Flu Epidemic of 1918
By Phil Roberts
Published in wyohist.org in September, 2018. Available also on wyohist.org website
Though disease epidemics were common throughout America and the West in earlier times, the worst epidemic in terms of loss of human life came to Wyoming early in the 20th century, in the fall of 1918.
From October of that year through January 1919, 780 people died statewide, victims of the flu epidemic.[1]Of those, 169 died directly from the flu while the rest were taken by a combination of flu and pneumonia.[2]
The sickness came just as World War I was drawing to a close. The war had begun in 1914 and the United States had entered it in April 1917. Beginning early in 1918, in the space of 15 months the disease killed somewhere between 50 million and 100 million people worldwide—far more than the 20 million civilian and military deaths attributed directly to the war. In Wyoming, too, the flu was deadlier than the war: Around 11,000 Wyoming men served in the war; about 500 of them died.[3]
Strong evidence now appears to show the epidemic began in the United States, though some scholars argue for France, China or Vietnam. In the U.S., this flu was first reported in Haskell County, Kan., spread from there with army recruits to Camp Funston, Kan., a huge training base, from there through military posts across the country and finally, with American soldiers, to the theatres of war in France.[4]
Though at the time it was called the Spanish Influenza or more often Spanish flu, the epidemic did not begin in Spain.King Alfonso XIII of Spain fell gravely ill after the flu was widely reported in Madrid in May 1918.Spain was not a combatant in the war, however, and, therefore, news of the epidemic was not censored there as it was in France, England, Germany and the United States. The king recovered, but the name “Spanish influenza,” stuck.[5]
Advice on how to fight the flu ran just below the war news in the Casper Daily Press of October 10, 1918. Wyoming Newspapers. Click to read a PDF of full pageBy mid October 1918, local authorities had closed down nearly all public events in Douglas, Wyo. Wyoming Newspapers. Click to read a PDF of full page
The epidemic came in three waves worldwide. The first, in the spring and early summer of 1918, was relatively mild. The second, beginning in summer and gaining vast momentum in the fall, was far deadlier. A third wave, in the winter and spring of 1919, was less lethal than the second but still dangerous.
The U.S. Army Surgeon General reported on Oct. 1, 1918, that all but 13 military installations in the continental United States were experiencing record numbers of soldiers ill with the flu. “Sick rates for [these forts], as a whole, are nearly double those of last week, due to the high incidence of epidemic influenza at Camp Devens, 8,653; Dix, 1,569; Upton, 920; Lee, 900; Gordon, 879; and Jackson, 561. The number of new cases in each are up.”[6]
In that same month, October 1918, Wyoming newspapers reported dozens of deaths from the disease. The number of cases in Wyoming peaked prior to Armistice Day, Nov. 11, 1918, when the war ended and by which time some soldiers were beginning to return to their home towns. Many may have carried the germs home, accelerating the flu’s spread.[7]
Young and old die—but healthy adults also succumb
Young children and elderly died, but what made the epidemic unusual were the many deaths of healthy young adults.[8]The number of deaths in Wyoming stayed high in November. During the first week of the month, news statewide listed dozens of victims.[9]
Local and state public health officials drastically curtailed public activities—shopping was limited, schools closed and public and private gatherings were canceled, so fearful was everyone of the spread of the disease.
Many people got sick in late September and October. Just as schools were opening in September, officials noticed significant attendance decreases and, by mid-month, schools had closed in most counties. According to reports submitted to the Wyoming superintendent of public instruction the following May, these closures occurred statewide.[10] Reading them confirms the pervasive role the flu had on the state’s schools, particularly during the fall term of 1918.
Volunteer war work slows
Volunteer war work dominated school life at the time. Schools had been expected to help with the war effort by assisting with Red Cross drives, but that work slowed or stopped.
Reports on these volunteer projects from county school officials to the state superintendent the following year provide a sense of how widespread flu had become.
