Killer flu hits Springfield
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private and conducted on residents’ porches. “Coughers and sneezers” had to stay away from the public or risk being taken away by “police ambulance,” according to the Oct. 16 Journal.
Perhaps the only good thing to come of the pandemic was that Illinois politicians, who were preparing to start statewide campaigns in October, were forced to cancel them. “The campaign in Sangamon County promises to be the shortest in history,” declared the Oct. 16 Journal.
If only the languishing politicians could have helped in the hospitals. Nurses were desperately needed because many were overseas with the soldiers. City newspapers begged for all nurses, even nurse “graduates,” to register immediately with the local American Red Cross.
Some of the nurses who did so were worked to death. Hallie Staley Kinter was a nurse in training at Springfield Hospital during the 1918 pandemic. She died in 1982 but her memories are among the UIS oral histories. She said “nobody had hours off” during the pandemic and many of the nurses became ill. “We had so many sick patients. And at that time the belief was that you had to have fresh air for the patients, and you’d have to have the windows open and the rooms were so awfully cold at night, and well, it was hard.” She and the nurse she worked with became sick. Kinter recovered, but the other nurse developed tuberculosis and died.
Doctors were overworked as well.
Springfield physicians were making about 50 house calls a day, according to Practice and Progress: Medical Care in Central Illinois at the Turn of the Century (1994, Southern Illinois University School of Medicine).
Priests could hardly keep up, either.
Monsignor Jesse L. Gatton was St. John’s Hospital’s chaplain during the pandemic. Although Gatton died in 1989, his memories are also recorded in the UIS oral histories. “Both (Springfield) hospitals were filled with patients and the city of Springfield set up a temporary hospital out at the fairgrounds (in the Women’s Building),” he recalled. “As soon as the patient got any signs of the flu, why he went to this place. Then when he got very sick, they brought him into the hospital, see... some of them were so sick. I remember giving them Extreme Unction (Catholic Last Rites) on the way up to the room, on the elevator. When they got to the floor, they were so sick that many of them died.”
Although Springfield had set up an emergency hospital at the fairgrounds, by Oct. 20 it was overflowing. The Washington Street Mission, Illini Country Club and Masonic Temple (currently Hoogland Center for the Arts) had offered to serve as additional hospitals.
In the middle of Springfield’s quarantine, news came that Springfield’s health care professionals would be given a recently tested flu vaccine. Afterward, “if the supply is sufficient,” said the October 19 Journal, vaccinations would be available to anyone. It might have been too little too late, says Dr. Graham, or the pandemic might have ended on its own anyhow.
During the height of the pandemic here, the number of burials at Oak Ridge Cemetery increased dramatically. Cemetery statics show there were two and a half times the normal number of burials in October and November,1918. LuAnn Johnson, the cemetery’s current executive director, says the need was so great, “the cemetery’s board of managers required workers to dig graves seven days a week.”
On Nov. 8, Springfield’s quarantine was lifted. Three days later America’s other battle — World War I, also ended. The 1918 flu pandemic finally died out in the summer of 1919.
While WWI killed an estimated 16 million worldwide, the 1918 flu killed between 20 and 50 million, possibly more. That included at least 240 Springfieldians, probably more like 300 or 350, according to the Illinois Department of Public Health statistics. Given the city’s current population, that would be the equivalent of at least 550 people today.
Tara McClellan McAndrew of Springfield writes this history column for Illinois Times. Contact her at [email protected].
