This article first appeared in
“Buffalo Tales”, Vol. 7 No.4, April 1984 edition, published by the
Buffalo County Historical Society. Mardi Anderson of the Buffalo County
Historical Society Archives has graciously allowed me to reprint this
article. A great big THANK YOU to Mardi
and all others who work so hard in making this and other articles available for
us to read and learn from. To view other articles in this series, please go to http://bchs.kearney.net
INFLUENZA, 1918
by Gene E. Hamaker
All
eyes were focused upon the great battles being waged in northern France in the
fall of 1918. Banner headlines were emblazoned across the front pages of
the newspapers as the Allied forces advanced. Daily articles listed the
Nebraska combat casualties. There was, however, a drama building within
the drama that held everyone's attention. At home a faceless enemy
appeared that would cause five times as many deaths among Americans as the war
in Europe. It struck hardest at the military camps and the great cities,
but affected the whole of the nation. It was commonly called the Spanish
Influenza and Buffalo County was not to escape its reach.
Thousands of area residents were attending the
County Fair in September when notice of the Spanish influenza first appeared in
the national news columns of the Kearney Hub. The disease, said to have
been sweeping Europe, had now broken out in the Greater Boston region and was
spreading rapidly. Neither then nor a week later, when hundreds of deaths
were being reported on the east coast and in military camps, did local
authorities feel threatened. *At the height of the disease 175 people a
day were dying in Boston, 600 to 700 in New York City, and the incredible figure
of 1,700 in Philadelphia. In Buffalo County, people were collecting clothing for Belgium,
pushing the campaign for the Fourth Liberty Loan, and commenting upon the fire
that destroyed the Kearney Canning Factory. There is no evidence in the
newspapers of the panic the "dread disease" was causing elsewhere,
although some ripples of trepidation must have been felt. If so, the
fears were soon realized.
Twenty cases at least were reported in Kearney
October 1st, a number of Nebraskans had already died in army and navy camps,
including a Kearney boy, and there were four known deaths in Nebraska.
The movement of draftees to camp was cancelled. A week later the
physicians in Kearney admitted there were quite a number of cases in the city -
none serious - but said there was no need for a quarantine closing schools,
theaters, and churches as was being done in other Nebraska cities. This
is the position the city authorities would maintain until compelled to take
action by the imposition of a statewide quarantine.
The county newspapers manifest a curious
reticence regarding the effects of Spanish influenza in the weeks that follow,
perhaps most evident in the Kearney Hub. It may be surmised that the
editors played down the severity of the problem to discourage the onset of
general panic in the face of what was a thoroughly frightening situation.
All the papers shall carry information on the nature of the disease and how to
avoid contracting it that was provided by state and national agencies. Everyone
was told to avoid crowds, people with colds, and the use of roller towels or
common drinking cups. They were advised to cover up coughs and sneezes
and not to spit on floors or sidewalks. Dancing and promiscuous nursing
were also cited as transmitters of the disease. Unfortunately, there was
no "specific" to treat influenza. Victims were told to keep
warm, go to bed, and call the doctor. Advertisements disguised as news
reports conveyed such useful information along with scare stories about the "great
and terrifying menace to public health". Tanlac, "a powerful
reconstructive tonic" was said to contain elements needed to ward off the
influenza. Vicks VapoRub was another product advertised in this
manner. Similar claims were made by "Dr. Pierce's Golden Medical
Discovery". Several doctors around the nation reported finding
cures, but the sad fact is that had an effective vaccine been developed it
could not have been produced and distributed quickly enough to have had an
effect on the course of the epidemic.
Ravenna was the first town in Buffalo County
known to have imposed quarantine. There were sixty to seventy-five cases
in the town Monday October 7th when authorities closed the school, picture
shows, dance halls, lodges and churches; any place the public gathered.
