1918 PANDEMIC

An article in the Lewiston Tribune stated that we no longer have a community consciousness of the social difficulties and devastating events caused by the influenza epidemic of 1918. It was 90 years ago. “That’s true; I don’t know anyone that died in that epidemic,” I quipped to Mike.

I remember asking my mother, who was 8 or 9 in 1918, what she remembered about the epidemic. Oh, she remembered it very well, she said. There were two wood-frame buildings called cottages on opposite corners on the lot where the old school (present junior high) still stands in Orofino. One was still there when I was in high school and was used as the chemistry lab. And I believe Mother said that particular cottage was the one set up for care / quarantine of the sick. The community was organized to leave provisions on the steps – milk, food, etc. She related that she had gone with her mother to leave such provisions. She said that individuals wore garlic on strings around their necks to ward off the sickness, adding that she didn’t know the philosophy behind that practice. She thought it was largely a superstitious belief. One could surmise that the smell might keep others at bay, but since they were all wearing it, it probably didn’t have that effect. Mother thought the garlic necklace might have served to remind people to stay out of one another’s space (to use the vernacular of today) and in the end that had some positive effect in staving off the disease.

I never heard that anyone in my family suffered during that flu epidemic. But I think that my Grandfather Portfors’ partner in the Ford garage died, ending a short business relationship.


[This 4-generation picture was taken in 1955 at Harriet's house: Charles O. Portfors, Harriet Walrath Reece, Dorothy Dobson, and L.J. Reece (first grandchild.]