 I'm Nancy White, the Program Chair of the Arlington Historical Society. The Society would like to remind you that we have many wonderful holiday gift ideas for sale at the table at the back of the auditorium, including Arlington note cards, several books, and 200th anniversary memorabilia. Richard Duffy's most recent book, Then and Now, Arlington, is also available and it would certainly make a very special gift. If you would like Richard to inscribe your gift, he will be at the table after the lecture. All sales proceeds from this title go to the Historical Society this evening, and the authors' royalties support the local history room at Robbins Library. Tonight we have a most appropriate speaker to deliver the opening remarks for Dennis Ahern's lecture on the influenza epidemic of 1918. I am delighted to introduce Christine Connolly, who is the Town of Arlington's Director of Health and Human Services. Prior to assuming her larger role this past summer, encompassing the wide array of human services delivered by the town, Christine had served for several years as the Town's Director of Public Health. We will hear highlights of the history of the health department and learn from Christine how its function has changed over the years to continue to affect our daily lives here in Arlington. Please welcome, with a warm welcome, Christine Connolly. Thank you. In 1799, the first Board of Health in the country was formed in Boston and was chaired by Paul Revere. Birds of Health have long served as the sole agency within a community charged with protecting the health of the public above all other interests. Here in Arlington, lower, okay, slower, okay, okay. Here in Arlington, the Board of Selectmen served as our original Board of Health. In 1872, the Town Annual Report, the Board of Selectmen reported that they built a quarantine hospital in the Mount Pleasant Cemetery where they housed smallpox patients during a smallpox outbreak. By the late 1890s, due to the increasing health demands on the Town, the Town needed a separate Board of Health. In its early stages as a separate Board, the Arlington Board of Health dealt with issues ranging from contagious diseases such as diphtheria and smallpox to issues related to slaughterhouses and cesspools. In 1900, tuberculosis, also known as TB, was the primary cause of death in Arlington. Once it was known that TB was a contagious disease spread person to person, public health measures such as quarantine were put in a place to prevent the spread of this deadly disease. Today in Arlington, there are still TB cases, which are followed closely by the public health nurse. Rather than strict quarantining of TB cases, the public health nurse is required to directly observe the patient taking the antibiotics. In 1905, the Board of Health was hard at work investigating a malaria epidemic in the swamps of the alewife in East Arlington. As you know, malaria is spread by mosquitoes, and in the past five years here in Massachusetts, we have seen a rise in mosquito-borne diseases such as West Nile virus and Eastern Aquinas of Alitis. In 1918, there are 2,700 cases of contagious diseases reported to the Board of Health for follow-up. Today over 100 years later, the public health nurse still receives these contagious disease reports. Current state law requires doctors to report all cases of contagious disease to the local Board of Health for follow-up by the public health nurse. In 2005, there were only 125 cases of these diseases. These numbers have dropped drastically over the years, and these were due to medical discoveries and public health initiatives such as immunization campaigns and antibiotics. Many of you may remember public vaccination campaigns such as the BY's immunized campaign of the 1950s, where the polio vaccine was administered to the public in large public buildings. In fact, the BY's immunized campaign made its way here to Arlington and offered the vaccine right here in this very auditorium that we are seated in this evening. In the mid-1990s, the department came among the first in the nation to establish local tobacco control regulations banning smoking in the workplace. And today we have a whole host of new and emerging public health issues that we deal with each day. Today in Arlington, there are over 160 permitted food establishments in the town that we inspect up to four times per year to ensure safe food for the public. The department also enforces the housing code to ensure safety and rental units in the town, as well as a number of other environmental health and safety codes. As we look ahead, the department will continue the long-standing tradition of honoring the mission of the Board of Health to protect the health of the public of the town of Arlington. Now I am pleased to introduce our principal speaker of the evening, Mr. Dennis J. Ahern. In Arlington native, Dennis is among many generations of Ahern's to have called Arlington home. He often combines his love of and expertise in Irish genealogy with his interest in Arlington history and has spoken to varied audiences on these topics, both singly and in combination. Some of Dennis's talks that have been presented locally include The Advocate's Devil, selected readings from the early issues of the Arlington Advocate. Up from Goat Acre, The Unthinkable Mrs. Brown of Titanic fame and Not All Carved in Stone, a look at West Cambridge's contributions to the Civil War. Dennis served as the Arlington