Century-Old Letters Written During 1918 Spanish Flu Shed Light On Current Pandemic
BERKELEY (CBS SF) -- A historian in Berkeley has always treasured the family letters written more than 100 years ago that were passed down to him. But when the COVID-19 outbreak reached the Bay Area, the letters suddenly took on a whole new meaning.
COMPLETE COVERAGE: CORONAVIRUS PANDEMIC
From his Berkeley home, Anthony Bruce has a window to the past in a stack of 40 letters written by his great grandmother Mary Rhodes. The over a century old correspondence describes life at home in the Bay Area to her husband Charles, who was away on a business trip.
"And I found in the fall of 1918, they also talk about the pandemic and how it affected Berkeley and the Bay Area," Bruce said.
The "Spanish Flu" pandemic had just started in this country and Mary -- who boarded several UC Berkeley students -- was required to report their conditions to authorities each day.
On October 18th, she wrote: "All schools in Berkeley are ordered closed. Seventy-three new cases today. Miss Hine is greatly upset. One of her boyfriends has just died at the infirmary."
More than 600,000 Americans would die from the Spanish Flu, with a staggering 50 million killed by the flu worldwide. As makeshift hospitals began filling up, Mary reported people were being pressed into service as health care workers.
"As soon as she got off the ferry boat, there were Red Cross workers who would kind of pull you aside and try to give you a job," Bruce said.
Wearing masks quickly became mandatory. The family was photographed wearing theirs. Mary wrote there were punishments for people who refused.
"She told him that Oakland had collected over $7,000 in fines for people not wearing masks," Bruce said.
Bruce also noted there was more transparency in the information made available than today. Newspapers would list who had died, printing the names and addresses of people caught without a mask.
While that sounds harsh, Bruce explained it made the public understand how serious the situation was. And just like today, there was distancing. Businesses were shut down with a special prohibition against dancing. The letters cover only about 30 days, but by the later correspondence there was already talk of lifting the bans.
"They let up gradually on the restrictions starting in mid-November," Bruce said. "And by January, it was back, and worse than the first time. January 1919. So that's kind of the lesson for today. We don't want to just go back to normal right away."
The next big pandemic would wait a full century to arrive. No one is still living to remind Bay Area residents what it was like in 1918, but their words live on, if we are wise enough to listen to them.