Businesses were to close at 6:30 p.m. and an 8 p.m. curfew was put on
children. The concern shown by these actions was justified. In a
span of twelve days, six persons in Ravenna died from the effects of the
flu. *My usage. Newspapers generally called it Spanish influenza or
influenza. When the term flu was used it appeared within quotation marks. Shelton reported no cases in town as
late as October 17th, but took note of the large number of cases elsewhere, the
rural school closings, the rising number of deaths, and the strict quarantine
in Grand Island. When Shelton did ban public gatherings October 19th,
there were thirty to forty cases in town and a young farmer just west of town
was dead. Two more were soon dead, one in and one out of town. No
notice of the flu appeared in the Gibbon paper until October 24th when it was
reported the city officials had closed all public places because of the
"strange disease, commonly called Spanish influenza" then affecting
quite a number of persons in town.
Two deaths occurred in Kearney October
14th. "Only two deaths" in the past week the Hub said the 17th
and advised out-of-town shoppers there was yet no quarantine. That
changed the following day in response to the State Board of Health order
placing the entire state under quarantine. Kearney's mayor issued a
notice that read in part: "In order to prevent the spread of disease and to protect the
health of the public it has become necessary to close all places of amusement,
churches, schools, and such places of business where crowds congregate. There
must be no public gatherings of any sort. The children must remain at home, and
will not be permitted on the streets.... ". Twenty-seven new cases had developed in the past twenty-four hours.
Among those stricken were students at Kearney Normal. At this time, there
were more than 20,000 cases of flu reported in the state.
A Postman's prevention against
the flu
Reacting to the spread of the Spanish influenza in Buffalo County, people began
to turn to familiar home cures, to make and wear protective gauze face masks,
to shun those ill and to opt for strange remedies such as eating fried onions,
wearing medicated bags, and sprinkling the streets with formaldehyde. The
latter ideas were called foolish by some but it is not surprising that people
would try anything when confronted by such a formidable foe. Spanish
influenza was the more frightful because it usually progressed from symptoms to
pneumonia *Pneumonia following flu was the most common cause of death. to death so quickly, perhaps as little
as one day and often less than a week. With many doctors and nurses gone
to war, the local medical establishment was overworked and volunteers were
sought to care for the ill. There were soon complaints about some of the
volunteers charging more for their services, granting the risk taken, than did
doctors and nurses. Even hospitals were often reluctant to accept flu
patients because of the danger to other patients. In Kearney the
influenza patients were finally admitted to a separate building, the new nurses
home.
An office worker
wears a facemask to protect
herself during the deadly flu epidemic of 1918
As
October became November and the state quarantine period drew to a close, most
people in Buffalo County wanted to believe the worst was over. Fewer
cases were reported in the Ravenna area although three more died in town and
two others close by in the first two weeks of the month and the general ban on
public activities was continued. The editor of the Ravenna News reported
the panic following the first appearance of influenza was abating and the town
tried lifting the ban on public gatherings in mid-November only to reinstate it
in a few days. Indeed, the ban was not ended until December, the schools
opening on the second. It was felt then that, while the epidemic was
still "with us", it was subsiding. Shelton, like its neighbor
to the north, continued its ban on public activities until late November
"to stay on the safe side". The schools also did not open until
December 2nd and then some parents kept their children at home. Two of
Shelton's teachers had died of the flu. There were still a great many in
the community ill with the flu at the end of November. Gibbon numbered
over 400 cases by mid-November and, with no fatalities, lifted its ban on
public meetings. After all, Grand Island and Kearney had done so the
first of the month. The town could brag of no fatalities as December
began, however an upsurge of new cases led to another prohibition on public
gatherings and the closing of the schools December 3rd.
Kearney had ended its ban on public gatherings
with the expiration of the state quarantine November 2nd and schools were
opened the 4th. The action was justified on the basis of a decline in the
number of new cases of flu being reported. The city physician estimated
there had been 400 cases of influenza in the city and six deaths, which was
regarded as "remarkably low". The city of Kearney along with
the county, state and nation set aside personal and local problems to join in
the celebration of the armistice in Europe. That event did not wholly
eclipse the persisting problem with Spanish influenza. Every day brought
new cases, if fewer than earlier, and that trend did not hold true
everywhere. A resurgence of the "terrible disease" in the
vicinity of Riverdale forced them to close schools again. In mid-November
there was a disturbing increase in flu cases in general, including Kearney, although
no quarantine was instituted. The efficacies of such general quarantines
were in question.