Historical Society for three years as vice president of the program, which included chairing the program committee for the town of Arlington's Millennium Lecture Series in the 1999 to 2000 season. We are happy to welcome him back to the Town Hall Auditorium, this time to take the stage to present a plague in Arlington, coping with the influenza epidemic of 1918. I'm also going to have to use this mic. One is for the cable TV and the other is for the rest of you. I saw something in the Boston Globe just the other day about Ken Burns. He's doing a documentary on World War II. What motivated him was the discovery that some of the younger generation are under the impression that Germany was our ally in World War II. I don't see anybody of that generation in the audience, but if you get a chance, I would urge you to encourage young people to learn more about history, both their local history and their national history, otherwise we are doomed to repeat it. Who knows what we might end up repeating in the way of an influenza epidemic. We've been worrying recent years about SARS and various avian flus and so forth. It'll be interesting to see what happened with the influenza pandemic of 1918. It's really amazing that it's been so completely erased from our collective memory. I know in my own family, I once asked my Aunt Fran if she had ever had a bow of any sort and she said there had been a young man that was sort of courting her and he went home to Nova Scotia on a visit around the time of the influenza epidemic and she never heard of him again and she wonders if he passed away. So she died an old maid as it were and there are many others who were left widowed and fatherless from the influenza epidemic of 1918. There had always been various forms of flu but in March, next slide please. We have these lights, oh good, thank you. In March of 1918, there was an outbreak that began on the 4th of March at Camp Funston which was an army camp at Fort Raleigh, Kansas and some of the local papers did not think it was too serious. This was partly due to the nature of this particular outbreak but it was also partly to do with wartime censorship. You'll find that the newspapers didn't want to report anything serious being wrong with anything to do with the military because it could hurt the war epidemic. So the number of deaths was somewhat downplayed but in that one month of March at Camp Funston there were 233 cases and 48 died which actually is rather mild compared to what was to come later. Next slide please. The patients that developed the symptoms, as you can see the base hospital, the emergency hospital was made up of the gymnasium and they were just in their cheek by jowl. Next please. The doctors at first were really worried that this might actually be something called the Black Death because the victims that came down with it and it was rather sudden, their faces turned very dark purple and this was reminiscent of the symptoms of the Black Death. They were not able to examine the influenza virus under the microscopes of that day. It wasn't until they invented electron microscopes that we were able to get the image you see here. But the lung tissue was just turned into a mass of sodden pulp and the reason the faces turned purple is they were so starved for oxygen their body was taking the oxygen right out of their face, out of the skin of their face. Next please. Now they tried various vaccines and they tried antiseptic sprays. Well I'm sorry I should have alerted you this is a PG presentation here. Some nudity it wasn't mentioned in the previews. Next please. Now all these men were shipped off to France to fight in the trenches but a lot of them died before they got there. They were packed into troop ships in very close quarters and some of the men from Camp Funston managed to spread the disease on board the ship. This particular ship the USS Grant arriving at the major debarcation port of Breast in France you see the coffins on the deck where 137 men died on that trip alone. Next please. Back home there were soldiers returning on ships. In this case there was a the Boston Globe had free tickets for a bunch of wounded veterans would return from France and they went to see Babe Ruth and the Red Sox win the World Series against the Chicago Cubs. It says see the Red Sox mull the Bruins and you can picture the baseball bats and the hockey sticks but they were not the Bruins that you're thinking of the Bruins was the nickname for the Chicago Cubs who lost. But of course we also lost and that we lost Babe Ruth. Next. One of the largest camps or the largest camp in Massachusetts was Camp Devons out in air Massachusetts and at that time there were 50,000 men at Camp Devons in September of 1918 and by September 23rd 10,700 of them had the flu. Camp Devons was to be the hardest hit of all US Army posts. Next. Now it's said although I don't have statistics to compare it, it's said that Arlington was one of the hardest hit towns in the Boston area. Now maybe it had something to do with the fact that there were a lot of Arlington men going through training at Camp Devons and the very patriotic citizens and thoughtful citizens and parents of Arlington had arranged various methods of transportation of going out and bringing the boys home for a Sunday dinner or bringing them home for the weekend so they could go to Boston on a weekend pass or something. So there was a lot of traffic back and forth between Arlington and