The pandemic of the Spanish Lady
by Bill Miller for
the Mail Tribune
Tuesday, March 9, 2020
They called the pandemic of 1918 the
attack of the Spanish Lady, an influenza outbreak that raced from human to
human and continent to continent with such incredible speed that many people
feared they were watching the end of the world — and rightly so.
Not since the Black Plague had so many
people around the world died in such a short period of time. Over 2,000 victims
in Oregon, over a half-million in the U.S., and perhaps 30 to 100 million
people died worldwide.
Ironically, Spanish Influenza didn’t
start in Spain, but rather in America’s heartland — Kansas.
One March morning, a Fort Riley Army
private skipped breakfast and reported to sickbay, complaining of a sore
throat, headache and fever. By noon, 100 soldiers with the same symptoms joined
him. In just four days, patients at the post hospital overflowed into tents
Then, soldiers began to die.
Disease spreading within groups of men
living in close quarters was common and didn’t worry public health officials,
and so, when civilians began to get sick, no one noticed and no one sounded the
alarm. Besides, Americans were getting used to soldiers dying.
For nearly a year, WWI had transformed
high school students into “doughboys,” marching off to France with rifles on
their shoulders, unknowingly carrying the most deadly weapon of all, the flu.
Rogue Valley residents read newspapers
and watched the death toll set new records. In just one day, Boston recorded
202 victims, then
Medford physician Elias Porter, while
studying at Boston’s Massachusetts General Hospital, wrote home about the
“horror” he saw each day. “Patients have been ill just a few hours,” he said,
“and within a few hours more they are dead.”
The plague had stayed away from the
Northwest, and everyone was sure there was nothing to fear. They ignored the
Mail Tribune editorial that warned, “The epidemic is sweeping westward rapidly.
Its presence here is only a question of a few days.”
In September 1918, an army troop train
arrived from Boston at Ft. Lewis, Washington. Within a week, the invisible
virus hitchhiked by rail and highway down the coast and into the Rogue Valley.
The Spanish Lady now began knocking on
valley doors. Over 200 confirmed cases in less than a week, and at least 12 of
those died.
Washington state resident Bill Bezold
was hoping to beat the snows in the Siskiyou Pass. With wife, Edna, two
children and everything they owned stuffed into their car, the family was
moving to Arizona.
They stopped in Ashland to eat. Bill
began to sweat and needed medical attention. By the time they reached the
hospital, Edna and an infant son showed the same symptoms.
All three died within hours and were
buried in Ashland’s Mountain View Cemetery. Only their orphaned 4-year-old son
miraculously survived and returned to his grandmother’s Washington home.
There never was an accurate count of
the valley dead, but newspaper reports indicate that in just a three-month
period, somewhere between 200 and 400 valley residents died from the influenza
virus.
The “Lady” disappeared almost as
quickly as she arrived, but the swift and painful deaths she left and the panic
she provoked are still a part of our fading memory.
And every few years we have to wonder.
Could it ever happen again?
Writer Bill Miller is the author of
five books, including “History Snoopin’,” a collection of his previous history
columns and stories. Reach him at newsmiller@live.com.
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