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This story was published on February 15, 1998.
Who would die next?
In October 1918, in Lancaster County and around the world, families in mourning were swept away by the Spanish flu.
Mary Sullivan remembers the day the doctor did not come, as he had done every day since she was flu shot during the hot October of 1918.
She was 21 years old – still known by her maiden name, Mary Kreider – and was working in a government factory inspecting artillery shells that were to be shipped to US forces fighting the "Great War" in Europe when she fell ill. At first she tried to continue working, lying on two chairs to watch the shells that pbaded. But soon she was so sick that she was sent home.
One of her friends, a woman named Katherine, was also sick. And both women were treated by the same doctor; the doctor would treat Katherine, then come to Mary and treat her. During his stay, he would inform Mary of her friend's condition.
The day the doctor did not show up, Mary asked her mother where he was.
His mother replied that the doctor would no longer come. He died of the flu.
Like Katherine.
They were only two of the hundreds who died in Lancaster County during this horrific month, killed by the most lethal epidemic in history.
By the end of October 1918, local authorities estimated that 301 people had died as a result of the "Spanish flu" – so called because it was mistakenly thought that the disease was native to Spain .
But the official figures may have underestimated the balance sheet. According to local newspapers, more than 600 people died in October of the flu or pneumonia that has often followed.
At the height of the epidemic, schools, churches, shops and lounges were closed. Local hospitals had patients in hallways and offices. The funeral homes were submerged by too many dead and too few coffins; and the state commissioner for health decreed that no train or automobile borrowing Lancaster was allowed to stop.
Few people remember the disease that killed nearly 700,000 people in the United States and 30 million worldwide. Most of the victims of the epidemic have died. those who are still alive have rarely revisited these days. It's as if they were trying to banish the horrible period of their memories.
But the events of nearly 80 years ago are too serious to be forgotten.
"When one of my friends died, we would sit on the porch and watch the funeral procession go by," said 100-year-old Mary Sullivan, who lived in Pine Street Block 200. .
"Then, next week, someone who would have been carrying pallets at the burial would be dead."
The 1918 influenza epidemic – or "pandemic", is called, according to some experts, the worst scourge in history.
The Spanish flu caused more deaths in one year than deaths during the four years of the Black Death that plagued Europe in the Middle Ages. And more than half of the US military who died in the First World War were affected by the Spanish flu and not by enemy bullets.
It was the most deadly flu ever recorded. He struck suddenly, affecting people in the street with muscle aches, nausea and delirium. The fever of the victim could reach 105 degrees; intense fevers have caused a lot of victims' hair to fall. The lungs would fill with a bloody liquid, drowning literally many victims of the flu. Death could happen in a few hours.
Those who survived the flu often got pneumonia, which was just as deadly.
The first wave of the disease first appeared in March 1918 in Fort Riley, Kansas, and spread to military camps across the country. It was believed that soldiers crossing the world had spread the disease to all corners of the world.
One of the first to die in Lancaster County was a soldier, returned home on leave. Lt. Thomas R. Ferguson of Kirkwood, a physician who was part of the medical corps, died October 1, 1918 at the Lancaster General Hospital from pneumonia, preceded by the flu.
On the same day, the Reformed Theological Seminary – today the Lancaster Theological Seminary – had to close because half of the 29 members of the student were ill with the flu.
The next day, October 2, the flu began to level Lancaster County.
Hundreds of people would have been sick in rural areas. Schools were closed and some shops and industrial facilities had to be closed.
Still, there was little indication of what was coming and few precautions were taken. The LancasterCounty Fair was held, as were the war bond rallies. Both attracted thousands of people – who probably helped spread the disease.
On Friday, October 4th, the epidemic was out of control.
Four were declared dead from influenza; there were 600 cases in the city alone. In response, the Lancaster City Health Council, led by James Shand, ordered the closure of all "public places", including theaters, cinemas, lounges, dance halls, schools, churches and churches. Sunday schools.
The commission also announced that all funerals would be private events – only authorized parents being allowed – and that visits to people with the flu were prohibited.
The epidemic was beginning to affect the county. Health officials in Quarryville, Millersville and Ephrata ordered the closure of businesses, industry, schools and churches.
But none of this stopped the spread of the disease.
