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Friday, March 27, 2020

Voices From The Past


Please take a few minutes to watch the two short videos below:





Below is the most-watched YouTube documentary on the topic of the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic — if you have time to watch (over 4 million views):


Now for my family's own stories.......


My father's younger sister, about age 7, died of "the aftereffects of the flu." Something like the 1990 film Awakenings? Full movie HERE at YouTube, albeit poor quality.  I highly recommend the film! It is available via Amazon Prime Video.

Dad occasionally spoke of what happened when his sister died: "The undertaker embalmed Chrissie at the house — and dumped the blood behind the barn."  The funeral service and burial were private.  The influenza didn't stop until everything was shut down: schools, funerals, churches, etc.  And the government refused to believe that something terrible was happening with Americans' health.  Until, that is, bodies began piling up on the sidewalks and in the streets of Washington, D.C.

My maternal grandmother (1898-1981) had a robust immune system. It fell to her to take care of her brother Walter, who brought influenza to their remote location in the mountains of East Tennessee when he was discharged from the US Army, fell ill himself, and gave the flu to his brother-in-law Fred, my grandmother's husband.  My grandmother sent her two children, one born in 1916 and the other in 1918 to her parents' farm and took care of Walter and Fred.

My grandmother related the story of those days in this way: "I got almost no sleep.  I went back and forth between the river for cold water and the menfolks' foreheads.  They were out of their heads with fever.  My sister brought food, called to me, and set the food down about 25 feet from the house; I fetched the food from there.  I don't remember how long all this went on.  Seemed like forever.  But Walter and Fred got well, and life went back to normal."

I asked Wawa how she stood those weeks of hard work as a nurse.  Her response: "Life isn't about what you want to do.  Life is about what you have to do."  She also told me of a particular safely measure she used: teetotaler though she was, she gargled in moonshine morning and evening.  And she swallowed that moonshine, too.

Bringing us back to today....A view of the front lines of this grim war against Coronavirus (dated March 23, 2020): The Growing Chaos Inside New York’s Hospitals.

And one more thing...in the immortal words of Gilda Radner:

17 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Thanks, Thersites.

      An analogy between the 1918 Flu Pandemic and this Coronavirus Pandemic is not perfect. Analogies rarely are!

      But I firmly believe that we can better understand some of what's going on now by doing some research on the 1918 Pandemic and taking heed from the lessons thereof.

      Delete
    2. BTW, I just added this to the body of the blog post:

      She also told me of a particular safely measure she used: teetotaler though she was, she gargled in moonshine morning and evening. And she swallowed that moonshine, too.

      Delete
  2. Interesting comment from a reader of my local government's Coronavirus Site:

    I've Peeked behind the Curtain says : March 27, 2020 at 1:18 pm

    Those who fail to remember the past are condemned to repeat it. Spend your time researching the WHO & CDC on past epidemics & pandemics. This is a Health issue. Stop listening to people who don’t have medical knowledge. Would you have your plumber (who’s awesome btw!) do your heart bypass?? No?? Why not?? Pipes are pipes, right?? Well, that’s pretty much the same as listening to politicians giving advise about a health issue. Are you taking advice on your investments from your Roofer??
    Why not?? They must have experience with money – they have their own business! The differences are who is at risk if you act on the advice? Who gets hurt if they’re wrong?? YOU!! You are the one who’s hurt. So why take advise on the Economy, or anything else from anyone but an expert?? And btw, there won’t be any “economy” if every one is dead. And we haven’t even begun to heard “the rest of the story”. There is so much attention on the politics side that we’re not listening to the doctors. What if it’s discovered all those who survive (most right?) but the lungs are permanently damaged? What if you survive but the virus lives on in fecal matter? So if that stranger fails to wash their hands well, touches the door you push open next year, & we get to do this pandemic all over again. What happens when we find out the “money” the government is sending us (because they are so concerned on “helping” us today) is not only going to be taxed but also has to be paid back?? Why can we come up with a TRILLION $$ to send to Americans – yet we can’t give healthcare workers the PPE to do their jobs??
    What’s wrong with that picture?? Please, please, listen to the experts!! We are in this together. We will NOT survive this pandemic if we don’t listen to the health experts; follow THEIR guidance, and stop listening to those who are not only NOT experts – but aren’t listening to the experts they appointed either. If everyone hasn’t figured it out yet – your choices effect me. But also remember….my choices – yesterday, today & most certainly tomorrow – also effect you!!!


