Column: 1918 flu pandemic terrorized Ohio towns
Ernest Hemingway wrote from his hospital bed in Milan in October 1918 that people dying from the Spanish flu “drowned in mucus, choking, unable to breathe.” At that time the 19-year-old writer was recovering from wounds sustained while he was an ambulance driver in Italy during World War I.
The same month Hemingway’s physician father Clarence wrote from the Chicago suburb of Oak Park that for weeks he had done little else but care for flu victims. Chicago’s outbreak, believed to have come from the Great Lakes naval station, killed 8,500 people in two months in late 1918.
The flu could kill with shocking speed as it was not unusual for victims to die within two days of being infected.
In south central Ohio, the Spanish flu was a grim reaper until the end of 1919. Fear and panic were acute because a huge nearby army camp training soldiers for service in Europe was the scene of a horrific outbreak. During that grim October an average of 104 soldiers died every day at Camp Sherman outside Chillicothe.
Local papers wrote that during the peak of the outbreak bodies were stacked like firewood as they couldn’t be buried or shipped home fast enough. In 1918, there were nearly 1,800 deaths and 5,600 cases of flu at Camp Sherman, where men lived, trained and ate in close quarters.
Cincinnati suffered greatly from the flu. A quarter of the city’s population became infected and 1,700 people died. In Columbus, 49 miles from the army camp, 1,236 citizens succumbed to flu.
In rural Gallia County near Portsmouth, fear of the Spanish flu hung over every conversation.
My father, Howell Wood, remembered that when he was 16, his mother and father sent him on a mission to rescue their infant grandson from the flu. It was December 1919. His parents had learned that their married daughter and husband — parents of a 3-month old baby — had been sent to bed with the flu and their home put under quarantine. The grandparents were terrified the baby would die if he wasn’t removed from the quarantined house.
Accordingly, they asked dad to saddle the horse, dress warmly and ride 6 miles over a frozen rutted road to bring back the baby. Howell remembered that he began the journey slowly, riding on the side of the road so the horse wouldn’t stumble in potholes hidden under a layer of ice. Howell took two hours to reach his sister’s farm. Upon arriving, Dr. Robert Howell, dad’s uncle, emerged from the front door with a stern look on his face.
“You can’t come inside,” he told his shivering nephew, “that would risk you taking the virus back to your mother.” Instead, Uncle Rob said Howell could try to get warm in the woodshed and wait for the baby wrapped in blankets to be brought out.
In retelling the story, dad was dismayed that his uncle seemed to care little for his well-being. As it turned out the return ride was uneventful. Howell cradled the baby in one arm while his free hand held the reins.
We think we’ve got it bad from the coronavirus, and we do. But the Spanish flu was much worse. More than 600,000 Americans died and 25% of the entire population were infected. Ten times more people died from the flu than perished in World War I. By contrast, on June 1, 2020, U.S. deaths from the corona virus totaled 105,000.
The public response then is not unlike today. Physicians like Doc Howell a century ago understood that the flu was deadly, highly contagious and was spread by personal contact, mainly droplets from sneezing or coughing. People wore masks and like today there were quarantines and restrictions on public gatherings, schools were closed,and flu came in waves, the most severe being October 1918.
Then as now there were no nationwide regulations. Responses were left to the states and often it was municipalities that set the rules. Cincinnati implemented some of the most stringent measures like forbidding bonfires. Used clothing couldn’t be sold and spitting was a punishable offense. Downtown hotels removed couches and chairs from lobbies to prevent loitering. Theaters and bars were closed. Restaurants operated with restricted hours
The flu pandemic was so severe, killing so many Americans that life expectancy was cut by 12 years.
Barry D. Wood is an author and writer in Washington, D.C. He grew up in west Michigan where his father settled after leaving Gallia County, Ohio.