1918-1919 Flu Epidemic: Lydia Elizabeth Strange

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Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs. Historical photographs of any age or kind become the launchpad for explorations of family history, local history and social history in fact or fiction, poetry or prose, words or further images. If you want to play along, sign up to the link, try to visit as many of the other participants as possible, and have fun.

Illness can barrel through a family or a community with the force of a train. Sometimes there are parallel stories, like the tracks that a train rolls along.

I’m continuing to look at how epidemics, pandemics and public health crises have impacted my families. Last year, I wrote a series on the death of my mother’s brother, who died as the result of the measles in 1930. That series begins here: An Uncle I Never Knew.

Now I’m focussing on the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919. I began with Woodrow Wilson (Woodye) Webber in my last post. Woodye was the daughter of Myron David Webber and Dorinda Rebecca Strange. As I was looking through old newspapers for information about the 1918-1919 flu epidemic in Lincoln County, Kansas, where the Strange family lived for many years, I came across this.

I didn’t know who Lizzie Strange was, but knew she must have been one of ours and when I reached out to cousins by email, I was assured that all of the Lincoln County Stranges are our kin.

The Strange family was very large and included step-siblings and half-siblings, siblings who cared for siblings after the death of parents, and siblings who had lots of children. I have a hard time keeping them straight!

Here is what I have pieced together about Lydia Elizabeth (Lizzie) Strange Hammond.

Lizzie Strange was the daughter of George Washington Strange and Nancy Matilda Henderson. The youngest child born to George and Nancy, she is front and center of the photo above. Her mother had two children from a previous marriage – Martha (Mattie) and William Tannehill. George and Nancy had three boys in addition to Lizzie – Benjamin, Harry, and Everett.

Lizzie was born 7 August 1882 in Lincoln, Kansas. Her father George was a half-sibling to Dorinda Rebecca Strange (Woodye’s mother). There was an almost twenty year age difference between half-siblings George and Dorinda, but Dorinda was only about six years older than George’s daughter Lizzie, her niece. Or would that be half-niece? Below is a photo of Dorinda, on the left, and Lizzie on the right.

Dorinda Rebecca Strange (L) and Lydia Elizabeth (Lizzie) Strange (R)

According to Strange genealogist John H. Mayer in his book Strange of Eastern America, Lizzie first married William McCormick, by whom she had a boy who died young. The couple divorced.

Francis Marion Strange (1880-1951), in his book of memories Anecdotes From My Life, provides a little more information while telling of a prank he played on his Uncle George:
In the fall or early winter of 1898, I had been teaching my first school in the Ingalls district in northwest Lincoln County. It was some 20 miles up there and I rode my horse to and from there every week when the weather was favorable. So one Friday night I finished up my school work and the cleaning up of the house, and started home. I arrived to find there was a real surprise for me. My cousin, Lizzie Strange, had just recently married. Perhaps the real surprise came since I didn’t know she was thinking of getting married, since she wasn’t quite sixteen.

Lizzie married veterinarian Marion J. Hammond of Luray, Kansas on 06 December 1916 and they made their home in Luray, a town a little over thirty miles west of Lincoln.

By this time, Dorinda and her large family were living in Iowa and Woodye was born seven months after Lizzie’s marriage to Marion Hammond.

The only wedding announcement I found was this in the Luray newspaper.

The Luray Herald (Luray, KS) 11 Jan 1917

Lizzie seems to have involved herself in the life of her new community, hosting the M. E. (Methodist-Episcopal?) Aid society a few months after settling in Luray.

The Luray Herald (Luray KS) 30 Aug 1917

I assume the ladies were singing rather than tinging.

The couple moved into a new home around New Year’s Day 1918.

The Luray Herald (Luray KS) 3 Jan 1918

The local newspaper kept everyone informed of the comings and goings of the Hammonds – their visits to family out of town and visits from family to their home.

In March, Lizzie attended the funeral of her aunt in Lincoln. The newspaper notice does not report the name of the aunt, but that would have been Rev. Sarah Bird Strange, wife of Rev. Thomas Madison Strange. Sarah died March 8, 1918. Her obituary does not list a cause of death, so I have no idea if her death was related to influenza.

