Tonka
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http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2009/10/davison_resident_remembers_flu.html
By Dean Bohn
October 21, 2009, 1:28PM
DAVISON, Michigan ? Helen G. Wilson was 8 when a severe outbreak of the flu closed all the schools and stores.
The neighbors that didn?t die were deathly sick ? and those that were still able to get out feared coming into contact with each other.
That was the flu pandemic of 1918-19 ? known at the time as the Spanish flu.
Although the current flu bug, known as the H1N1 virus, hasn?t reached those proportions, those that lived through it remembered it for the rest of their lives.
Helen G. Wilson of Davison, who turns 99 on Nov. 17, now is a resident of Kelly Manor Assisted Living north of Davison.
In 1918, she was 8, and the eldest of six siblings at her parents farm near Brown City, located at the border of Lapeer and Sanilac counties.
The family farm raised dairy cattle, pigs, chickens and the usual cash crops ? beans, corn, wheat and hay.
?My mother was real sick, everybody was sick,? Wilson said.
?Everybody didn?t feel well, some were worse than others. But my mother was so sick that she suffered from no circulation and got lumps on her legs.?
More than 50 million people died world-wide in the influenza pandemic of 1918?19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site.
The same site claims encephalitis lethargica, known as ?sleeping sickness? ? made famous in the movie ?Awakenings? starring Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro ? may have been related to the Spanish flu, since it, too, spread around the world, with no recurrence of the epidemic reported since, though isolated cases continue to occur. The sickness attacks the brain, leaving some victims in a statue-like condition, speechless and motionless.
Burton Mathews, a volunteer genealogist with the Flint Public Library, said the epidemic was world-wide, and left no area untouched.
Personally, he knows it hit Flint, because it hit his family.
His uncles, Kenneth and Arden Lawrence, were left homeless when they were pre-teen boys, when their parents Jack Lawrence and his wife, died from the flu.
?I remember hearing about it, that Jack and his wife died very quickly, and their two boys were left to wander from relative to relative,? Mathews said.
?I wish I knew more about it now, but I heard these stories when I was a child, and I wasn?t too interested in history when all you wanted to do was play.?
?It was bad, the stores were all closed and everyone tried to keep to themselves,? Wilson said. ?The same as when kids get the chickenpox.?
Wilson?s daughter, Ileane Williams, 67, who lives in Genesee Township with her husband, Melvin, was fascinated with the history.
?I?ve never heard these stories before, she?s never talked about them,? Williams said.
Although ?everyone was sick? and some neighbors died, Wilson said she was only a child in 1918 and concerned herself with the work to be done.
?I wanted to go to school, but we couldn?t. That was the year I learned how to make bread and how to sew, to help out. We were making bread almost every day, for ourselves and to the neighbors to help them out,? she said.
?At first I was so excited, learning all these new things, learning this and that. I didn?t have time to think about people getting sick.?
However, she was aware people were dying.
?Some didn?t make it,? she said. ?But I was busy. When you were (8 years old), do you remember people getting sick?
?I wasn?t old enough to know everything that was going on. I didn?t have enough experience in life other than to do what you were told to do. We were poor, but so was everybody else.?
It was a time for everybody to pull together ? but with caution.
?Neighbors were doing each others chores, neighbors were bringing food to neighbors... they were deeds of passion,? she said.
?But when I would deliver loaves of bread, they would ask, like they were scared, ?Did you put your hands in it when you made it?? Well, of course I did, how else do you make bread??
She said her father, John C. McTavish, was sick but not as bad as her mother and neighbors.
?Dad kept busy, helping neighbors, but we had a lot of work of our own. Back in those days you had to take care of your own road ? it had to be graded in the summer and shoveled in the winter.?
Wilson said her mother about that time became clinically blind, at age 36.
?(The flu) probably had something to do with it.. and it may not have,? she said.
As the flu ebbed away, and life got back to normal, she still helped out at home before returning to school, she said.
When she finally did return, she showed up early for school one morning, sitting on the school porch. When the teacher arrived she asked her why she was gone so long.
?I remember telling her, ?I was away sick,? because that?s all I could think of to say,? she said.