Devons. Next please. The other connection I call him the canary in the mineshaft of this event was at the what was called the receiving ship Boston. It wasn't actually a ship. It was in the Commonwealth Pier which you may recognize from this picture is being now the World Trade Center. It's not very much changed. But Seaman Second Class Charles Nolan O'Donnell died of disease 8 September 1918 at receiving ship Boston. Now this is based on information in the record of World War I dead from Arlington. And I thought, aha, this is what explains how Arlington became so infected. This Seaman O'Donnell. It turns out not to be the case because when I examined his death certificate I discovered that the disease he died of was peritonitis and he had gotten this from injuries received in an automobile accident several days before in Lexington. Now however, the Honor Guard for his funeral included many sailors from the receiving ship Boston, which is where on the 3rd of September they started having cases of influenza. So if you draw a line between the Commonwealth Pier in Boston and Camp Devon's in air it probably would go right through Arlington. Well at least the influenza proceeded to go right through Arlington next. Because of the censorship most people referred to this as the Spanish flu. The reason for that is that in May of 1918 in that one month 8 million people were sick with influenza in Spain. Even the Spanish king was not immune and had come down with influenza. Now again we come back to the wartime censorship. They didn't report outbreaks in England or in the trenches in France but it's thought that the influenza virus that was brought over from Camp Funston may have mutated somehow in breast. Now one of the things they had in breast was a large pigory to supply pork for the troops. Now there's some speculation recently that this might have been a crossbreeding. Just as they have the bird flu mutates various viruses and makes bird to get human contact they think that the pigories might have somehow gotten the flu from incoming boatloads of soldiers and then it somehow mutated and became a much more violent strain. But it soon began to spread through the trenches and in some regiments as many as 80 percent of the men were out of action for one reason or another with the flu. They're coming down with it or recovering from it. Next. Now in Arlington we started to have the first deaths. Now you'll notice oh I'm sorry I skipped over one. The important thing seemed to be not that people were going to die from this but that it menaced our war production. Again they called it the Spanish flu and they were more concerned about its impact on the war than anything else. This shows the spread of it in the United States. Up until the first half of September it was pretty much isolated to around Boston and down to like Fall River and around there. There's no place else in the country that it really had any outbreak yet. Next. And in Boston it started off the first one was on September 2nd but you'll notice the cause it says pulmonary tuberculosis. Now as I go through these various pages that show and these are records from the town clerk's office. You'll see sometimes it mentions influenza sometimes just pneumonia. But if you go and look at the reports of these deaths and the advocate you'll find it might say pneumonia resulting from influenza. And in fact a lot of the doctors were just writing in pneumonia because it was a form of pneumonia as far as they were concerned that was the final cause of death. Now the individuals one of them is James D. King it says he's a piano framer. His World War I draft record states that he's employed by Theodore Schwann as a piano framer and this was not at the Schwann mill that we think of today but it was another Schwann mill that was owned by the brother of Charles Schwann. Charles Schwann had what we know was the old Schwann mill and his brother Theodore had another mill off of Mass Ave where he made piano frames. Gatley is another one John E. Gatley on Mystic Street his parents were Irish immigrants. You might see familiar names on here from families you recognize or you might also take note of addresses and you say gee that was right in my neighborhood. Nickerson Wallace F. Nickerson he was an engraver he printed greeting cards and he just opened a shop for that business on Federal Street in Boston. Tobin Thomas James Tobin he was single he was from County Cork in Ireland. And Georgie McNamara Georgie McNamara used to be a chauffeur for Judge Brackett but he got himself a wartime job as an aviation foreman. He died he left a widow and two children. Next. Speaking of the Schwann mill here's a notice that was found recently on the wall there in Lenswood Billington and it says well keep clean wash your hands before don't go to crowded places etc etc etc like don't go to see Babe Ruth next please. They closed the schools the board of health decided to close the schools the head of the the chairman of the board of health at that time was Alfred Knowles and Alfred Knowles was no stranger to crisis because he was a veteran of the Civil War and had actually been a captain in the famous 54th Massachusetts regiment which was largely wiped out at Battery Wagner you might have seen the movie Glory but Knowles was the quartermaster for the unit through the end of the war and there was a funny thing happened while I'm digressing but some years after the war he got a letter from the