Because life right now can be pretty scary, I wrote the following for my grandkids this week. You might find it interesting too.
A Story about How Your Great-Great Grandfather Saved Lives in the Great Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918
Once
upon a time there were two little girls named Ella and Norma who lived
with their mother and father in a little house on the prairie.
This
is the house, and that's their mother--and your great-great grandmother
Mary--leaning against the fence. Notice the sleigh: in the winter it
must have been hard to get around.
Later a brother
named Jack joined the girls, but in the fall of 1918--that's more than
100 years ago--there were just the two of them.
Their
farm was near a town called Opheim in Montana, not far from the border
with Canada. (You can see it up in the right corner of the state, just
below Saskatchewan.)
Ella, who was 8, was starting her
second year of school. She hadn't started school when she was six
because they'd lived too far in the country for her to go to school
every day. Norma, who was 4, stayed home with their mother who was
named Mary. Their father, who was named John but whom everyone called
Mac because his last name was MacDonald, was trying to farm the plot of
land they had. But it was hard, dry country, and the farm wasn't doing
well
He'd worked on the railroad until they came to Montana a year or so before.
That's him the middle next to the locomotive
But by 1918 Mac had acquired an Overland touring car and was operating a
delivery and transport service all over Valley County. It was a very
useful service because very few people had automobiles back then.
(That's him driving it with his your great-great grandmother Mary
sitting next to him, with Ella and Norma in back with a family friend.)
During
the summer he carried people coming to settle in this corner of Montana
from the railroad to their new homes. He also delivered supplies and
building materials, and sometimes acted as a driver for doctors and
people who were enforcing the law. It was hard work, and he often was
away from the girls and their mother. He was always glad to come back to
little house, and they were very, very glad to see him.
It
wasn't an easy life for any of them, but they'd made it through the
summer of 1918 and there was a certain optimism in the air. World War I
had been raging in Europe, but signs pointed to a victory for the
Allies.
Yet with the cooler weather came another threat: a
very, very bad influenza. It had briefly sickened people in Montana the
previous spring, but suddenly it was back and much more dangerous than
ever. Schools were closed, people were told to stay at home, travel was
restricted, businesses shut down. The two girls and Mary were more or
less confined to their little house and the land surrounding it.
Mac,
however, saw that many of their neighbors were very isolated, with no
way to get supplies or medical help because they were living so far in
the country. So he stepped up, and offered his automobile to check up
on people and bring food to those who were running out. He also
ferried doctors to many sick families (back in those days people were
usually treated in their homes, not in hospitals). And for several
weeks during the worst of the epidemic he did not get back very often to
the little house on the prairie, both because he was so busy and
because he didn't want to bring disease back to Norma, Ella and Mary.
By
Christmas time the worst was over, Mac's girls were healthy and he was
too despite the risks he took. When he was an old man he sometimes told
a story or two about that time, but he played down the important role
he played in keeping his neighbors going.
As for Ella and Norma,
and Jack when he came along, they lived long and prospered. Here they
are in the 1990s when Ella and Norma were in their 80s, and Jack was in
his late 60s.
