Influenza: the autumn of 1918, and the counted return of January 1920

1918 – 1920

Mishawaka's 1918 stands in the hospitals file, at anchor size here: in the fall of 1918 Spanish influenza put more than 300 Mishawakans sick at one time and killed approximately 25; public gatherings were prohibited from mid-October until 15 November, and churches and schools were closed. Those are the city's figures, on the commissioned history's account, and the hospital's own course through them — its census, its dead, its sisters in the wards — stands as a named gap in Hospitals, with the Enterprise's autumn 1918 run and the Poor Handmaids' annals in the Notre Dame Archives named as its settlers. This article's work is the return.

The January 1920 return was counted in South Bend, and the count survives whole, conflict included: the epidemic came back with the winter, and the South Bend News-Times counted it in public, day by day, in the series the Indiana Historical Bureau preserves. A house-to-house census began 3 January 1920. On 16 January Dr. Emil G. Freyermuth, secretary of the South Bend board of health, reported no cases and called the epidemic an "exaggeration"; the paper contradicted him the next day, reporting the city's carriers depleted by sickness. On 20 January the factories stood short of labor; on 21 January four were dead, a Notre Dame student among them. On 26 January the News-Times declared an epidemic outright: 1,800 cases around the city, 250 of them at Notre Dame, and 22 deaths over the prior weekend. Dr. M. V. Ziegler of the State Board of Health confirmed the epidemic; Notre Dame's Dr. F. J. Powers denied it — "colds and la-grippe" — and the denial is printed with the declaration, unresolved, because the record leaves them side by side. The census itself sickened: 45 of its 85 canvassers were incapacitated. On 27 January the paper reported the sickness subsiding, with one death that Monday. Those figures are South Bend's and Notre Dame's, boundary-printed: the count was the neighboring city's, taken by its paper and its canvassers.

Mishawaka's share of the return is a named gap: no Mishawaka figure for January 1920 — no case count, no death toll, no closure — stands in any record reached. The settling source is named: the Mishawaka Enterprise's January 1920 run on MPHPL film.

Sources

1. Peter J. De Kever, Mishawaka: A History, via Hospitals — Mishawaka 1918: more than 300 cases at one time, approximately 25 deaths, gatherings prohibited mid-October to 15 November 1918.
2. South Bend News-Times, January 1920, as preserved in the Indiana Historical Bureau's "Spanish Influenza" series — the census of 3 January; Freyermuth's denial of 16 January and the paper's contradiction of 17 January; factories short 20 January; four dead 21 January; the epidemic declared 26 January (1,800 cases, 250 at Notre Dame, 22 weekend deaths); Ziegler's confirmation; Powers's denial; 45 of 85 canvassers down; subsiding 27 January. Boundary-printed.
3. Hospitals file of this record — the hospital's 1918 course as a named gap, settlers the Enterprise autumn 1918 run and the Poor Handmaids' annals, Notre Dame Archives.