Headline in the Wilkes-Barre Record Oct. 5, 1918
Click here to subscribe today or Login.
Luzerne County was not immune to the Spanish influenza that swept across the globe in 1918.
Approximately 3,000 residents would die from 1918 to 1920 as the influenza infected about 500 million people across the world.
The influenza was sometimes called the Spanish flu or grippe in newspapers of the day.
“The Spanish influenza epidemic which has invaded England is rapidly spreading throughout the kingdom. Some schools, factories and churches have been closed,” reported the Times Leader on July 1, 1918, the first time the disease was mentioned in local Wilkes-Barre newspapers.
It was believed the Spanish influenza was carried to the United States by American soldiers on furlough during World War I.
By September 1918, residents of Luzerne County began to get infected with the Spanish flu, pneumonia type symptoms of high fever, cough, weakness and body aches.
The Evening News newspaper of Wilkes-Barre reported Oct. 2, 1918, that five people were suffering from the virus in Wilkes-Barre.
One of them, Mary Mahon, who lived at 233 Scott St., Wilkes-Barre, contracted the virus while visiting her sick sister, Anna Callahan, in Pittston. Callahan would be one of the first victims to die in the Wyoming Valley from the Spanish flu on Sept. 29, 1918, the Wilkes-Barre Record newspaper reported Sept. 30, 1918.
Sadly, a week later, Mahon died Oct. 5, 1918.
Death certificates obtained from ancestry.com list Callahan and Mahon died from pneumonia due to influenza.
“The Spanish influenza epidemic is now causing alarm in Wyoming Valley in addition to the cases that were reported in the city, many cases are reported in the suburban districts. In Nanticoke, there are three cases and it is reported that 40 cases have developed in the Glen Lyon district,” the Times Leader reported Oct. 2, 1918.
Within days, the Wilkes-Barre City Health Department ordered the closure of churches, Sunday schools, social clubs, saloons, soda fountains and all places of amusements, the Times Leader reported Oct. 5, 1918.
Schools were kept open in Wilkes-Barre but the Nanticoke Department of Health ordered schools closed in that city on Oct. 10, 1918.
“This will be the first time in the history of the valley that people will not attend masses in Catholic churches Sunday morning,” reported the Times Leader.
Less than a week later, the Evening News on Oct. 10, 1918, reported 258 cases and 10 deaths in the Wyoming Valley due to Spanish influenza.
Stores were ordered closed except for food and drug stores. An order was issued to the Wilkes-Barre Traction Company to prevent crowding on trolley cars and factories and mills were told not to have employees congregate in groups.
So-called remedies were published in newspapers to include drinking malted milk or Castor oil, placing warm onions against the chest or sniffing Hyomei oil.
“Influenza is a crowd disease. Avoid crowds as much as possible. Influenza germs spread when ignorant or careless persons sneeze or cough without using a handkerchief,” the Evening News reported Jan. 7, 1919.
Tragedy struck a Plains Township family as Agnes Dooley, her sister Jane Dooley, and brother James Dooley, died from the Spanish flu within days of each other in January 1919, reported the Times Leader on Jan. 28, 1919.
It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world’s population became infected with the Spanish influenza virus. The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
