Name: A 1918 letter shows how Virginia suffered and survived another deadly flu
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A 1918 letter shows how Virginia suffered and survived another deadly flu

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AdvertisementBy The Virginian-PilotMay 17, 2020 at 1:18 pmEverything in Norfolk was so dull, Annie Donahoe wrote. The virus had closed almost everything.Schools and businesses were shut, she told her brother, Arthur. Movie theaters were shuttered. The teenager wasn’t even working but hoped her shop would open the next week.AdvertisementThe 16-year-old was listing life in quarantine in 1918.Sound familiar?AdvertisementBobby Clifton of Virginia Beach recently found the three-page letter his mother had written during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that strain of H1N1 killed at least 50 million worldwide and about 675,000 in the U.S. before tapering in 1919. More than 16,000 Virginians died, according to , between that autumn and spring.Just as Virginia was going into COVID-19 quarantine, Clifton’s niece emailed him a copy of the letter. Clifton, who has several of his late mother’s old letters, didn’t recognize that one. But he searched, found the original and was surprised at the similarities of a waylaid Virginia then and now.Social distancing and closing gathering spots in a health crisis are not new.“I thought it was really interesting that what we’re experiencing now people have gone through before,” he said.Clifton, a retired director of Chesapeake’s Parks and Recreation Department, grew up in South Norfolk, where his mother and her family lived in 1918.Annie wrote regularly to her 17-year-old brother who was facing his own dangers fighting the Germans in the trenches of Meuse, France.According to the Oct. 21, 1918 letter, most of the Donahoe family had been ill.“All is well here except Papa and he has got the flu,” she wrote, “Aunt Nora and Waverly have had it but are well and Johnnie had a slight case of it (sic) Papa is better now though. Nearly everybody has got the flu over here but I think they are getting better now any way (sic) I hope so.”AdvertisementStill, the teenager likely had no idea how rampant the virus was in the state.On Sept. 13, five weeks before that letter to Arthur, The Virginian-Pilot and The Norfolk Landmark paper reported the state’s first cases at Camp Lee Army base near Petersburg. Ten days later, more than 30 cases were reported at the College of William &amp; Mary in Williamsburg. No one was allowed to enter or leave the campus.By early October, Virginia had more than 19,000 cases, more than 350 deaths, and the Associated Press wrote that there was an “epidemic in Tidewater Virginia.”Cities closed schools, dance and pool halls, barbershops. Public health announcements ran in newspapers and stated to “not let anyone cough or sneeze into your face, keep your mouth shut and wash hands frequently … if compelled to eat away from home, see that the dishes are clean.”On Sunday, Oct. 6, all churches in Suffolk were closed, an unheard-of move, according to The Pilot and Landmark newspaper.“According to one of the prominent citizens of this city,” the story read, “even during the Civil War, when the town was occupied by the federal troops, Sunday school was kept going in at least one church each Sunday.”AdvertisementBy mid-October, a Richmond high school had to be converted into a hospital when the city breached 10,000 cases and state fair canceled. Meanwhile, a small chorus was building to urge the government to at least allow people to go to school and church.Several local stores remained open. Gem Pharmacy in Suffolk ran ads announcing that it sterilized its soda glasses but also had paper cups and saucers.The State Bureau of Statistics reported that nearly 6,000 people died in Virginia during October.The illness peaked by Halloween, and people were allowed to go and shoot pool, get their hair cut and go back to school.Theaters reopened at Camp Lee, although seating was spread farther apart to allow distancing.WeeklyCheck out the latest entertainment and arts news, then plan your weekend with a look ahead at what's happening around Hampton Roads. &gt; World War I ended on Nov. 11, 1918, but influenza, even in its shorter run, had been more deadly.AdvertisementAs people emerged from their homes to celebrate and shop for the holiday season, flu cases rose again. Several cities, including Norfolk, briefly closed schools in December.Annie Donahoe had more to mourn, though.The December 1, 1918, paper had a small blurb out of South Norfolk: Arthur Donahoe had been killed in one of the last skirmishes of the war.He had died Oct. 15, days before she penned that letter. The missive was returned to the family with his belongings. Arthur Donahoe was buried in the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery in France.Clifton helped erect a war memorial in Lakeside Park in Chesapeake to honor his uncle and others from South Norfolk who have died in battle.Denise M. Watson, Advertisement

AdvertisementBy The Virginian-PilotMay 17, 2020 at 1:18 pmEverything in Norfolk was so dull, Annie Donahoe wrote. The virus had closed almost everything.Schools and businesses were shut, she told her brother, Arthur. Movie theaters were shuttered. The teenager wasn’t even working but hoped her shop would open the next week.AdvertisementThe 16-year-old was listing life in quarantine in 1918.Sound familiar?AdvertisementBobby Clifton of Virginia Beach recently found the three-page letter his mother had written during the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention...

A 1918 letter shows how Virginia suffered and survived another deadly flu

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