The 1918 Pandemic

 From then on, Mary always had a soft spot for her little brother, Clarence. She worried about him. Was he being treated well? Was he happy? I remember hearing her famous quote about her feelings when they sent Clarence and Nettie away. She was one determined lady, and she voiced her opinion on this topic and others on a regular basis. She visited us when we lived in Taber and Carmangay at least once a year. She usually came by Greyhound Bus from Fernie B.C. where she lived. Dad drove to Lethbridge to pick her up from the bus and bring her to Taber. She wrote letters on a regular basis. Every letter started with: “Dear Brother Clarence and family, and she signed off “From your loving sister, Mary”.

With the completion of the Bassano Dam, Irrigation had just come to the Brooks area. Farmers flocked to the area and set themselves up in farming. George was a horse trader and horses were valuable commodity in the farming industry. So, Eliza (we called her Aunt Lizie, pronounced with a long vowel “I”), Uncle George, Clarence, and his baby sister, Nettie, moved to Brooks. Soon after their move, George’s brother and family followed them, and they all lived together in a big house. They all settled in and were doing quite well.

Then came the pandemic of 1918 to 1920. It hit them hard. All the adults in the house were extremely sick. George was especially ill. He was a big strapping man, but he was so sick he could not lift his head from his pillow. He had some hunting hounds and they sat under his bedroom window, howling until he recovered.

Dad said he did not know why, but he was the only one in the house who did not get sick. He was a tough little guy and must have had an amazing immune system. Unfortunately, his baby sister was not so lucky. She died 29 February 1920 and was buried in Brooks. We have not been able to verify the location of her grave. There has been some who claimed a fire went through the cemetery where she was buried, and her wooden grave marker cannot be found. Everyone else in the house survived.

Dad said it was his job to carry water to quench the thirst of all the sick family members. He was, at the most, four years old. He was born in December of 1914 and had not yet had his fifth birthday. He carried a bucket of water with a big dipper from which everyone drank. That blows my mind. Drinking from the same vessel would have been great for spreading the disease. Obviously, they did not know much about the spread of germs in those days.

Chores and other farm responsibilities don’t go away just because the farmer is too ill to take care of them. There would have been at least one cow that would require being milked twice a day. Our son knew how to milk a cow when he was five years old. But that was a fun exercise while he sat on his Dad’s lap and learned how to milk. Today, we would have to search far and wide to find a child of that age who could milk a cow.

Most family members were too ill to eat much but, I’m sure Dad got hungry and needed to find and fix something to keep himself nourished. And where did the water come from? They had a well. How difficult, even dangerous, would it be for a little boy to draw water from the well?

Dad had no access to a radio or a telephone. They lived on a farm with neighbors so far away there was no access to other people who might have been able to help him. Even if he could communicate with them, would they be able to help or were they sick too? Imagine how difficult that must have been for a four-old child and how heartbreaking it must have been to lose his baby sister.