1918 Influenza Pandemic and Roseau County Part 3

The 1918 Influenza Pandemic had hit several families in Roseau County with vengeance.  Those over forty and under twelve years of age seemed to survive better than those in their teens to the middle thirties. Each area of the county seemed to have been touched by the infection and the newspapers recorded the ill and dying. 

Those with the worse cases of influenza developed pneumonia, often a killer for these individuals. During the first week of November, two young mothers had passed away.  Mary (Brotherston) Kaml, age 33, left her husband Frank with eight children to rear. Mrs. Wesley (Praska) Vacura, age 24, left a husband and two small children.  The Brotherston family could only hope for no more deaths, Mary’s mother, and a sister were also ill. 

Soon the death tally rose, two young men, Arthur Pederson, age 19, of Kleetzen, and Harry Andal of Duxby, age 14, passed away. In Warroad, the Peter Goulet family had more than their share of grief when they lost three of their teenager daughters, Louise, Josephine, and Dephia. The Rasmus Holland family buried three of their children in the Rose Cemetery, Albert was 28, Bennie-23, and Ida-15; a daughter also died in Larimore North Dakota.

Early in November S. T. and T. B. Holdahl visited Wannaska and found only one person not affected by the influenza, Knudt Lee.  Knudt was busy running “his store, the bank and other interests down there.”

Toward the end of November, George Marvin paid a visit to Salol and found that entire village infected.  He spent the day bringing in water and wood, and doing chores for the residents of the community.  On December twelfth, the Warroad Pioneer announced he had been “confined to home with the flu for ten days.”  George recovered.

The Native Americans were hit especially hard, it was reported that about 100 Native Americans had died in various areas on Lake of the Woods.  Isadore Sigel, a fur trader, had been to Crow Lake Portage where only one man and three children had survived in a village of 30.

Influenza serum became available sometime in November.  Warroad’s Dr. Parker started inoculating patients. On December eleventh, Badger Herald Rustler announced that a vaccination to prevent the flu and pneumonia were being given by Olga Hanson, school nurse and a doctor. After inoculation was available flu cases became fewer and the illness was milder in those inoculated.  With this success many schools reopened but by December thirteenth the influenza hit a second time in Warroad.  Thirty cases were reported, the school closed again.

Due to the decrease in cases the Badger Herald Rustler’s December twenty-seventh issue ran an article stating that “The public should demand the ban be raised.”

The influenza pandemic was not totally over by the end of 1918, but 1919 brought a healthier time to Roseau County.  When the January sixteenth Warroad Pioneer reported “No flu cases reported,” this must have been very good to hear.

The information for the 1918 influenza has been culled from the Badger Herald Rustler, Greenbush Tribune, Roseau Times-Region, and the Warroad Pioneer newspapers (September 1918 through January 1919) and the Roseau County death records.

In the wake of the SARS epidemic at the May 22, 2003 meeting of the Minnesota Community Health Services, Minnesota State Epidemiologist Harry Hull reported, “The Spanish flu, which was a pandemic, is the health community's nightmare. He said the Spanish flu occurred in 1918 and 1919. It spread around the world in six months (people moved by ship, not airplane) and lasted two years. In the United States alone, it caused 25 million cases and 600,000 deaths. He said one in every 200 people in the United States died from pandemic influenza.” (MN Dept of Health, SCHSAC, Minutes, 5/22/03)

RCHS Footnotes

After receiving a ten thousand dollar cut in funding for FY2004 the society has been approached by some county residents who wanted to assist us in our general operating funding.  Donations have been received from Bud and Lucile Landby, Lillian Nelson, Carol Holland, and Leroy and Arlene Seydel.  The Seydel donations were designated for educational programming and will be used to purchase clip boards for the History Hunt programming we are working on for the elementary grades.  Thank you to these supporters for their contribution to help ensure that the Society is able to collect, preserve, disseminate, and exhibit the history of the county.

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