federal government to the effect that the accounts that he was responsible for had not quite balanced and they were sending him a check for $20 and he was saying I'm glad it wasn't the other way around but when they closed the school Miss Dunham at the Russell school told the children to collect peach stones because they were still using them for gas mask canisters and when the schools were reopened the children turned in 10,000 peach stones and where do you get 10,000 peach stones in in Allington even in 1918 next one of the children who was no longer able to go to school wrote a postcard to her friend in Maine and she said how school I haven't any now and she's talking about how awful the sickness is and the fact that the the hospital is taking care of people now this was addressed to Miss Lulu Douglas in West Baldwin, Maine. It was dated September 28th and it's written by Esther H. Reed. She was 15 years old. She lived on Newman Way off of Massachusetts Avenue and she had two older sisters and their father was a commercial traveler in the furniture trade. Next this is the other side of the postcard. It shows the backside or the side porches of Sims Hospital the building that with the time of Sims Hospital next and here's the the front of the same building in one month they had 38 paces of influenza 37 pneumonia and they only had eight deaths. Next now it seemed as early as 21 September that things were getting better and the deaths were tapering off. The radio school that they're referring to here was at Harvard and they had temporary barracks had been built on Cambridge Common for the students of the radio school. Next so you see it starting to spread down the east coast and around up into Maine and then various patches like Chicago and Los Angeles and a couple places in Texas and so forth so you see it starting to spread. Next the Board of Health also asked that the churches suspend their religious services. This caused a problem for the Catholic Churches St. Agnes and St. James because if you didn't go to Mass and you died well you might go to hell because you hadn't you know been able to go to confession this this influenza happened so fast that if you got it you could get up in the morning and feel fine and you'd be dead before night. So you had to choose do I go to Mass and risk expose myself to other people who might have it or do I risk dying not in a state of grace. So the Catholic Churches kept services but they kept them to a minimum. Next. In some communities the churches assemble outdoors. Now I don't think that really protected them any because they were still assembling and they were in close proximity. These masks that everybody wore by the way were totally ineffective. They didn't realize it but they were pretty much ineffective. Next. This shows another picture of a hospital. He's not wearing a mask I wonder why. Next. Again it's starting to spread now more onto the West Coast and further inland on the Atlantic coast. Next. And here's 12 deaths in just five days so things are definitely heating up. Mary McKenna she was a cousin of our herns and she lived Catty Corner across the street on the corner of Webster and Warren and she died at Sims Hospital. Her 11 month old daughter Eleanor died at home three days later. Now Nelson John Alfred Nelson he was a Swedish immigrant he was not a citizen he was an alien and he was partner in a leather firm in Boston and he left a widow by the name of Magda. John Walter Sheridan he was a single man he had been born in Winchester. Now the Femias, Joseph Femia North Union Street he had been born in a place in Italy called Gratteria Reggio and he came with his mother in 1900 at the age of seven. His father had come several years earlier to establish himself before sending to the family and young Joseph worked on his father's farm. Now one of the characters William J. Dome was a photographer. Next. And here is actually a picture of William, William James Oliver Dome and the advocate reported that he had been the start of his own business of photography and he was taken ill with the grip which was another name for influenza from Nova Scotia. Next. Here is a picture self portrait of William Dome taken at Spypond. Looks like it might be on Elizabeth Island. Next. I couldn't find the citation to save my life but I swear I read in the advocate an item that reported witnesses having seen a German U-boat surface in Boston Harbor and disperse an aerosol spray of influenza germs. These were witnesses statements. Well I haven't been able to find that article but I did find this other mention in The Globe that suggests that the Germans were sending men ashore off of submarines to open up vials of influenza in movie theaters and other such places which is probably why the movie theaters are closed. But I can't help but wonder if the Colonel Dome DOA NE is any relation to the Mr. Dome who passed away in Arlington. Next. Harvey Lowe he worked at the Bay State Laundry in Cambridge she was actually born in Cambridge. Grace McClellan she was a nurse at Camp Devons. We call it Fort Devons now it was called Camp Devons End. She was from Lyman Street. Now Malgrove James Edward Malgrove he was the Treasurer and Manager of Ross and Products Company and he left a widow and three children. His Beatrice Weatherby was 12 years old. She died in Chestnut, New Hampshire but her death was recorded in the Arlington town clerk. She is the same age as my father so I can't help but