    I'm not saying that I agree with all of that comment, but I must say that I agree with some of it. Besides, the first portion of the comment brought a smile to my face.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I wholeheartedly agree we are drowning in an overflowing sewer of political commentary on this issue, all of it steeped in ignorance and mendacious political point-scoring.

      Delete
  3. Mark Hemingway brings us a great summary--good and bad--of the Infotainment Media Complex's Corona coverage.

    He covers the bad up front, and it is a sterling example of the truism that whatever the left is accusing their hated enemies on the right of, you can be sure they are guilty themselves...


    Pandemic Brings Out the Best and the Worst in the Media

    ReplyDelete
  4. AOW,

    Thank you for this post. We're going to watch the YouTube later today.

    Thank you also for the interesting piece of oral history.

    "Life isn't about what you want to do. Life is about what you have to do."

    Sounds just like the folks from that generation in my family, all gone now...

    That is why they are the Greatest Generation.

    ReplyDelete
  5. For whatever reason, my good friend Mustang is finding that Blogger has gone perverse and won't let him comment. Below is the comment that Mustang wanted to post to this thread....

    I doubt that anyone alive today remembers Mary Mallon. In August 1906, Irish immigrant Mary Mallon took a position as a cook with a family on Oyster Bay, Long Island. Within two weeks, ten of the eleven-member family she served were hospitalized with typhoid. She left that position and took another—actually, took positions with several additional families with similar occurrences. In one household, six of the 11-member family came down with typhoid fever.

    Typhoid is a bacterial infection due to a type of salmonella. It grows in the intestines. It is spread when victims eat food or drink water contaminated with the feces of an infected person. Apparently, Mary never washed her hands after using the toilet. Wherever she went, Mary infected people with typhoid. When a medical researcher started putting the pieces together, the investigation pointed to Mary as the carrier of the deadly disease. Mary was confronted with the accusations; she refused to cooperate with medical examiners. Finally invoking city ordinances, the NYC medical officer had Mary confined, where she remained for three years. In 1908, the public began referring to her as Typhoid Mary.

    Eventually, Mary agreed to stop working as a cook in exchange for her release from confinement. In time, though, she returned to the kitchen under the name Mary Brown. In 1915, she started another outbreak while working as a cook at Sloane Hospital for Women in NYC. Of the 25 women she infected, two died. Police arrested her and she was returned to quarantine where she remained for the rest of her life (passing in 1938 from pneumonia).

    The exact number of deaths attributed to Typhoid Mary is unknown; some suggest that 50 people may have died because of her. She wasn’t the only typhoid carrier but was the most notable.

    Judging from the information we now have from cell phone data, all of those people who were partying on Florida beaches returned to northeastern cities. Today, NYC is ground zero in the US for Covid-19. All of those people are “typhoid marys” because they willfully ignored isolation orders and have spread a deadly disease across our land. They are guilty of it whether they were aware of having the virus or not.

    Typhoid Mary was a plague on society before the 1918 outbreak of Spanish Influenza ... no lessons were learned, apparently. We’ve not learned them even now. If Trump really is considering the imposition of a mandatory quarantine of Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York it would be hard to criticize him for doing so. It’s what happens when citizens can’t be trusted to do the right thing.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Every time I see a person in a gas mask, I think of the great philosopher Mr. Beamish.
    He is an original and always fun to read.

    He is likely starring in the movie In Saint Louis this passes for Pizza

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Beak! How are you doing?

      Remember the gas mask on the Renoir? Those were the days!

      Delete
  7. Laid up office closed

    Its like the tenth plague minus the lambs blood
    I have to go into work tomorrow otherwise I am holed up
    I spend most of my time with Cheeky
    She has made nine or ten masks out of my office supplies

    Hope Mr B is safe. We need him to kick ass afterwards

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Beak,
      Do you have to ride the subway to work -- or to elsewhere?

      Delete

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