“Owing to the influenza epidemic and the resulting quarantine,” wrote A.S. Jessup, city superintendent of Cheyenne schools, “little work has been done [on Red Cross war projects] since schools opened in September 1918, as the schools have been closed longer periods than they have been in session.”[11]
“I know very little about the Big Piney schools since the epidemic of influenza kept me from seeing them this fall, ” Margaret F. Nicholson, Lincoln County superintendent, wrote in her report of work by the Junior Red Cross.[12]
In Evanston, on the Union Pacific Railroad in southwest Wyoming,the epidemic was especially severe. The town’s newspaper listed a string of recent deaths on Oct. 17. 1918. Wyoming Newspapers. Click to read a PDF of full pageIn Natrona County, war work in the schools stopped entirely in October.[13]Nellie L. Underwood, superintendent in Park County, noted that Red Cross work had gone well in the spring. In the fall, though, “The schools were quarantined so shortly after they had begun, that reports are not available for this year.”[14]
Similar mentions were made in reports from superintendents in Platte; Sheridan; Sweetwater; and Uinta county: “Our schools were in session but one month when we closed on account of influenza. We have not opened yet.”
A high school reporter for the Newcastle News-Journal wrote, “On account of the Spanish Influenza epidemic we are going to postpone our war advertising fair for another week.”[15]The Cokeville Register also carried the news, stating, “The schools in Afton have been closed, pending an investigation of sickness which has broken out there.”[16]
Wyoming deaths occur during a four-month period
Many died during the last two weeks of October and the first week of November, by which time, according to some national news accounts, the epidemic was declining. That appeared not to be the case in Wyoming, however. Reports of disease and flu deaths continued unabated at least until January 1919. A few newspaper editors noted that schools, closed for the semester, were about to reopen in December, but most did not begin sessions until after the Christmas holidays.
University of Wyoming suspends classes
The University of Wyoming suspended classes and shut down in early October with a formal notice reported in the Wyoming Student. “The culmination of the growing epidemic of Spanish influenza throughout the city came on the afternoon of Tuesday a week ago,” the article noted, “when the health authorities ordered all places of amusement, all public gatherings, and all schools closed until further notice.”
According to the report, Dr. Aven Nelson, president of the university, “suggested that the enforced vacation would offer excellent opportunity for reading and outdoor exercise, and that if used to catch up on the things for which the ordinary routine does not give time, it would not prove too irksome.”[17]Pointing out that officials discouraged students from spending time downtown, the editor observed, “… since the soda fountains and picture shows are also closed, there is not a great deal of inducement to loiter on the street.”
Statewide, of the stores that remained open, many limited the number of customers. Some Cheyenne stores allowed only five customers at any one time for each 25 feet of store front.[18]
Obituaries fill newspapers
Throughout the fall, reports of deaths filled local newspapers. In mid-October, the Wyoming Student noted the flu death of recent UW graduate, Lt. Ben Appleby at Camp Dodge in Iowa while in training to leave for the war. The 25-year-old soldier had been student union president, editor of the annual, a champion debater and major in the university’s ROTC Cadet Corps.[19]
The Newcastle newspaper reported October 24 the deaths of Carroll Jefferis, a 28-year-old druggist, who died only a few days after contracting the disease and Frank Davis, 32, a rancher southeast of Newcastle, who died in Edgemont, S.D., earlier in the week. Like other weekly community papers, the Newcastle News Journal also printed the names of many people who were ill with the disease.[20]
Across the state in what’s now Sublette County, a previously healthy 32-year-old cowboy became ill out on the range on an October Friday and died three days later.[21]In northern Wyoming, a Sheridan paper reported in November that in a 24-hour period “Five Deaths Occur as Result of Flu.” Two victims were middle-aged women; one was a 20-year-old woman; two were children.[22]In south central Wyoming, prominent Saratoga businessman Charles Pennock, after ten days with the flu, died in early November at the age of 37. He was reportedly unconscious for 48 hours before his death.[23]
The epidemic swept the Big Horn Basin, too. On Nov, 8, The Thermopolis Independent reported five deaths from flu over the previous week. One woman was just 21 and recently married. The other four victims included two miners from the coal mining town of Gebo; the mother of four children in Thermopolis; and a 20-year-old Ohio man working in the same town. A sixth man was reported to have died just before press-time.[24]A sheepherder, Michigan-born Charles E. English, died in Basin. The Basin Republican reported the flu death of a 16-year-old high school student, Robert Steele. Both had been in good health prior to contracting the disease in late October.[25]