wonder if he might have known her. Next. Here are some nurses who died in the influenza. I mentioned earlier Grace Elizabeth McClellan who was at Camp Devons when she died. She was one of five nurses who died at Devons along with two doctors. They were working 18 to 20 hours a day. At one point through a 400 nurses caring for soldiers at Devons. Next. Two of the other nurses who died were Arlington in that they were one of them was from Arlington but they both had graduated from the Arlington Nursing Training School and one had died in Malgrove. She went to the Wellesley Emergency Hospital to work which was from Malgrove and she died there and the other Ms. Carey was from Southridge Mass and she was working on duty at Gallops Island in Boston Harbor. I think Gallops Island had originally been used as an immigrant quarantine station and they had to shift it over to use as a special hospital. Next Here are the names of some other nurses of Arlington. Elizabeth Burns for one she was scheduled to go overseas but the war ended before she she did. In the meantime she was caring for influenza patients at the MIT Aviation Dispensary. Not shown on here is a Mrs. Peck whose first name we don't know she was a district nurse which I'm not sure whether was supplied by the county or the state but she was a district nurse and the advocate reported at one point that she made 45 visits in 24 consecutive hours. Next. The Arlington doctors were also kept hopping. The numbers next to each name are the deaths attributed to that doctor and you might think that means Dr. Buckley was a very bad doctor but no it really means he made a lot of house calls and in fact he came down with the influenza himself and was out of action for a couple of weeks so it's remarkable he treated as many people as he did. Dr. Buckley was 36 at the time his parents were Irish immigrants and his son Daniel was then three his son Daniel went on to become a lawyer in fact our family used him as an attorney and I can remember him he had one droopy eyelid if any of you remember him he had one eyelid that stayed closed. Dr. Meekle was 46 born in Canada lived on Park Ave and he was no relation to Bill Meekle of Ben Franklin thing. Dr. Percy was 49 from Maine he lived on Water Street. Dr. Zatwood and Talty were both born on Rhode Island and Dr. Webb was 38 born in Maine lived on Pleasant Street. Next. Again they were very concerned with preventing the spread of the influenza through coughing and seizing that's why they all these masks. Next. And if you didn't have a mask the conductor wouldn't even let you get on the trolley. Next. Now here's a map speaking of trolleys of the distribution of influenza deaths and this is just a rough draft map and if you'll notice a lot of them are clustered along the trolley lines. In fact I think it's something like 67% of the deaths in Arlington were within one block of the trolley line. Next. The police were doing duty as ambulance drivers. You can go over to the Arlington police office police department and they have an archive you can sit there and read the log books and here's just some notes from a logbook for just one day. You can see that they were running patients to Sims Hospital and to the temporary hospital and various other places. Oh Daly's. Let's remember that. Call for an ambulance by Dr. Talty to take a patient from Daly's. It's also spelled D-A-L-E-Y-S. Yes she's in the front row. Next. So as you can see towards the end of September beginning of October it's spreading throughout the country. Pacific Northwest so far is not impacted too much. You can tell the places that have more rural areas seem to have not been hit so much yet. It tended to spread along the railway lines. Next. The Boy Scouts were pressed into service to help deliver groceries and deliver circulars. The mailman still made his rounds. Next. Up to this point beginning of October there have been 1,273 cases and 30 deaths so far. And one doctor I don't know whether this was Dr. Buckley made 56 calls in one day. That's 56. That's two an hour for a 24-hour period if you don't go to sleep at all. And where actually the hospital they opened on Court Street where the post office is now and St. Agnes Church sent five nuns to act as nurses and you can't help but wonder if that was in payment for being allowed to stay open for masses. Walter Hutchinson loaned his Ford car to use as an ambulance and the State Guard which was a local volunteer group provided stretch of areas. Next. The State Guard as I say was Allington volunteers McCaffrey, Simpson, Darrell, Hersey, Watson, Alexander, Gillis, Puffer, Miller, Swan, Sweeney, Warren, and Wilson were the men who served in this unit. Next. Many communities set up tent hospitals, temporary hospitals, outdoors. It was thought that the fresh air would be good for people. Next. And in fact from Allington you could see the hospital on Corey Hill in Dorchester. I don't know if you could see Corey Hill in Dorchester now if you stood at the intersection of Pleasant Street and Mass Ave probably not but things were lower to the ground back then. Next. Here's another tent hospital was set up in Lawrence and here's the emergency hospital that was set up in Allington at number 10 Court Street. It was then being used as a border trade building but it had been the home of the Bryant family and it was they treated 30 patients with no deaths. The nuns were acting as nurses. The gas company provided stoves and kitchen