Although the illness forced her to stay in bed for several weeks and caused her to lose a lot of hair, Mary Sullivan did not have a particularly bad case.
But the illness went through his family like a fake.
As a single girl, she had many aunts, uncles and cousins. Almost everyone has caught the flu.
An uncle was a traveling salesman who was coming back from a trip with the flu. His wife went to bed with him to bring him comfort. Soon both were dead. The family held a double burial.
A cousin was the head of the shell factory where she worked. Soon he too was dead.
"Someone from my family was dying every week," she said.
Mary recalls that when a person dies, the coffin is often stalled in front of the window to allow people to pbad and pay their respect – without being exposed.
"People have stayed away," she says. "They would put food on the porch to help families too sick to cook, but would never come inside."
Mary's father-in-law was terribly afraid of the disease, but her mother exposed herself to the virus by helping sick family members.
"I do not know how she did not get sick," says Mary. "She looked after the whole family and even had to clean bowls of blood" – bloody vomit – "from under the beds, but she never got it, I do not know why."
On Monday, October 7, it seemed everyone had the flu.
The city health board reported 2,516 new cases that day. Newspapers reported that 12 had died over the weekend. The Health Committee insisted, however, that there was no need to alarm.
At the same time the council ordered all the streets of Lancaster to be cleaned at the same time. And the Pennsylvania Department of Health has banned all trains and cars from stopping in Lancaster.
By mid-October, there were an estimated 300,000 cases in Pennsylvania. Philadelphia was the most affected city not only in the state, but also in America; according to some estimates, nearly 13,000 people died in this city alone. "Carts of death" roamed the streets, picking up corpses left under the porches or abandoned in gutters.
Health officials were looking for something, no matter what, to stem the tide of the epidemic. They issued guidelines advising citizens to avoid mental and physical stress, to eat varied foods, to avoid crowds and to have the freshest air possible.
The state health department has also issued a guideline on influenza prevention: fill a nasal dropper with a solution that includes iodine and administer it a few times a day.
People were looking for a remedy they could get their hands on.
Local pharmacies sold everything from aspirin to whiskey. According to George Smithgall II, the son of the founder of the pharmacy (and brother of Mayor Charlie Smithgall), the Smithgall Pharmacy, in the west end of Lemon Street, had administered 788 prescriptions for all sorts of symptoms related to the flu.
Some of the most widely prescribed drugs contained heroin, said Smithgall, who keeps the prescription records from October 1918.
Mary Sullivan remembers that members of her family were carrying camphor bags around her neck to protect themselves from the disease.
And in local newspapers, an advertisement for "tobacco-free" cigarettes called "Smo-ko" indicated that the product kills the germs of the flu.
"The smoke you inhale is a healing and pleasant disinfectant," the ad said.
In the middle of the month, Mary Sullivan's flu has improved. The situation in Lancaster was getting worse.
Between Saturday, October 12 and Monday, October 14, 66 people died, according to newspapers. "The morticians and gravediggers are working almost to death," writes the October 14 report in the Lancaster Intelligencer. "Whole families are taken to hospitals."
Medical personnel, many of whom had gone to Europe to participate in the war effort, were extremely rare; the local Red Cross has issued an emergency call for nurses. More than 1,200 new cases were reported over the weekend. And the supply of coffins was short.
Philip Jones, who is now 88, recalled in a newspaper article last summer the sight of stacked coffins at Lancaster Station after being shipped here.
Fred F. Groff Funeral Services in Lancaster, who conducted 27 funerals in September 1918, held 165 funerals in October – an average of more than five a day.
According to Robert F. Groff Jr., grandson of Fred F. Groff and current co-owner of the company, about 90% of these deaths were attributable to pneumonia.
Groff recalls learning how all of the city's funeral directors had to work together during the epidemic to take care of the dead.
At Kearney A. Snyder Funeral Home, 25 funerals were held in October 1918, an average of six to eight per month prior to the outbreak.
"I remember when I was a kid, my dad had an older man who was working here and talking about it," said Kearney Snyder. "When the flu has occurred, the funeral home has had big problems trying to accommodate everyone."
Panic was settling. Health officials blamed the newspapers for causing an alarm; newspapers have been retaliating with editorials blaming health officials for not doing enough to stop the spread of the disease.
