I wish we could find out more…

  88. janet udall says:

    I never knew my grandmother and grandfather because they were casualties of the Spanish Flu in 1919. They were ages 39 and 41, and lived in Nashville, Tennessee at that time. They left 9 children, my father being one of them. I remember hearing of the sad funeral when afterwards, family members from far and wide came into their home to pick a child to take home and raise. My father and siblings were each split up, and their lives were never the same. Some of the children were abused, some went to happy homes. Years later at a 40th reunion, it was obvious who the lucky ones were.

    • Mary Lou Milhorne Huffman says:

      In August 1918 my great grandfather died of the flu. 2 weeks later my grandfather died on Wednesday and the next Wednesday my 10 year old aunt died. My mother and grandmother were left alone. So sad 4 years later her mother died and she was left an orphan. Age 9 yrs.

  89. Barbara Roesch says:

    Tidbit: I had an aunt during this period of time who was quite a diligent community servicer, census taker, etc. During the flu period many caskets had to be built quickly. She contributed to the effort by buying cloth and sewing casket linings for the deceased.

  90. Both Italy and Japan were associated with the Allies, not Germany

  91. Richard Arnold says:

    Both Italy and Japan were with the Allies against Germany, Austria, and Turkey

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  93. Sharon Cunningham says:

    If y’all are interested in WWI, and like mysteries, get all copies of the Ian Rutledge novels by Charles Todd. Fiction, yes, but the research into WWI and later is excellent. Setting is England; protagonist is home from 4 years at war in France, back at his old job as Inspector at Scotland Yard…. pretty good reading.

    Go to amazon.com and start with the first book, published in 1996.

    Charles Todd is a writing duo of mother and son, one from Delaware, the other in North Carolina.

  94. Judy says:

    http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC340389/
    Here is a great article from the National Institutes of Health website on the Spanish flu. It is believed to have begun in Haskell County in southwest Kansas and carried 300 miles to Camp Funston at Fort Riley (which is in Geary and Riley counties) by a soldier or soldiers from Haskell County or by Haskell County visitors to the Army post. Be sure to read the whole article–it does mention the names of some flu victims. Hard to believe a disease that killed between 21 and 100 million people likely began in a county with only a couple of people per square mile!
    An interesting Wikipedia article cites a paper published in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases that suggested that some “flu” deaths may have actually been from aspirin poisoning! Doctors, including the Surgeon General of the U.S. Army, were recommending very high dosages. Because Bayer’s aspirin patent expired in 1917, many companies jumped into the market making it widely available. Who knows?
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic

  95. Bettye Marsh says:

    My great grand parents died in Jackson Co. Florida in October 1918 just days apart. My father was six days old. I don’t ever remember my dad having flu or even a cold. Does anyone have info on deaths from flu of 1918 for Jackson Co. Florida. I can’t find death certificates on either of them. Last name Spooner.