utensils were borrowed from the high school and this is where the post office stands now. Next. Here's another picture of Corey Hill and here you see two nuns of the Sisters of St. Joseph. Remember those habits any of you who went to St. Agnes Prophial School will recognize that and there are some other nuns of different orders in this picture as well. Next. This was back before the internet and computers. They had telephones and typewriters and I can remember when I was a kid on the way home from school I used to stop at the gas company where my father worked and the woman on the switchboard would let me sit there and plug in the cords when the little lights came on to show where the telephone calls it to be directed and I thought that was the greatest thing. Next. Here's 10 deaths in three days just over the end of September beginning of October. Now Mrs. Salt, Coralie Salt, she is born in Tennessee. She had two sons serving in France and Eugene the gender was Ababa. Most of the Baba shops in town were closed because many of the barbers were sick. In those days men used to go to the barbershop to get shaved at least once a week. So on top of everything else deal with the flow the men were probably all growing beards for the duration. Frank Malone on Beacon Street. He was a teamster. He drove an ice wagon. His widow Margaret was Irish born 37 years old and he left her with six children ages 1 to 13. Next. Now here is the records of some servicemen who died overseas or stateside. Private Grady was actually from next door to the Ahrens on the corner of Warren Street and Webster Street and these two down the bottom George Miller and Arthur H. Vail were the same age and they had lived at 66 and 38 Walnut Street respectively and they died on the same day in France. In the case of Arthur it says Langris France but it isn't that specific for George but they died on the very same day. They were both in the 101st ammunition train and they had grown up next to each other on Walnut Street. Next. Here's the beginning of October just four days. These are not consistent. I couldn't do one for every week because sometimes I had more than a page full for a week so I kind of had a ration them out. Now Rose Rogers Rose McNamara. She was George McNamara's brother and he had also been sick with the flu and William Charles Daley at one Park Street place he was a farmer and he was 18 when he died. Next. This is the Dr. Deems Hospital on Appleton Street. This was where Mary J. Carroll had died. Next. So by now it's pretty much covered the entire country some places heavier than others. Next. And here's October 6th to 12th one week 11 deaths. Now this Catherine Ryan her maiden name was Daley and if you recognize this one Park Street place that's her brother that died at one Park Street place the week before or actually only about three days before and she was married. She had been living in Somerville after she married but her husband having gone overseas to France in the Army she took her two little children and came back to live at the family homestead at one Park Street place. So what is an epidemic and what's a pandemic. Basically a pandemic is a whopping big epidemic. It's over why geographic area and amazingly the influenza of 1918 managed to spread to pretty much all corners of the globe and it was probably partly due to the the war and troops going back and forth from different countries. I mean troops from Australia were going to Europe and back and so it managed to spread throughout the world but think how fast it would spread now with airplane traffic. It would break out so rapidly. I hope our public health people are on top of that. Next. Here's 12 deaths in one week. One of them that's interesting is Charles F. Donahue that says he's a janitor. He was actually called a superintendent and he was the superintendent of this building and I'm sure his ghost is probably hunting this room that he swept the floor of so many many many many many times. He was also the sealer of weights and measures and he left a widow by the name of Rosetta and she went to board with the Davis family on Mass Av after he died. Zepe Rea, the shoemaker, he and his wife Teresa were both immigrants from Italy. Next. Some of you may have heard of this jump rope brine. I have a little bird and its name was Enza. I opened the window and in flew Enza. They actually had an order issued at Camp Devon's ordering soldiers not to be repeating this rhyme. What they were getting pleasure out of it. I don't know what they were. Next. Joseph Darling who died at Mariah on California. Some of these you'll see for example Oscar Woodruff was from New York but he died at the Ring Sanatorium here in Harrington and here this mini Wachovitz she was from Alicum but she died at Westboro State. Now some of these may in fact be tuberculosis and not influenza but I've gone ahead and I've collected all the ones that were pneumonia, influenza or pulmonary TB because sometimes the the causes overlap. Next. The only one in this picture that's likely to be a victim is the father. It did not tend to strike that children or the elderly. Next. Here's nine deaths in five weeks. So now it's starting to spread out. There's hardly anything going on here in November. The only one of note is Mildred Blagdon and she was one of the nurses who died and she was a nurse at the Boston or the Massachusetts homeopathic hospital in Boston. Next. And that hospital later merged with