The Luray Herald (Luray Ks) 14 March 1918

When I saw that Lizzie and Marion attended the funeral of Lizzie’s sister-in-law, Rachel Strange, wife of her brother Everett, in September, I wondered if she had died of influenza.

The Luray Herald (Luray KS) 12 Sep 1918

But John Mayer wrote in his book, Strange of Eastern America, that Rachel died by suicide.

Wedding portrait, Everett and Rachel Strange

Rachel and Everett had three sons, James Sibley, Raymond Everett, and Norwood Norton. Norwood was only two when his mother died.

Sons of Everett and Rachel Strange

Shortly after the funeral notice in the Luray newspaper, there was a notice that Everett had brought his son Raymond to live with his sister Lizzie. I don’t know where the other boys went, but perhaps they also went to live with relatives.

The Luray Herald (Luray KS) 19 Sep 1918

Less than a month after Everett left his son with Lizzie and Marion, came the news that Lizzie was ill with influenza in Junction City. Her husband had family in Junction City, so it is unclear if she became ill while visiting, or if her husband took her to the larger town for medical treatment.

The Luray Herald (Luray KS) 14 Nov 1918

A week later, the newspaper reported that Lizzie had died.

The Luray Herald (Luray KS) 21 Nov 1918

Lizzie and Marion were about six weeks shy of celebrating their second wedding anniversary.

This obituary is the first time I had heard of the Royal Neighbors. According to Wikipedia “the early members of the Society were ahead of their time. In addition to providing life insurance for women, they stood firmly behind the women’s suffrage movement. Royal Neighbors was also one of the first fraternal societies to insure children and recognize mortality studies establishing the fact that women live longer than men, and to reflect that difference in life insurance premiums…. They intended to be that helpful neighbor, combining the Biblical “neighbor” with the word “royal” that signified their belief in the nobility of the work they would do.”

Fairfield Journal, Fairfield, IA Dec. 17, 1918

Nearly everyone in the eleven-member family of Lizzie’s Aunt Dorinda was reported to be ill less than a month after Lizzie’s death.

From the brief research I did this week, I found no evidence that Lizzie’s husband Marion remarried. His widowed sister and her children had moved to Kansas before Lizzie’s death. The 1920 census shows his nephew Frank Steele living with him and, for a time Marion, and his sister and her children lived together. Marion later had a small farm where he lived alone in Clay County, Kansas. He died in California in 1953.

As for Everett Strange and his sons, they were reunited. Everett remarried and census records show the boys living with their father and step-mother and several half-siblings.

Rev. Thomas Madison Strange, husband of Rev. Sarah Bird Strange and brother of George Washington Strange and half-brother of Dorinda Rebecca Strange, died in October of 1919. His obituary lists the cause of death as uremia, a condition caused by kidney damage. This is of interest to me because of the death of my mother’s brother after having the measles. His death was secondary to measles, the cause of death being nephritis. I am no doctor and have no medical knowledge at all, but my little look into the definitions of both seem to have some possible overlap and made me wonder if T. M. Strange had a chronic kidney condition or if, like my uncle, had suffered kidney damage from a viral infection that led to his death. Always speculating… Can’t help it.

That’s all for my lengthy contribution to Sepia Saturday. Ride the rails to the next stop on the line, where other’s have surely written shorter and more uplifting tales at Sepia Saturday.

The 1918-1919 Flu Epidemic – Woodye Webber

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Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs. Historical photographs of any age or kind become the launchpad for explorations of family history, local history and social history in fact or fiction, poetry or prose, words or further images. If you want to play along, sign up to the link, try to visit as many of the other participants as possible, and have fun.

I really can’t think of a connection to the prompt photo and my post today other than several suits and ties. I’ve been wanting to research and write about the epidemics, pandemics, and other public health crises that have impacted my families, so I’m starting those posts today. I do have old photos, so there’s that.

First up, the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919. My family research hasn’t been particularly fruitful, but I’ll go with what I have. And I’ll add that I’ve fallen into the rabbit hole of old newspapers to find information and context. If you don’t want to read all of them, feel free to scroll on by!

My Strange-Webber family has one story that has been passed down – about Woodye (Woodrow Wilson) Webber.

This picture of the M. D. Webber and Dorinda Strange Webber family was taken in 1919. Woodye is the youngest child, seen here in her mother’s arms. My grandmother was Abbie, the oldest girl in the family.

