{"id":55513,"date":"2020-05-26T08:30:52","date_gmt":"2020-05-26T13:30:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=55513"},"modified":"2020-05-26T08:50:50","modified_gmt":"2020-05-26T13:50:50","slug":"baby-alma-and-the-spanish-flu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=55513","title":{"rendered":"Baby Alma and the Spanish Flu"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By DAWNE LEIKER<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Four years ago, I asked my friend, Janet Stramel, about her Memorial Day plans for the upcoming weekend. She said she and her husband Dean planned to place flowers on Baby Alma\u2019s grave, as had long been their custom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWas she a relative?\u201d I asked.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cNo,\u201d Janet said. \u201cIt\u2019s the strangest\nstory, really. Alma was a circus lady who died here of the Spanish Flu. As far\nback as I can remember, Dean\u2019s family has left flowers for her every Memorial\nDay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Janet related snippets of the legend\nof Baby Alma. Relatives and descendants of Dean\u2019s grandfather, Theodore Gosser,\nwho was born in 1902, have remembered Alma every year since her death in 1918,\nbecause, as Janet said: \u201cNo one else ever did.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The story goes that Theodore watched\nfrom the street the day six husky men lowered Alma\u2019s body to the ground after\nremoving the south window of Hays City hall\u2019s second floor. Alma had died a\ncouple of hours earlier from pneumonia brought on by Spanish Flu in the city\nhall makeshift hospital. Since the first week of October, Hays City hospitals\nhad been overwhelmed with patients as the second pandemic wave hit the town. Local\nwomen, mobilized by the Red Cross to serve as nurses, had tended to Alma on her\ncobbled-together bed the floor of city hall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a 1944 edition of The\nHays Daily News, which looked back on the pandemic of 1918, Alma awoke with a\ncase of the sniffles in her tent pitched on the fairgrounds near Big Creek the\nmorning after the Golden Belt Fair\u2019s opening. In a few hours, she knew she had\nthe flu, and \u201chad it bad.\u201d Folks moved her to city hall for treatment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Oct. 3 Hays Free Press had hawked Alma\u2019s claim to fame, her weight, as 600 pounds, although carnivals of the day were known to exaggerate the weight of their human exhibits. Follow-up stories told of her disagreeable temper, and hatred of nurses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cBaby Alma, despite her weakened condition would lie there and scream forth the most blood-curdling string of cuss words,\u201d remembered Ada Schwaller, who volunteered at the city hall hospital. \u201cI don\u2019t know if it was her religion or what, but she sure could swear with professional vigor, a 16-year-old, too.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither Alma’s family in California,\nnor her carnival employers, took the responsibility of paying for Alma’s\nfuneral expenses. Gus Havemann, local undertaker, was reported to have\n“fixed up a rough wooden box,” and overseen her burial in Mount Allen\nCemetery, “without fanfare, flourish or tears.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Oct. 24 edition of Hays Free Press\ncredited the MacGregor family for donating $5 to pay for Baby Alma\u2019s \u201cgood\nservice,\u201d and all bills, including medicine and a small marker which was to be\nplaced at her grave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I first searched for Alma\u2019s grave in Mount Allen cemetery four years ago, after my visit with Janet. The gray slab, near the shadow of an overgrown shrub, read: Baby Alma \u2013 Age 17. (Note: This age conflicts with Ada Schwaller\u2019s quote from The Hays Daily News.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On that day, it never entered my mind\nthat I would ever experience life during a pandemic. I believed that our modern\nmedical advances had made pandemics obsolete. Hollow-eyed, face-masked people\nwalking the streets were a dark segment of history, not something I would likely\nsee in my lifetime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An article in the Oct. 3, 1918, Hays\nFree Press comes to my mind when I hear of protests or dismissals of the facts\nof our current pandemic. That article enthusiastically encouraged Hays City\nresidents to attend the Golden Belt Fair. It read: \u201cThe facts of the case don\u2019t\njustify the wild accusations made. The evidence we see is that it is just the\nold fashioned grippe.\u201d Days later, the second wave hit Hays City and the\nnation, leaving funeral notices piling up and coffins in short supply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hays Free Press, Oct. 10, carried an apology about the thinness of the paper, due, it said, to staff members suffering from the flu. In that edition, also, a plea went out for residents to donate pillows and pillowcases for the new emergency hospital located at city hall. That makeshift hospital operated for 11 days, serving 25 patients. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Schools were out of session that\nOctober, leaving bored kids to engage in shenanigans, such as stealing a brass\nbell from the fairgrounds. Public health officials warned folks not to spit on\nthe sidewalks. There was no food sold in restaurants, and churches and theaters\nwere closed to the public. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Oct. 17, the Hays Free Press issued\na retraction:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 “It wasn’t an ordinary grippe. Doctors in\nEllis and Rush County are taxed to the limit of endurance. (The Spanish Flu is)\none of the heaviest blows Ellis County has ever had to bear.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Topeka State Journal, Oct. 8,\n1918, claimed that Ellis County had suffered the worst outbreak in the state\nduring the prior week: 500 of the state\u2019s 1,176 cases. It is likely that the\nGolden Belt Fair played a role in the county\u2019s outbreak.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A casualty of the pandemic, Alma was in the wrong place at the wrong time. No blaze of glory, just victim of a resolute virus that spiked into her lungs and turned her body against itself. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The current pandemic is a numbers and charts game, standing at nearly 100,000 U.S. deaths. I envision the public outcry if 100,000 Americans died in terrorist attacks or wars during a two-month period. We would extol the virtues of the \u201cheroes\u201d who gave their lives for God and country. Instead, we now look at the lives lost as statistics, and argue amongst ourselves about the accuracy of all reported death counts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Alma wasn\u2019t just a number, not just\none of 675,000 U.S. deaths stemming from the 1918 influenza pandemic. She once\nwalked the banks of Big Creek and provided entertainment for our ancestors on a\nfestive, cool October evening more than a century ago. Not only that, according\nto legend, she was an epic cusser.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I searched for Alma again recently. The overgrown shrub, now cut down, is no longer a signpost, making her grave more difficult to find. I eventually spotted the site, though, appropriately socially distanced from the other tombstones, tiny gray slab leaning slightly to the north. Waiting for her Memorial Day flowers. Waiting to be remembered.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dawne Leiker is a virtual advisor in the Department of Informatics at Fort Hays State University.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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