About ten years ago I realized that a friend of mine who will turn 99 in a couple of months and his 94 year-old sister would have never been born except for the Spanish flu.?ÿ On the one hand it is tragic to consider the fact that their father's first wife died from that curse but on the other hand these two great people and their descendants would have never been born if he had not remarried to their mother.
The school building I attended in my first four years was about 25 years newer and with far more assets than it would have been without the Spanish flu epidemic.?ÿ Another friend who has now passed on told me the story.?ÿ He turned six on Christmas Day of 1917.?ÿ In those days it was fairly common for a youngster to start attending school immediately upon turning six, even if it was in the middle of the school year.?ÿ In early January 1918 he walked the two blocks to the "old" school building to start First Grade.?ÿ In less than two months they closed the school due to the epidemic.?ÿ That Summer they burned the old building down and built the building that was used for a school for the next 49 years.
Maybe it was just my imagination but it seemed to me that a disproportionate number of people who were young children during the Spanish Flu epidemic who went on to survive World War II lived to be in their 80's and above compared to those born after that time.?ÿ Perhaps they all had minor infections at the time that gave them a general immunity to a host of other diseases later.
The 1918 Influenza epidemic killed more young people than older people.?ÿ One theory is the older generation at that time had gained some inoculation from a Flu epidemic which occurred in the late 1880s.
Killed a lot of the combatants in WW1more so than military actions
FIL relatively heathy 89 had both grandfather s Spanish Flu. Death.
He's concerned now about Covid19 and taking all precautions. We are shelter in place life now.?ÿ But he will probaly still golf and walk the course like he ALWAYS does anyway.?ÿ