I don’t know the occasion that prompted this photo. The girls may all be be dressed in white and most of the boys are in suits and ties. Church? Easter? The short sleeves the girls are wearing indicate a warm time of year, so maybe this was taken in late spring or summer. At the time this photo was taken, the family lived in Fairfield, Iowa. Woodye was born May 2, 1917, in Fairfield.

Woodye’s children shared what they heard and remember about their mother’s bout with the flu.

Wilda – The story of Mother and the epidemic as I recall hearing it is that mother was very sick for quite some time (several weeks, I think), and that Aaron went into the bedroom periodically to try to entertain her. One day he came out of the bedroom with tears in his eyes. Zam asked, “What’s the matter, Aaron?” He replied, “The baby smiled.” Her smile had been met by tears of joy, and it marked her turn around. She had started talking and was becoming more mobile, but had to relearn everything after her recuperation.

Aaron, the second oldest boy in the family was the next in age after my grandmother. Zam is the name Woodye’s children called their grandmother, Woodye’s mother.

A newspaper clipping dated 17 Dec 1918 confirms the approximate time of Woodye’s illness.

Fairfield Journal, Fairfield, IA Dec. 17, 1918

The curious thing about this little notice in the newspaper is the family member count – eight of nine family members. If you can count, you can see that there are eleven members in this family – two parents and their nine offspring. So where did those numbers come from?

Norman in National Guard Uniform 1918

My best guess is that the oldest son, Norman, was not counted. He served with the Iowa National Guard beginning October 7, 1918.  His military service never took him out of Fairfield. I don’t know if he stayed at the armory or post for the duration of his service, but maybe he did and was not counted. It looks like Norman is wearing his uniform in the family picture above. Eleven minus one.

The next obvious possibility is that my grandmother had moved out of the house. The 1920 Census shows her living in the family home, so either Abbie was staying somewhere else at the time of the newspaper story or the reporter just didn’t get the numbers straight.

Whatever the case, there were a lot of sick people in that house. All at the same time. Since only the story of Woodye has been passed down, perhaps she was the most ill and, being the baby of the family (not yet two years old), her illness was most significant to family lore. We are left wondering if everyone eventually became ill, how they managed with so many sick at once, and how influenza affected others in the family.

The Fairfield newspaper began to report on local cases of the flu in October, along with information about avoiding infection and patient quarantine.

The following day, public meetings were banned due to twelve cases of influenza, plus diphtheria, scarlet fever, and a possible case of infantile paralysis. This order included schools, theaters, churches and other public buildings, but the theater owner had already ordered films and apparently had permission to show them.

The ban on gatherings was reported to be working and hopes were high that the ban would be lifted. Unfortunately, the epidemic was not as well controlled in other parts of the state and local officials could not lift the prohibitions. (Click to enlarge.)

Halloween was canceled for the Webber kids, as well as all the kids in town.

At some point schools, and presumably churches and other meeting places reopened, but I missed the notices of that. A clipping from November 15th reported that two teachers had contracted the virus and said that the rumor that schools would close was unfounded. The Red Cross needed volunteers to make gauze masks. And Parsons College, in the city, reported thirty-three cases and was under quarantine in November.

Ten days before the notice about the Webber family having influenza, the paper had several notices pertaining to the epidemic. Gatherings of more than twelve people were banned, which resulted in the closing of many businesses as well as churches and schools.

In addition to the influenza epidemic, there was a war going on with calls to service, mask-making, and food rationing, among other things. At the end of the clipping below about church services is a note about sugar – and how the government will trust every one to be on their honor not to use sugar extravagantly. Also – don’t eat a fourth meal.

Schools were closed again beginning December 11 and to continue through December 30. In addition, children under the age of eighteen were not to gather in the streets or in the homes of friends.

Failure to comply with quarantine was an indictable offense.

This all sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Closings. Openings. Closings. Re-openings. Quarantine. Masks. Outbreaks on college campuses. Follow the rules!

A local newspaper published this piece in the face of difficult times.

I came up with a few ideas about what may have prompted this family photo.