Epidemics have their ebb and flow and, while
wishful thinking may have led people to believe the disease was waning in
November, there was no question that the first weeks of December found the
influenza rampant once more-and not only in Buffalo County. It has been
estimated that in six to eight weeks of the fall of 1918 500 million people
around the world were affected, 20 million of those dying. Buffalo County's
situation could not measure up to that catastrophe, but to the people of the
County their plight was sufficient to the moment. *A partial listing drawn from the newspapers indicates that at least
fifty-two persons in Buffalo County died as a result of contacting Spanish
Influenza. The actual figure was certainly greater. The Kearney Hub of December 12th advised people to go about their
occupations as usual and not to get panicky. Two days later the Hub said
city officials were not "inclined to be as panicky as a great many
citizens." Nevertheless, the rules against coughing, sneezing and spitting
were repeated and plans were laid to placard quarantined houses and to
quarantine individuals "with discretion". Writing at this time,
a Kearney doctor estimated there had been 3,000 cases of influenza in Kearney
and vicinity to date. What to do about the Spanish Influenza was the
subject of a meeting in Lincoln December 17th. A Kearneyite was one of
the representatives sent to the meeting from across the state.
The Lincoln meeting disclosed there had been
2,807 known deaths from influenza since the first of October with 5,000 thought
to be closer to the real figure. The group proposed the creation of
special health boards and the organization of nursing corps "trained along
practical lines". State officials also declared influenza to be a
quarantine-able disease under law. Kearney officials, who seem to have
had some doubts about their right to quarantine, now began to placard affected
houses and warn all people therein to remain inside or suffer the penalty of
law. Even then the quarantine appears not to have been enforced until the
receipt of regulations from the State Board of Health after Christmas.
There were more deaths in town and in the countryside in the interval.
Christmas was a bleak occasion for most persons this year with all public
celebrations cancelled and a killer disease hovering over everyone.
As the new year approached once more hope arose
that the influenza was on the wane. Two weeks earlier new cases were
appearing at the rate of thirty or forty a day in Kearney, whereas they were
under ten now and "only" about 150 cases were known in the
city. A similar pattern seemed to hold true for the whole county with
Shelton, for a time, an exception. There, a sudden spate of new cases at
the end of December resulted in the closing of the schools on the 30th of
December. They would remain closed for two weeks. As in Kearney,
Shelton officials placarded quarantined homes to warn off visitors.
Gibbon suffered its only two deaths at the end of December while under
quarantine, but the quarantine expired without notice and the flu went without
mention in January. The disease also dropped out of the news columns in
Ravenna where the influenza seems to have hit hardest of any place in the
county. The respite from influenza at an epidemic level was to become
permanent. There were instances of the disease and more deaths into the
spring of 1919 but the worst was over.
No one then or later seems to have paused to sum up
the effect of the disease upon the people of the county. It was as if the
influenza were an unwelcome visitor best forgotten. Many families had
suffered grievous loss, however, more severe in number than that inflicted by
war, and none who survived would ever forget those few months of the Spanish
influenza epidemic of 1918.
SOURCES
The Evening State Journal, Lincoln;
The Kearney Daily Hub; The Kearney Democrat ; The Gibbon Reporter ; The Shelton
Clipper , The Ravenna News . Buffalo County Board of Supervisors, Minute Book
8; Kearney City Council, Minute Book One. R. E. Dale, "Back to
Normal," Nebraska History, 38 (September, 1937), 179-206; Louis Weinstein,
"Influenza- 1918, A Revisit," New England Journal of Medicine, 6 May
1976, 1058-1060. Geoffrey Perrett, America In the Twenties, A History, 1982,
1-3.
About the
author: Gene E. Hamaker was born Feb. 28, 1928 in Wood Lake, NE. He earned
his Ph.D. from UNL in 1958 and in 1969 began teaching history at Kearney State
College. He served as the first editor of Buffalo Tales, from 1978 until
his death on Oct. 19, 1984. For a more extensive biography, see Buffalo
Tales, Vol. 7, No. 10, Nov.-Dec.
1984
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