Changes, and Losses
It is impossible for us to fathom how life in Hicksville already had changed since the war began. Now influenza was to warp it even more.
By 1918, much of the labor force was gone, off somewhere in uniform. The crossing gates went up and down constantly as troop and supply trains shuttled between New York and Camp Upton. Many of those who remained in the village were working at new war-related jobs. Domestic goods were harder to come by; as the year progressed, the government eased in Gasless Sundays - non-essential motor trips were banned one day a week.
Huntington Long-Islander, September 20, 1918
Cloaking her/his identity behind such a moniker
raises doubts about the author's motive for writing.
Until this autumn, schools had not been drastically affected by the war. Some male teachers and alumni had left for military service, as had the brothers or fathers of many current pupils. The schools mounted patriotic displays as expressions of solidarity.
Little by little, and then suddenly, a lot by a lot, life changed further. Influenza returned, first reported without alarm as having surfaced in military posts and arriving ships. The reports quickly grew worse. People now recalled the horrifying news stories they had read when it hit Spain in the spring, and everyone had begun calling it the "Spanish Influenza." The streetscape was changing. Spitting was banned; cuspidors were removed. Healthy people wore masks designed to impede bacteria - they did not realize that viruses were much smaller, so small that the masks would not stop them. Nor were they told that many of the nurses and doctors who relied on those same masks were themselves dying of the flu.
The Mineola Fair was postponed because of the epidemic. Hicksville reluctantly closed its schools around the same time that other nearby districts did. Evidently, some people found it more difficult than others to make extraordinary decisions: Babylon did not close its schools until 70% of the pupils were home with influenza. The Town of Oyster Bay imposed a selective "movie quarantine," which forbade people under 15 from attending shows, even though their parents and older siblings could. The local Draft Boards had no choice but to suspend call-ups.
There was one place in Hicksville where it did not matter at all if classes were suspended: St. John's Protectory. The orphanage / working farm / school had opened in the 1890s as a refuge for homeless children. It was a rural extension of Brooklyn's higher-capacity St. John's Home, which had been established in 1868. Both homes were operated by the Sisters of St. Joseph.
The boys in the Protectory slept in a dormitory, ate together, had classes together - and none of them had family homes to which they could be evacuated. Influenza had reached the institution in early autumn. By New Years, fully half of its boys, and a number of its adults, including the Superintendent, would be suffering from it.
The first Protectory death came in October.
The Brooklyn Daily Eagle October 16, 1918
Errors are rampant in the account above. So-called Father Schweltz likely is Father Peter Schultz, Pastor of St. John's Home. Could the word "hamm" be a misreading of a sloppily written note, which actually meant to say "mass"? Stranger yet is the reference to the "Church of St. John the Divine" in Hicksville. The ceremony must have been held at St. Ignatius (i.e., from which Pastor Fuchs ministered to the boys at the Protectory for many years). And of course, there is the discrepancy in the article between the deceased's twenty-five and thirty years of service to the boys.
A pity; Sister Bernadine should have been remembered with dignity and appreciation, not with distractions.
To put things into perspective for contemporary readers.... The same issue of the Farmer reported the current epidemic statistics for New York City. The previous day's total for new influenza cases was 4,925. The day's total death count from influenza and pneumonia was 658. The cumulative figures were 42,911 reported cases, and 4,469 deaths. Health officials warned that these numbers understated the reality.
The Daily Long Island Farmer noted that Sister Bernadine had died of influenza. On the same day, it also reported the death of Hicksville's Cpl. Walter S. Wheeler, who had been hospitalized almost immediately upon his regiment's arrival in France. He must have contracted influenza on one of the densely-packed "floating coffin" troop ships, which health officials had urged the government to stop using. After some time in a French hospital, Wheeler died of the pneumonia with which the influenza had left him. Not all of the village's victims would die in Hicksville.
The epidemic would get worse, it then would seem to recede, and a third wave would hit again. It would be a long time until things were normal again - for those who survived.