On October 15, the city was at a standstill.
By order of the health commission, most stores and manufacturers have been closed. only food stores, hotels, pharmacies, banks and newspapers remained open. The Lancaster Intelligencer that day apologized to his readers; there were a lot of typographical errors as half of the staff was sick or died of the flu.
Officials were putting signs on the homes of infected people, saying "Visitors to the flu epidemic are staying away". Companies and industries were required to fumigate, but formaldehyde was rare; the city sent a truck to Philadelphia to secure a shipment, but found only five barrels.
Thirteen of the 46 officers in Lancaster City were on sick leave; 11 post office employees and letter carriers were sick; city firefighters, telephone operators and railway workers have also been hit hard.
Lancaster General and St. Joseph's hospitals were being treated with seizures. Some of the patients remained in the corridors and offices because there was not enough room in the rooms. An emergency hospital was opened at Moose Lodge, 200 E. King, and the newspapers reported that "the doctors are so in a hurry to receive calls for help that they can not report the number of their cases".
At the height of the epidemic, health officials in many cities were guilty of wishful thinking.
In Philadelphia, officials badured the public that the epidemic would never spread beyond military personnel. In Boston, city officials refused to ban patriotic parades. 1,000 people in this city would die of the flu, many of them undoubtedly infected during these parades.
In Lancaster, health officials periodically announced that the situation was improving. So it would get worse.
As early as October 9, the health council announced that the epidemic had reached its peak. After ordering the near-total closure of the city on October 15, the board of directors changed position the next day, announcing that the worst had pbaded and that factories and shops could open their doors.
In one respect, the health council was right: the number of influenza cases seemed to be decreasing.
But the flu was becoming more deadly.
Thirty-eight people died on Thursday, October 17th. The next day, 44 people died. Then 34 Saturday, and 51 Sunday and Monday.
By repeatedly announcing that the epidemic was declining, health officials may have inadvertently fueled the fire. People were careless, thinking that the worst was over. then a new round would begin.
There were dozens of sad cases.
One of them was the Oscar Brinser family from Elizabethtown. In the early morning of Wednesday, October 23, her daughter Helen, aged 3, died. In the afternoon, his son Eugene, aged 5, died. By nightfall, his wife, Elizabeth Vogel Brinser, had pbaded away.
However, by the time of Brinsers' death, the epidemic was receding in the city, although some parts of the county would be affected throughout the month of November.
By the end of the month and the number of deaths from influenza, which dropped from 28 on Tuesday, October 29 to 8 on Friday, November 1, the city has struggled to normalize.
Officials announced that schools, churches and other public gathering places would reopen on October 30 – although the Halloween celebrations were canceled. This caused a strong reaction from Dr. B. Franklin Royer, Acting Chief of the State Department of Health.
Royer, who felt the epidemic could worsen if public places were allowed to open, ordered Lancaster to remain in quarantine. Many local sedan owners have ignored Royer; 17 were prosecuted by the Attorney General's office.
In order to "teach Lancaster a lesson," Royer imposed his quarantine on the city. Trains were prohibited from stopping at Lancaster; Police fired cars and pedestrians who were trying to enter the city.
Lancaster officials went to court and obtained an injunction preventing Royer from being quarantined, and the problem vanished – just as the Spanish flu seemed to fade.
The towns of the county – including Churchtown, Bird in Hand, Elizabethtown, East Petersburg and Intercourse – would be plagued by epidemics throughout the year; these epidemics killed 31 the second week of November. But the virus had relaxed its grip on the city.
The city health council has set 301 the official number of deaths due to the flu in October; The Intelligencer, which published every October a "list of victims of the flu," has raised the figure to 603.
The newspaper's number may have been inflated – it contained many former residents of the county. But the "official" estimate may not have included all those who died as a result of pneumonia that often followed the flu.
One of the last victims of the city would be Mary Sullivan's father-in-law, who had been so terrified of catching the disease.
"I remember going home by streetcar and going down to James Street," says Mary. "I could hear him moan and try to breathe right to the tram stop (one block away).
"He was so sick, sicker than me." Said Mary. "He had such a high fever, I remember telling him," How are they going to bury me? I am only ashes. " '
He was the 26th member of Mary's family to succumb to the disease.
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