Boston University Medical Center and that's what it is now. I have no idea what if any of those buildings may still be standing. Next. Fourteen deaths in two weeks so that's about one a day. Gilbert Walter Gilbert he was born in Lindenville, Vermont. He left a widow and four children under seven. Next. Board of Health made sure the streets kept clean. Next. Ten deaths in ten days. Still one a day average. December was, December's in November had very few deaths but December they picked up again. The weather might have had something to do with it. Arthur Warnock knew, no Samuel Warnock. Samuel Warnock's widow her name was Annabelle and she came over from Ireland in 1899 and married Samuel in 1905 and she was left a widow with six children ages one to eleven. Her brother-in-law Fred boarded with them after Samuel died and drove a milk wagon. Next. Now there's one mistake on this that's should be Thomas initial M, Thomas M Hunt not Thomason and Mr. Flint Fred Warren Flint bank clerk he was born in Maine. Next. Dr. Young's Hospital was where the pine grove stands now in front of the Jason Russell house. Next. John J. O'Brien it says his occupation was Forester which may have been a protected choice a occupation because of the war he would otherwise probably expected to have been in the army because he had already served three years as a private in the army in the artillery so I suspect his occupation had something to do with the fact that he was not again under arms and Mr. Brock Howard Folsom Brock it says editor he was the editor of the Boston Traveler newspaper. Next. Now here is a chart that shows the mortality in different cities across the U.S. and the percentage just looking at the first ten weeks Philadelphia was the hardest hit with point six nine of the population succumbing to the influenza. Next after that with point 59 is Fall River. I don't know why Fall River got struck so hard. Pittsburgh and Baltimore Syracuse Nashville and then Boston had point 50 half of one percent half of one percent of the population of Boston died of influenza and you can see it goes down the list Lowell San Francisco Cambridge separate separate Chicago New York only had point 30 percent why should New York have so much you know half half of what Philadelphia had was a sanitation better what were the circumstances I don't know next and you can see some of these more Omaha Louisville St. Paul Portland is probably Portland, Oregon and St. Louis Spokane and Grand Rapids with point oh four percent. Next. There were 138 deaths in Arlington the 1915 population was 14,860 so that works out to point 92 percent so that's a pretty high percentage and all these deaths sixty three point seven percent were within one block of a trolley line there were over 600,000 dead in the US which if that happened today would be the equivalent of 1.4 million people and more Americans died of the influenza than in all the wars of the 20th century and more Americans died of the influenza of 1918 than died of all causes in France during the war and more people died worldwide than from the black death in Europe in the 14th century. Next. Here's the age distribution in Arlington as I said earlier it tended to strike healthy people in their 20s and 30s starting out in September you'll see it's mostly 20s and 30s with some children and teenagers and then the progression is maintained as being the age of 20 to 40 being the greatest numbers. Next. I just like to thank everybody who helped prepare this talk preparing slides and finding material for me and and sharing their information and pictures. I'd also like to thank my wife Lurl who mounted the map and the lists which are over here which I invite you to examine after we're done with the slideshow. There are two lists one is alphabetical the other is chronological and the dots on the map are all in color so you can see September was orange October was red November was black December was green and January is a light blue and you'll see there's a key across the top it tells you that but it's amazing if you look at the clustering down in East Allington just off Mass Ave near the young wife Brooke the dots are so close together they're they're literally pasted on top of each other and it's just one massive color so I think you'll find that interesting and as I said you you may find names of families that you recognize or you may find addresses that you recognize so I invite you to take a look at that afterwards thank you we we come now to the dreaded question and answer which is where I show how little I really know does anybody have any comments or questions I'd like to bring up yes did it only last one flu season no it just it just lasted that one period it was pretty much dissipated by the end of 1918 or early 1919 it it went away and hasn't been back in that form since yes the schools were closed for several weeks I forget the exact dates like I say it must have taken a while to come up with 10,000 peach pits how many peach pits can Ellington's eat in a week that that'll tell you how how long they were closed yes why was the age distribution the way it was well I'm not a physician I have a suspicion because this particular strain found its first opportunity amongst large bodies of healthy young males thrown into close proximity I think it sought out similar hosts once it broke loose that's just an assumption on my part as I say I have no medical background so I don't know whether I'm on to something