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 The book shares the history of the experience of the
residents of Logan County during the Spanish Flu epidemic. It is
divided into eight chapters, each dealing with a different aspect of
the county residents’ experience with the epidemic.
The first chapter of Donath’s book gives some basic information
about the Spanish Flu. The timeline for the Spanish Flu in Logan
County was early October 1918, through the end of April 1920.
Medical records for Lincoln document the first cases in the county
being recorded the week of October 5, 1918. Donath said the Spanish
Flu started suddenly and roughly in the county. By the end of the
first week the Spanish Flu was identified in the county, Donath said
there were already deaths noted in the papers.
The Spanish Flu was very virulent and made people more susceptible
to other diseases such as pneumonia. When people got pneumonia back
in 1918, there were no antibiotics to protect them from it. Donath
said people got sick and they either survived or did not survive.
Donath provides a definition of the Spanish Flu in chapter one of
his book. The Spanish Flu, also known as the Grippe, was a
respiratory illness. Donath said it got people in the throat and the
chest. It caused fatigue, fever, chills and a hacking cough. The
Spanish Flu caused people to have difficulty breathing, which
sometimes led to pneumonia.
Of those who contracted the Spanish Flu, Donath said the most
vulnerable were mothers of newborn children, which he talks about in
chapter two of the book. These new mothers were especially
susceptible to developing pneumonia from it. Sadly, several new
mothers in the county died in the early months of the epidemic. Of
21 cases of new mothers in Logan County who got the Spanish Flu,
Donath said 14 died.
One of the earliest reported deaths in the county was that of Mrs.
Catherine McCue, wife of Charles McCue. Mrs. McCue was suffering
from Spanish influenza when the baby was born and she developed
double pneumonia. The death was particularly tragic as Mrs. McCue
left a week old baby in addition to four other children. Another
notable death of a mother of a newborn was that of Mrs. William K.
Maxwell, mother of author William Maxwell. Mrs. Maxwell developed
double pneumonia within 24 hours of contracting the Spanish Flu.
Chapter three discusses the doctors of Logan County, many of whom
caught the flu themselves. Donath said Dr. W.C. Paine of Hartsburg
and Dr. George W. Brock of Atlanta, both died of Spanish Flu. Dr.
Brock had secondary problems and developed gangrene in his leg.
Though Dr. Brock’s leg was amputated in hopes he would survive, he
passed away.
About half the doctors in the county were called to military camps
to help stem the suffering of the soldiers, putting a burden on the
remaining doctors. Many doctors contracted the flu while working in
the army camps. At one point, there were around 68 flu patients in
Hartsburg, and they had no one to call for help because their doctor
had contracted the flu.
The Red Cross started training their nurses to go out and help these
people [who were ill], but Donath said it did not work well for most
of them.
In chapter four, Donath talks about several families that
experienced multiple deaths. For example, the Shehorn family lost
their six year old and one year old to the Spanish Flu. The Groetski
family in Mount Pulaski lost three of their ten children within the
same week in December 2018. In another case, a husband and wife died
within 48 hours of one another.
Chapter five talks about the deaths of caregivers, which included
nurses and family members caring for one another. In a report from
the United States Army, it listed at least 200 nurses who died of
Spanish Influenza while treating soldiers in the camps in the U.S.
and overseas. Donath said two young women from Logan County died
from the flu while in nurses training.
Family members taking care of sick family members then became ill
from the Spanish Flu themselves and several died. One example Donath
gave was Conrad P. Janssen, a widower who died leaving behind four
children.
Chapter six focuses on World War I, which was nearing its end as the
epidemic began. Out of 78 soldiers from Logan County who died during
WWI, Donath said 33 were from the Spanish Flu. Many were at Camp
Hills, New York waiting to embark on their ship to Europe and Donath
said it became a hot spot for the flu.
In Chapter seven, Donath talks about the epidemic in Logan County.
He divided it into sections for 1918, 1919 and 1920. Placards about
maladies like measles, whooping cough and chicken pox were put on
houses during this time to warn people to stay away. Donath said
people got tired of the placards and wanted them off the houses.