* Easter, April 20, 1919 – as suggested earlier
* A celebration of Woodye’s recovery
* Woodye’s 2nd birthday on May 2, 1919. If you look closely, you can see that Woodye is holding a doll in the photo and seems to be showing it to the camera. A birthday gift?
* Winning 1st prize at church on Family Night for having the largest family, March 1919

I wonder what happened to that Bible?

The story of Woodye and the flu doesn’t end with her recovery as a toddler.

Wilda – Part of the irony of Mother’s life is the role the flu played. When flu shots were first available to the public in the 1940s, Mother had one – and got very sick again. And then in her later life, she had a very serious bout with the flu, after which she was pretty-much wheelchair-bound for her remaining lifetime. It seems as though the Spanish flu early in her life and the seasonal flu late in her life are almost bookends to her lifestory – though, of course, not the most important elements of it.

Dorinda – Mother spent her life being afraid of flu shots, because she had a horrible bout with it after her first flu shot, so she didn’t trust them.  When she was in Healthwin nursing home they wanted to give her a flu shot each year and she always hesitated.  I reminded her that her first shot was a live virus and that they were now giving shots that were not live viruses.  Makes a big difference.

Becky – First, when she was still in Iowa City (before moving to South Bend) I remember her saying she was getting two half doses of the flu because she felt a full dose caused her to get sick. 

Alice – I remember the 2 half doses for several years before moving to South Bend. What I remember about mom going into the nursing home is she had had a real bad case of the flu and was in the hospital and could no longer walk and that is when she went into Helthwin.

Needless to say, our family is grateful for the life of Woodye Webber. And please, don’t take this as an anti-vaccine story! Get vaccinated! And let’s all hope for a safe and effective vaccination for COVID-19.

I’ll end with a cute photo of Woodye on her first date with future husband Orville Kessler.

Oh! There it is! A man and a woman standing together. My link to the prompt photo.

To see how others have interpreted the theme this week, visit Sepia Saturday.

 

 

A Zoomin’ Reunion

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Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs. Historical photographs of any age or kind become the launchpad for explorations of family history, local history and social history in fact or fiction, poetry or prose, words or further images. If you want to play along, sign up to the link, try to visit as many of the other participants as possible, and have fun.

Some serious talk between these men at a cattle sale. Inside information about price of cattle? Favorite haberdashery going out of business? The latest news about Aunt Tillie?

I hosted a zoom reunion last Saturday where stories were listened to with great interest. Some involved livestock… well, chickens and goats. There were updates about some of our own. And I have some inside information if you want to take the bull by the horns and host a virtual reunion yourself. 

The Strange – Webber side of my family had planned to have a family reunion in Iowa on August 22nd. It was obvious by late spring that it couldn’t/shouldn’t/wouldn’t happen. I have a paid zoom account and would not be constrained by a forty minute time limit, so I offered to host a reunion using zoom. A few cousins and I formed a reunion committee and stayed with the original date.

The M. D. and Dorinda Webber Family 1919

My cousins on the committee belong to the generation ahead of me, although some of us are the same age. Their parents were a group of nine siblings, so this group of 1st cousins was fairly large. They opted to limit  the reunion to their generation, that way our zoom screen would not be too full and perhaps not too chaotic! We thought it best to get this one under our belt and then decide if we wanted to try something with a larger group.

Our general outline was:
an opening and welcome
introductions
a time of remembrance for the deceased cousins
pictures of the cousins’ parents
guess the baby game
memories of their grandparents’ house
group photo.

After we had a plan in mind, we sent out a “save the date” email that included a call for photos needed and a suggestion to be prepared to share a memory about the house on H Street.

To handle the influx of photos filling my inbox, I made a folder for the reunion and then started folders for the different agenda items. I also tagged the emails so I could find them again if needed.

I made folders within folders to keep generations straight and family groups together. Not everyone sent photos that had been named, so ask your people to do that before sending. It will make your life easier. It was lots of fun to receive the photos. Sometimes we ask for photos and don’t get them. This time I got more than I asked for! Yay!

Then I needed to decide how I was going to share all of these photos at the reunion. I had only shared individual photos or pdfs on zoom, but that would have been cumbersome. I had never had a reason to make a powerpoint, but it was easy to learn, easy to edit, and easy to use.