or not yes the gender ratio attended more towards males I didn't put a gender distribution up but it attended somewhat more towards me as I say the shocking thing about this was that it was healthy men one man I skipped over him he had just gotten his draft notice that morning and he was dead that night I guess that was one way of not going to war yes yes hi the question was there were two doctor rings that were one male one female and were they the proprietors of the ring sanatorium and Richard is nodding his head yes I took that list of physicians from the 1918 town directory so there were probably some names on there of physicians who did not practice in Allenton which is why their names did not show up on the town clerks records of certificates of death there were some names however that I did not have on that list and they were physicians who were practicing at Sims Hospital and may not have actually otherwise been resident of Allenton so I didn't have them on the list and the list was getting somewhat long so I left them off yes the question was there were so many people that died quote at home and was that because there was no room in the hospital or because they took six so fast well you have to remember that in those days people often did die at home it wasn't some place you went off to the hospital as soon as you thought you're going to die it did come on them very suddenly but yes doctors made house calls and people sometimes died amongst their family death was not as much of a stranger to the household as it is today any more questions and so it begins yes I'm sorry could you repeat the question how did the cemeteries what how did the cemeteries cope well actually I don't have a lot of information on specifically the situation in Allenton but in some communities it was desperate situation there were no coffins and in fact as it began to spread throughout the country warnings were telegraphed ahead to distant places saying get ready it's coming build coffins now and in some cases they had to put armed guards on coffins that were stacked out in front of undertakers because people would come in the night and steal them also sometimes there were coffins on the sidewalk in front of undertakers with bodies already in them and children playing on these coffins sometimes succumbed but so I don't I don't know I noticed one undertaker advertising in the advocate during that period I don't know how much business he was getting or whether he was able to cope with it or how many other practitioners that were in town at the time yes how well prepared do I think we are if we had another such outbreak again I'm not a medical person but I think if there was something similar to this that broke out it would break out a lot faster and spread much wider very rapidly and we could see the hospitals and other facilities being completely completely overwhelmed just as they were then yes was the medical care given at the time primarily palliative yes they mostly gave them liquids to drink they kept them comfortable and waited until they died some soldiers in the military camps were still alive when the nurses orderlies proceeded to tie toe tags on them with their name rank and serial number because they were not expected to live any other questions if not oh yes did I notice were there any orphans in the case of allington I did not notice any two-parent deaths I was usually a widow or a widow or in some cases children were left motherless but the father was overseas serving in the war and would not be home for at least a month or two I didn't mention actually that at the same time this influenza was breaking out here it had already crossed the lines in the trenches in France and I think I really feel that it had a significant effect on the Germans ability to prosecute the war once the influenza got back to the civilian population in Germany and in Berlin and people started dropping light flies on the home front Germany lost the will to continue with the war and I think World War one was brought to an end not by victory at arms but by a bug yes did the Germans think that the Allies had somehow spread the disease on purpose just as we attributed the disease spread to German new boats the Germans also accused the Allies of sending over shells with influenza on them actually it's thought there was there was a place in the defenses that was a series of underground tunnels that originally been a canal tunnel and it ended up at one point I think it was in October but the Germans were defending one end of this and the Americans were trying to fight their way into the other end of this canal tunnel and it was just a very narrow footpath through there so it was a good defensive position but it was also a damp dark environment which easily spread the disease from the Allied soldiers on one end of this tunnel to the Germans on the other end and that's where it seems to have first really broken out heavily on the German side of the line but yes each side was accusing the other of germ warfare any other questions seeing none as I said I invite you to come down and take a look at the the map and look at the lists either alphabetical or chronological to see if you yes we have one more question yes those that survived the influenza did they resume normal life pretty much eventually I mean they were not permanently impaired in any way but sometimes they were as weak as a kitten for several days all right thank you very much