Pandemic of 1918: Excerpt from: 'You Were There Before My Eyes'

Within weeks the killing rampage of what was now thought to be a previously unknown virulent strain of influenza was in full bloom. Cities were under siege, their populations sickening and dying at an alarming rate. Wherever people gathered - churches, schools, those factories not involved in war production, were shut down – those left in production replacing their stricken workforce whenever and from wherever possible. In the first months of what was quickly an acknowledged epidemic – Ford’s Highland Park plant needed to replace ten thousand men. Healthy in the morning, dead by evening, day by day no one knew who would be next, the accustomed order of daily life was in shambles. No one ventured into the streets without a homemade face mask - firemen, policemen, conductors, shopkeepers, clergy – by October, every man, woman and child wore this protection that couldn’t begin to protect them. Although victory bond rallies continued, all who marched now wore their gauze masks as did the spectators who cheered them.

Philadelphia, out of coffins, had to instruct its citizens to leave their shrouded dead on the front steps for collection by the city’s roaming death carts. Undertakers overwhelmed, no longer able to perform their expected duties, stored their overflow in makeshift sheds. As gravediggers fell ill, still healthy family members dug for their own. Those cities hardest hit made do with communal graves, their trench-like appearance a macabre reminder of another war being fought far away, where thousands of already infected American troops were arriving daily – soon the death count from influenza would outstrip that of war on all fronts.

As no medicine seemed to exist that could hold out any hope, desperate people began to concoct their own. Turpentine was sucked on sugar cubes, boiled along with parsnips, beets and rhubarb then drunk; a brew of kerosene flavored with garlic and honey was tried. The more potent the smell, the more vile the taste, the more medicinal was the popular consensus, but nothing helped. One either died or for some inexplicable reason lived. There seemed to be no middle ground. In Chicago, a man claiming that he had found the cure, cut the throats of his wife and children before slashing his own.

Many believed that as their use of mustard gas in war, Germans had already proven themselves to be monsters - it followed they were certainly capable of unleashing disease across the sea in order to destroy America on its home ground. Some barricaded themselves within what they mistakenly believed was the safety of their homes, others faced the inevitable, helped to nurse those in need – most did battle with Death within their immediate families.

Her sodden lungs no longer able to cope, Carl’s Rosie died two hours before their child. As by now, coffins were  hard to come by, Carl buried his wife and daughter as one. At the age of only three, his Violet was small enough to fit snugly by her mother’s side. Quite lost without her twin, little Rose cried incessantly. At just thirty-three, a widower left with a small daughter to raise, Carl felt quite lost himself.

Zoltan buried his mother without ceremony – by October funerals as a whole were so numerous that the sheer necessity to get the dead underground took precedence over sanctified occasion.

With schools closed and adults too sick or too busy nursing, unsupervised, still healthy children played. Michael and his best friend, Gregory thought climbing on caskets stacked on the latest sidewalk waiting for transport, a lot of fun, until Jane on her way to nurse Mrs. Nussbaum and her eldest daughter, scolded them - then they switched to reconnoitering front doors. The latest activity for children in many neighborhoods -  was a simple game – its rules requiring only the search and counting of front doors hung with crepe. Black crepe meant a grownup had died within, white crepe – a child. As it was the hardest – whoever could find a crepe-less door – won.

A light rain had made the white crepe limp the morning John took Michael to pay their respects to his best friend’s parents. Laid out in the parlor, his Sunday sailor suit making him appear quite smart, Gregory posed by the living, slept as though he could wake. Never having smelled Death, Michael now had its fetid odor of warmed wax and formaldehyde imprinted onto memory. While Jane’s stirred to a time and place never forgotten, rarely revisited, mostly shunned.

Michael stayed properly attentive until the Gregorian chants had faded and the procession for viewing of the corpse was about to begin, then plucked at his father’s sleeve and urgently asked permission to leave. Holding hands, Jane and her son walked home in the rain.

With his best friend’s death, Michael began to wonder about his comforting theory of non-dying worms. It had seemed so simple a solution; but now with Gregory gone, forever and ever loomed as a frightening possibility and he wasn’t so sure anymore if he or his mother were right. So many were gone – referred to as dead, that for the first time, Michael’s world tottered on the brink of uncertainty and he didn’t like it at all. Michael being what he was, believed life was supposed to be fun, full of wonders, exciting, adventure and all the sticky candy one could eat. Crying and worry, hushed whisperings, grownups being scared and sad was really very unsettling. Being all of nearly five and therefore grownup in his opinion, Michael felt it his duty to set a good example - decided for now to be extra kind to all those who had someone gone forever but to pretend that Gregory was only on a journey and would return whenever he was able.

Jane always wondered how her firstborn managed to be so brave. He allowed her so little input into the formation of his character that she often felt as compliant outsider to one in no actual need of a parent. If she had been a clinging woman, this might have upset her, at least annoy her for the absence of control this afforded – but cloying motherhood did not suit Jane’s character. Despite restrictions, she was her own compass and as such admired those who thought for themselves – resolved their own confusion or at least attempted to gain a freedom from convention. If someone had questioned Jane on her motivating relationship with her eldest, the word respect would have jumped to mind – followed by embarrassment that a mother should think so of such a very young child. But then she was not to know Michael’s course had been chartered and as such his time was limited, his impact on the lives affected by him therefore at a premium.