Yvonne had a photograph from a previous family reunion that she wanted to share for the opening, since all of the families are represented in it and she has a recording of the group singing “Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here!” I shared the photo, and she played the recording near the mic of her computer. It worked fine.

I gave the group some zoom instructions since not everyone was familiar with using this platform. A few others acted as co-hosts to help me monitor the waiting room and assist people with their audio/video or adjust their screens so we weren’t looking up any nostrils.

We thought about trying to get t-shirts made for our reunion, but we just didn’t have the time since it would involve having shirts shipped all over the country. Instead we asked everyone to wear a shirt representing their locale, favorite sports team, or something else important to them (excluding anything political). As host, I went around my screen and asked people to introduce themselves (a few of us had never met – particularly the few of us from my generation), say where they live, and show us their shirt. I didn’t really have a shirt representative of Austin. Really??? I did wear a shirt from church, but decided my special item would be my grandmother’s quilt top and used that as my virtual background.

Next on the agenda was the time of remembrance. I wanted to attach background music to this group of slides, but I could never find a way to do that. It seems that you can only have music play during an entire powerpoint presentation or attach music to an individual slide. If you know how to do what I wanted to do, please let me know in the comments. Wilda read the names of the deceased and the years of their lives.

Next we moved to a slide of the cousins’ grandparents (my great grandparents)

and then photos of the cousins’ parents. If I had the photos, I used a photo of the parents as a young couple and as an older couple. Here are my grandparents on the left. My grandfather died when I was a girl. My grandmother remarried late in life.

Dee sent an mp4 file of a family movie taken in 1937. I was able to attach it to a slide and play it for everyone from there. I love it! The grown woman jumping rope is my grandmother.

I attached the theme from Jeopardy to the baby game slide as a timer. da da da dada da da daaa, da da da da da! da da da da da ….

I suppose if we had planned far enough in advance, we might have thought of a little prize to send to the winner of the game. ( Use presenter view when sharing the PPt. That is not what you see here.)

After the game, I showed a few photos of the house on H Street to get the memories going.

Then it was time to stop the slide show again and let everyone have a chance to share memories. It was the best part of the reunion, in my opinion. As happens at reunions, one memory sparks another and another. One cousin noted in an email after the reunion:
“When we are in person, we talk in small groups of 2- to 4 or 5, but today each of us got to hear what each person said about each topic. The discussion of memories about H Street, for instance, would never happen in person–at least not the way we have done it in the past.  So we need to thank God for the good that can happen during this painful time of the pandemic!!  And maybe we need to think about how we can improve our in person get-togethers in the future to somehow incorporate the larger togetherness. Maybe tables put together–microphones????  I don’t have the answers, but want us to be thinking about how to learn from today to improve our future get togethers.”

Since Alice was facilitating this part of the reunion, I got to sit back and enjoy the memories too and also took the opportunity to take some individual photos of speakers. BTW, I gave instructions at the beginning on the use of gallery view vs. speaker view and suggested that speaker view might be good during this sharing time.

The last photos in the powerpoint were group photos from previous gatherings and reunions. The last slide told everyone to smile for our own group photo, then I asked people to take screen shots or photos. We have our group photo preserved for the history books.

My biggest regret: One of the cousins joined from an iPad from an assisted living center, I think. He was fine until I had everyone practice muting. As host, I can mute everyone, but I cannot unmute everyone. Unfortunately, he could never unmute himself. I have never used an iPad for zoom, so I couldn’t give instructions on how to unmute. He stayed with us a while, but then we lost his video and then he disappeared. I don’t know if he left from frustration or if he inadvertently left while trying to get his audio and video working. My takeaway is: don’t mute everyone if you have someone who is unfamiliar with the platform and does not have anyone nearby to assist. Practice, but do it differently than I did.

A smaller regret: I fully intended to record the reunion (with permission from the participants). I thought I had it set, but due to user error, that didn’t happen. Fortunately someone else did record so she could share the reunion with her sister that couldn’t attend. The file is too large for her to send to me in an email. She downloaded to youtube and it looks great there, but I want a copy! She’s going to put it on a flash drive for me. Takeaway: review those settings before you begin!

I would enjoy hearing from others who have hosted a virtual family reunion. I have another side of the family that needs to get together and I would love to learn from your experience.

Visit other Sepia Saturday participants and listen in on the conversations.