By Dean Bohn
October 21, 2009, 1:28PM
DAVISON, Michigan ? Helen G. Wilson was 8 when a severe outbreak of the flu closed all the schools and stores.
The neighbors that didn?t die were deathly sick ? and those that were still able to get out feared coming into contact with each other.
That was the flu pandemic of 1918-19 ? known at the time as the Spanish flu.
Although the current flu bug, known as the H1N1 virus, hasn?t reached those proportions, those that lived through it remembered it for the rest of their lives.
Helen G. Wilson of Davison, who turns 99 on Nov. 17, now is a resident of Kelly Manor Assisted Living north of Davison.
In 1918, she was 8, and the eldest of six siblings at her parents farm near Brown City, located at the border of Lapeer and Sanilac counties.
The family farm raised dairy cattle, pigs, chickens and the usual cash crops ? beans, corn, wheat and hay.
?My mother was real sick, everybody was sick,? Wilson said.
?Everybody didn?t feel well, some were worse than others. But my mother was so sick that she suffered from no circulation and got lumps on her legs.?
More than 50 million people died world-wide in the influenza pandemic of 1918?19, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Web site.
The same site claims encephalitis lethargica, known as ?sleeping sickness? ? made famous in the movie ?Awakenings? starring Robin Williams and Robert DeNiro ? may have been related to the Spanish flu, since it, too, spread around the world, with no recurrence of the epidemic reported since, though isolated cases continue to occur. The sickness attacks the brain, leaving some victims in a statue-like condition, speechless and motionless.
Burton Mathews, a volunteer genealogist with the Flint Public Library, said the epidemic was world-wide, and left no area untouched.
Personally, he knows it hit Flint, because it hit his family.
His uncles, Kenneth and Arden Lawrence, were left homeless when they were pre-teen boys, when their parents Jack Lawrence and his wife, died from the flu.
?I remember hearing about it, that Jack and his wife died very quickly, and their two boys were left to wander from relative to relative,? Mathews said.
?I wish I knew more about it now, but I heard these stories when I was a child, and I wasn?t too interested in history when all you wanted to do was play.?
?It was bad, the stores were all closed and everyone tried to keep to themselves,? Wilson said. ?The same as when kids get the chickenpox.?
Wilson?s daughter, Ileane Williams, 67, who lives in Genesee Township with her husband, Melvin, was fascinated with the history.
?I?ve never heard these stories before, she?s never talked about them,? Williams said.
Although ?everyone was sick? and some neighbors died, Wilson said she was only a child in 1918 and concerned herself with the work to be done.
?I wanted to go to school, but we couldn?t. That was the year I learned how to make bread and how to sew, to help out. We were making bread almost every day, for ourselves and to the neighbors to help them out,? she said.
?At first I was so excited, learning all these new things, learning this and that. I didn?t have time to think about people getting sick.?
However, she was aware people were dying.
?Some didn?t make it,? she said. ?But I was busy. When you were (8 years old), do you remember people getting sick?
?I wasn?t old enough to know everything that was going on. I didn?t have enough experience in life other than to do what you were told to do. We were poor, but so was everybody else.?
It was a time for everybody to pull together ? but with caution.
?Neighbors were doing each others chores, neighbors were bringing food to neighbors... they were deeds of passion,? she said.
?But when I would deliver loaves of bread, they would ask, like they were scared, ?Did you put your hands in it when you made it?? Well, of course I did, how else do you make bread??
She said her father, John C. McTavish, was sick but not as bad as her mother and neighbors.
?Dad kept busy, helping neighbors, but we had a lot of work of our own. Back in those days you had to take care of your own road ? it had to be graded in the summer and shoveled in the winter.?
Wilson said her mother about that time became clinically blind, at age 36.
?(The flu) probably had something to do with it.. and it may not have,? she said.
As the flu ebbed away, and life got back to normal, she still helped out at home before returning to school, she said.
When she finally did return, she showed up early for school one morning, sitting on the school porch. When the teacher arrived she asked her why she was gone so long.
?I remember telling her, ?I was away sick,? because that?s all I could think of to say,? she said.