Red Cross workers were already making masks for the
medical part of the war. As the flu epidemic began, Donath said
attendance at Red Cross meetings decreased because people did not
want to get sick. Theaters and businesses were shut down.
As we experienced with COVID, restrictions would shut everything
down. Donath said things would get better and restrictions would
stop. The flu numbers would rise, and restrictions would be put back
in place. Donath said that happened three or four times.
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While doing research, Donath found forty pages of records for
those in Lincoln who had the Spanish Flu. By the end of 1918, Donath said there
were 2000 cases in Lincoln. From October 1918 to April 1920, the Spanish Flu
resulted in around 500 deaths in the county.
Chapter eight is about the Lincoln State School and Colony. The school had its
own infirmary and they put a lot of beds in it. Donath said there were about 100
deaths there, though reporting of the numbers ill from the State School was
spotty.
When Dr. E.C. Gaffney came home from his time in the service, Donath said he was
assigned to be an epidemiologist for Logan County. The county then showed
everything going on with the Spanish Flu.
Donath said the Spanish Flu was much more deadly than COVID, killing more than
five million people.
Once Donath was done with his presentation, he asked if anyone had questions.
Since Donath talked about young women dying from the Spanish Flu, LCGHS member
Diane Farmer asked whether older women were also dying from it. She then asked
whether the flu hit people harder if they had other health problems as COVID
did.
People around 40 who were healthy were the ones Donath said seemed to contract
the Spanish Flu more quickly than others. Many who contracted the illness and
died had weakened hearts, kidneys and other organs that were damaged. Just as
with COVID, Donath said the Spanish Flu caused long term effects in some people.
There was little defense against the disease because there were no antibiotics.
Donath said the deaths from the Spanish Flu were painful.
Another asked if the flu hit women more than men. Donath said he did not believe
so.
Questions LCGHS member Curt Fox had were whether the medical community learned
anything from dealing with the Spanish Flu. Fox wanted to know whether the
medical community was any more informed ten or fifteen years after the Spanish
Flu happened.
In researching the Spanish Flu, Donath said he read many county papers about it.
He said the medical community seemed to learn how to deal with it as far as not
getting around people without masks and what kinds of masks to wear. Donath’s
book tells how they made masks with gauze folded so it was eight layers thick.
One LCGHS member said in the case of some illnesses, families would be
quarantined all together. When someone died, they had to bury their family
members themselves. This person wondered if the same happened with the Spanish
Flu.
Donath said one Mount Pulaski doctor told of dead children being laid out on the
kitchen floor at farmhouses. When someone died during the winter, people would
have to wait until better weather to bury the dead.
Another question Farmer had was if things would get better certain times of the
year with the Spanish Flu like they seemed to with COVID. She wanted to know if
numbers were consistent or if there were breaks.
From October 1918 to the end of March 1919, Donath said the numbers were high.
When the weather got better, cases slowed down. Donath said they thought numbers
would rise again in the fall 1919, but in the county, cases did not rise much
until January 1920. At that time, Donath said the flu came back as heavy as it
was the first part of the epidemic. The rise lasted until about the end of March
1920. Then around here, Donath said the flu was gone just like someone had
turned off a switch.
The only other disease Donath said outstripped the Spanish Flu as far as deaths
during that time was Tuberculosis.
As Donath worked on his book, he researched many county records. Recently,
Donath has been researching the history of the water system in Lincoln and found
over 200 articles he has shared with Nathan Pennisi, Superintendent of Illinois
American Water.
Originally, Pennisi was supposed to share a presentation on Lincoln’s first
water system developed in the 1800s and advancements through the years at the
October meeting. Due to circumstances beyond his control, this presentation has
been postponed until spring 2023. At that time, Pennisi will also give updates
on the construction of the new Lincoln water plant and the Illinois American
Water acquisition of the Mount Pulaski Water System.
Monday, November 21, the Logan County Genealogical and Historical Society will
have a dinner meeting at Daphne’s with Brenda Short presenting a program on
Lincoln Lakes.
[Angela Reiners] |
