Grandma Grace and the Flu Epidemic of 1918

Photo: Young Grace, several years before the epidemic.


My grandmother, Grace, the main heroine of PRECIOUS JEWELS, A SEVENTH-DAY ADVENTIST FAMILY SAGA, lived through the flu epidemic of 1918 -- but barely.  She was part of a religious group who were constantly going door to door with their urgent religious message that the end of the world was imminent, and holding large tent meetings.  The epidemic placed the evangelical Adventists in a difficult dilemma.  They were so certain that Jesus was coming immediately, and this was surely more important than anything else.  To stop going door to door, to stop traveling to set up tent meetings an invite whole towns, seemed a serious breach of faith.    But the flu knew no distinctions, and it struck down both the religious and the nonreligious.  Below is an excerpt from PRECIOUS JEWELS in which Grace nearly died of the flu after her sister gave in to her husband's restlessness after their tent meeting was shut down and left her to visit friends in yet another town.

"At summer's end, Grace left Nashville amidst sad goodbyes when the girls went back to school. She detoured past Memphis and went to Minden, Louisiana where Ruby and Harry were now running another tent meeting, and had been urging her to join them. It was September of 1918, and The War to End All Wars was winding toward a resolution. In its wake came a more terrible killer which took more lives than were lost in battle. But in September, the killer was still creeping softly across the land, taking one and then another, but so quietly that there was, as yet, no panic.

Unaware of the creeping killer, Grace had a joyful reunion with her sister in the lovely little bayou town, population 3,000. There were no Adventists at all in that part of the country, so the little group were true pioneers. Preliminary canvassing had shown there was a good interest, and the attendance at the meetings reflected this -- even though the Methodists, who had long been established there, had a rival tent meeting going full strength! But the Methodists didn't have the artist, G. S. Vreeland, who created beautiful pictures on the spot, illustrating the lessons in the sermon. Before the meetings closed, over fifteen people had promised to keep the Sabbath. Grace was kept busy visiting and studying with the interested ones.

But they were working against a clock - a shorter clock than even the Adventists perceived. For the Flu Epidemic of 1918 was upon them before they knew it. In October, there was word from her friends in Nashville and Hazel Academy that people were seriously ill with the influenza. Like the War, it was a world-wide killer, and by November, even the small town of Minden was aware enough of the danger that the health officials shut down all public gatherings, including church, and tent meetings. A day later, Brother Frank, a member of their group was already down with the flu. Two weeks later, he was recovering but still had a bad cough, and was in no shape for visiting, so he went home, and the artist, Brother Vreeland, left also.

The members of the remaining group were restless, especially Harry, whose frustration increased with each day of enforced idleness. Although travel was being discouraged, containing Harry was impossible, so he and Ruby decided to visit friends in Shreveport. Grace, suffering with a headache, remained in Minden.

"It's just a headache." she assured Ruby, and her sister took her at her word, and went with her husband.

 Left alone, the headache worsened until her whole body ached. By the next day, there was no denying that she had the flu. She was deathly ill within 24 hours, and with the other members of the tent meeting group having departed in different directions, she had no one to look after her. Grace didn't care, for she was quite delirious, but one day - she wasn't sure how many had passed - she became lucid enough to feel the nearness of death. Lying in her foul sheets, she noticed in the wan December light that her fingernails had turned black.

I'm dying, she thought. I'll be dead by morning.

She was nineteen years old.

The flu was no respecter of age - or youth. It carried away children and the elderly, but it was especially vicious with young adults in good health, seeming to use their own strong immune system against them. Grace, who was so careful with her diet, and who walked hundreds of miles doing missionary work, and who came into contact with so many people was especially vulnerable.

She lay in the pale afternoon light, and thought of her mother. She would be with her now if things hadn't gone wrong in Memphis. If only she could see her face one more time!

Then as she drifted in and out of consciousness, she thought about the work that she had just begun. The Lord needed her! This devilish influenza was trying to shut down the meetings and prevent the door-to-door presentations of the Third Angel's Message. This couldn't be allowed!

So Grace prayed. "Dear Lord," she said. "There is so much more that I can do for you if I live. I love this work! Please let me continue. Please heal me!"

She prayed herself right to sleep, and when she woke up, her head was clear and the pain was gone, and she was very hungry! She got up out of bed, and made herself a meal. Then she cleaned away the debris of her illness, and when the bed was nicely made and she was clean and dressed, she still felt well and strong.

"I do believe it is time to go back to work." she said. And, breathing a happy prayer of thanks, she packed up her magazines and went out canvassing.

The tent meeting resumed again in Minden, and although it was interrupted once again with another onslaught of the flu, the workers remained healthy, and the interest in the community remained so strong that they were still there the next summer. By then, there was extra excitement among the little group of workers. Ruby was pregnant. Harry strutted around proudly, talking about his boy, whom he had already decided would be named Wilbur Earl. Grace sincerely hoped the child would indeed be a boy, for no girl should have to answer to Wilbur Earl!

But what made Grace happiest was that her mother had joined them. Pearl had left Memphis and Jtun for good. She didn't talk about the reason for it, and Grace didn't ask her, fearing that the talk would lead into the reason for her own departure. Her parents were divorced once again, and that was all she needed or wanted to know."