Influenza and Inequality: One Town's Tragic Response to the Great Epidemic of 1918

Chapter Seven: The January Wave

chapter seven 5 the january wave While the interments of the flu victims were being arranged, the Epidemic Committee continued to deal with the epidemic, which was abating. Admissions declined at the Emergency Hospital so that on Monday, October 14, for the first time since the opening of the facility , there were no admissions and no deaths reported. On that same day, the Epidemic Committee authorized the erection of tents for convalescing patients. By the next day there were five tents housing nine male patients on the Civic grounds while one tent on the roof just outside the women’s ward housed three female patients. There were increasingly more discharges than deaths in the daily reports, giving the committee hope that the epidemic would soon end. Accordingly the Epidemic Committee widened its focus to consider the public health source of the outbreak. Having spent considerable time in South Norwood, Dr. Lepper recommended that “if the fumigator man should go over the Italian section, it would be a wonderful aid in clearing up the situation.” On October 17, the committee declared that “the housing situation, particularly in the south part of town, should be carefully considered . . . as conditions brought out during the present epidemic indicate the unsanitary and crowded conditions of most of the houses present a serious menace to the health of the community.” At the Friday, October 18, meeting of the Epidemic Committee, perhaps as a follow-up to the previous day’s discussion, Marcia Winslow “suggested someone should later be assigned to give instructions to the people of our congested sections how to keep clean” and to teach them how to keep their “houses aired, etc.” The committee reiterated its intention to take up these matters at a later date.1 Sensing that the crisis had passed, the committee decided that 95 96 the january wave public gatherings might resume on Saturday, October 19, at 6:00 p.m. and that churches could be reopened on Sunday, October 20. The Winslow School emergency nursery was to close on Monday, October 21. The School Committee postponed the reopening of schools until October 28 to allow time for fumigation and for teachers who had worked at the nursery and in the Emergency Hospital to obtain some much needed rest. The week ending October 19 brought nine deaths, including those of Nan and Thomas Holm, whose deaths left two children orphaned. They were the third married couple in the town to succumb. In addition to the Cattarinos and the Holms, Catherine and Richard Ryan, who had resided in Cork City with their two small children, had passed away on October 4 and October 6 respectively. Richard Ryan had been a member of the Ancient Order of Hibernians and was employed as a painter at the Readville Car Shops, an early site of contagion . The couple was buried in a joint service, the Messenger noting that “much sympathy is felt for the little ones now bereaved of both parents.”2 The Cork City neighborhood was also shaken by the death of Bridget Sheehan, forty-three, on October 15. A popular member of the community, she was survived by her husband, John, a watchman at the Bird Mill, and three sons, Francis, John, and Frederick. This last full week of crisis also took three of the youngest victims: two boys, a newborn (eight days old) and a six-month old baby from South Norwood, and a two-year-old girl from Swedeville. The Norwood Messenger ran a general review of the epidemic on Saturday, October 19, congratulating the Emergency Hospital staff and volunteers for “an unparalleled and unprecedented accomplishment in the annals of the town.” The newspaper gave special notice to the “combined speed of preparation, remarkable cooperation and effective management” shown by the Committee of Public Safety. For the first time, the newspaper acknowledged that the number of volunteers had not been “forthcoming” at the start of the epidemic, a failure that had precipitated the request for assistance from the State Guard.3 Whether the lack of willing volunteers stemmed from a fear of contracting the disease or disdain for those residents—“mostly foreigners” as Nellie Shumaker had put it—who were stricken is unknown. the january wave 97 On October 22, all special epidemic regulations except those regarding quarantine were lifted. At 6:00 p.m. on Wednesday, October 23, the Emergency Hospital closed its doors; the final eight...