Community Chat

[Mominohio]

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@Whosits wrote:

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@Bhvbum wrote:

My grandfather died in 1918 of the flu epidemic at age 32.  It was always an important event in our family and everytime there has been one of these types of outbreaks, I have been over-focused on what is going on. 

I was stocking up in mid February for this very Pandemic because of our family history.

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You really didn't need to "stock up" as there would have been no shortages if people hadn't started "stocking up"  um excuse me, hoarding?

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Um, excuse me, but I don't think you understand the difference between stocking up and hoarding. 

Stocking is when you buy (any amount, as much as you want) while supplies are not limited and there is no shortage or crisis. People who were stocking up in Mid February or before did nothing to create the shortages that occurred. They were not hoarding.

Hoarding is buying in large quantities when there is already a shortage, or in times of crisis, and you empty the supply on hand or reduce it significantly, leaving nothing for or very little for others when it is known there will be little or none coming to replace it.

Smart people stock. Selfish people hoard. There is a huge difference.

[Mominohio]

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@pitdakota wrote:

@Marp, it does make it seem not so distant when we start to think about our grandparents and great grandparents doesn't it.  Both sets of my grandparents went through this and came out ok.  No one contracted the disease so no one died.  Niether my father or mother were quite born yet, but they had older brothers and sisters that were little at the time.

Both sets of grandparents said what saved them was living on a farm in a rural area of the state.  They were very well aware even back then that this influenza spread where there were people in a more populated area.  

My grandfather used to say he didn't have to worry about catching it from his cows and it was a blessing to be so isolated on a farm back then.  Geez, who knew he knew about social distancing back in the day.  LOL! 

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@pitdakota 

I have had many thoughts about my great grand parents lives during the last Pandemic. I don't remember any of the 'old' people in my family every talking about it, but I do know enough family tree history to know that none of them died from it (don't know if they got sick or not).

I attributed it to the fact that they lived on farms in rural Ohio back then, and had little or no money so didn't go much of anywhere. 

My grandfather and several siblings, as well as many of their  spouses of that generation were alive then, and I'm really sorry I never asked them their memories of that time. It would have been quite interesting, for sure. 

[pitdakota]

@Mominohio, my father and I talked about how no one in the family contracted the flu well after my grandparents were gone.

Although he wasn't born yet, he talked about growing up as a young lad on the farm back in the day.  He talked about how the fall was his least favorite season of all because it was so busy and the stress of getting everything harvested and meat cured.  That was the only food that was going to get the family through the winter.  And years that crops didn't do well meant less food supply for the winter.

He would remind me that in the small towns around the farm, there weren't grocery stores.  LOL!   And evidently the small store would only stock a few canned goods and some staples like lard and flour for people that happened to run out over the winter.  The small store was reportedly basically empty over the winter except for a few things. Therefore, they didn't even go into town hardly at all over the winter.  There just wasn't much to make the trip into town and most didn't own a car so no need to get those mules out with a wagon.  LOL.  

So when we  talked about the Spanish flu he thought without a doubt that had quite a bit to do with few people in the county contracting the disease, while the cities in the state had a far different outcome.  I don't think my grandparents even really knew the flu was still a problem in the bigger cities in the state until that spring.  Evidently when they went into town to get supplies and get ready for spring planting is when they heard.

Those small rural farms didn't get newspapers, etc.  So they didn't hear much news from the "outside".  

I would venture a guess there wasn't much difference during that time between farms in Ohio and Kentucky. So most likely your ancestors had some of the same practices, limitations, etc.

It is interesting to think about.  I often think of Dad's stories and think about how spoiled we are now that we have the availability of groceries all year long.  As we have faced some difficulties in the supply chain today due to the challenges, I often think about that and think if they could make due back in the day........I can too!  

[shoesnbags]

This thread had me thinking about the fact that my grandparents lived through the Spanish Flu pandemic, too, and that they never once mentioned it. They would have been older teenagers at the time, so definitely old enough to remember it well.

Instead, I heard stories of how my grandfather almost got to serve in WWI, but the war ended before he shipped out.   (He had the uniform and all of his supplies, which he kept till the day he died. ) Also heard about my great grandmother who had yellow fever and survived.  Lots and lots of family stories about this and that, but not a word about Spanish Flu. 

Unlike @pitdakota and @Mominohio ‘s grandparents, mine were not rural. They lived in a bustling port city (NOLA) where ships would have carried pestilence from all over the world.  So I wonder how it was that Spanish Flu didn't figure into our family history?