REVISITING THE PAST

The first case of H1N1 (Spanish) flu in the United States is believed to have been contracted at a military base in Kansas. With soldiers taking trains as they were deployed during World War I, it wasn’t long until the virus spread.

Jefferson Barracks was hit first in St. Louis with influenza on October 1. Within a week, 800 soldiers were hospitalized.

With a population of 687,000 in 1918, St. Louis was the nation’s fourth largest city. Not long after the outbreak at Jefferson Barracks, those living in the city started suffering from influenza. On October 7, Dr. Max Starkloff, St. Louis City Health Commissioner, took aggressive action and began to shut down the city. With the backing of then-Mayor Henry Kiel, Starkloff closed city schools, theatres, moving picture houses, and places of amusement. He also banned public gatherings of more than 20 people.

The following day, he closed churches for the first time in the city’s history. That earned him the ire of Archbishop John Glennon, who protested that decision, but he eventually temporarily suspended the weekly Mass obligation for the region’s Catholics.

Starkloff also closed the municipal court, playgrounds, library reading rooms, pool halls, fraternal lodges and limited the use of public transportation, at the time that meant streetcars. Busy downtown department stores, like Famous-Barr, operated under restricted hours. Ironically, despite the severe restrictions placed on houses of worship, saloons were allowed to remain open throughout the epidemic (in both St. Louis and Kansas City), three months before the Volstead Act established prohibition.

Despite many similarities to the present moment, public distancing in 1918 was conceivably a much lonelier experience than it is today. Lacking the many communication technologies that have allowed us to stay in contact with friends and family, early-20th-century Americans also reportedly struggled with the sudden loss of strong community ties, an experience that, to many, even outweighed the fear of a deadly and contagious disease.

The public health response to the epidemic continued for weeks longer than had been expected. In the face of intense pressure from business interests, restrictions were finally relaxed. On Armistice Day, November 11, 1918, when the streets were filled with exuberant citizens celebrating the war’s end and “church bells rang nonstop,” Starkloff allowed merchants to sell American flags, but only on the sidewalks outside their stores.

St. Louis reported 31,693 influenza cases and 2,883 deaths. In Kansas City, 11,431 cases of influenza and 1,724 deaths were reported. The actual numbers of influenza cases undoubtedly were much higher, as many cases were not reported. Despite these dreadful mortality figures, the two cities fared relatively well in comparison to many other large metropolitan areas. In St. Louis (the fourth largest city in the nation) the mortality rate ranked 32nd highest among 49 U. S. cities with populations above 100,000 and was the lowest of the 10 largest cities in the country; Kansas City had the 17th highest mortality rate (Pittsburgh, Pa., ranked first; Grand Rapids, Mi., had the lowest mortality).

John M. Barry, the author of The Great Influenza, writes that feelings of loneliness during the pandemic were worsened by fear and mistrust, particularly in places where officials tried to hide the truth of the influenza from the public. “Society is largely based on trust when you get right down to it, and without that there’s an alienation that works its way through the fabric of society,” he said. “When you had nobody to turn to, you had only yourself.”

In his book, Barry details reports of families starving to death because other people were too scared to bring them food. This happened not only in cities but also in rural communities, he writes, “places where you would expect community and family and neighborly feeling to be strong enough to overcome that.”

THE UNION AVENUE BACKDROP

All of this was set against a backdrop of “the War to End all Wars” slowly coming to a close in Europe, and Union Avenue Christian Church had been planning for nearly a year to host the “Convention” of what today we call the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). “The St. Louis Convention is uniquely environed,” wrote Edgar DeWitt Jones, President of the Convention, “since for the first time in a quarter of a century the sessions will be held in a church building. And such a building! We have a right to expect a new spirit of reverence and a new sense of brotherliness to result from a convocation of Disciples in the beautiful and spacious Union Avenue Church.”

On Sunday, October 27, the Union Avenue “bulletin” was mailed to the congregation with this story beneath the headline “The Convention That Was Not”: “Perhaps one thousand people actually arrived in St. Louis for the Convention. Perhaps a thousand others turned back or were just ready to start. No one will ever have anything like accurate statistics. At best, we know a great many happy, buoyant people were here. Our people love to get together once a year. It is a big family reunion. Our conventions are made up of the happiest people in America.

“Everybody took the disappointment in good part. In a sense all were prepared for it by the universal epidemic.”

In that same “bulletin,” the Rev. Dr. George Campbell, Senior Minister of Union Avenue, shared these words with the congregation: “It seems strange not to have church services on Sunday. We miss the Sunday school, the class hour, the music, the greeting of friends, the spirit of the congregation, the communion of the saints.

“Great days are immediately ahead of us. The boys will be coming home. They have been idealizing the American home and church. We must not disappoint them.

“I trust all will be at church the Sunday we resume services with a renewed consecration to the Captain of our salvation. May God keep you in health of body and soul.”

In a “bulletin” mailed to the congregation on Sunday, November 3, 1918, the congregation learned that “Mrs. Rowena Mason, a charter member of the Union Avenue Christian Church, for sixteen years president of the Christian Orphans Home, a lover of Christ and children, a believer in “pure religion,” a liberal giver of time and money and self, a Christian woman, passed October 21 from the church militant to the church triumphant.”

Mrs. Mason is one of women whose prayer circle evolved into the National Benevolent Association of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

Elsewhere in the “bulletin” we learn what we’ve all been wondering. “The members of the Union Avenue Church have been very fortunate with regard to the influenza. None have died. Those who have been ill are either well or on the road to recovery. No doubt many have been sick of whom we have not heard.” It listed the names of 17 members of the congregation, including Dr. Campbell’s wife.

“For three Sundays we have not held service. Our treasurer reports: October 13, $192.40 was received; October 20, $222.65; October 27, $125.99. Most people are saving their envelopes till the first Sunday we get back to the church. Our treasurer will be swamped that Sunday; but he will like it.”

As the disease stopped its spread, the public’s attention quickly shifted to the end of World War I, undermining the cathartic rituals that societies need to get past collective traumas. In the decades after the sickness, the flu lodged in the back of people’s mind, remembered but not often discussed.

THE WAR IS OVER

If you’re a student of history, you might be anxiously awaiting the good word from Union Avenue on Sunday, November 10 — the day before the eleventh day of the eleventh month. “As the Bulletin is ready to go to press we learn that the announcement of the conclusion of the war is premature. Read the following as a hope. Read it as a future accomplishment soon to be realized. Although America has prematurely celebrate the signing of an armistice she will not slack in the war till the enemy surrenders. Our nation will not have a compromise. She demands a righteous peace.”

Under the headline “THE WAR IS OVER,” Union Avenue rejoiced in this socially distanced way: “This was the big black-type headline in the ‘extras’ Thursday noon. This soon after was the word in every mouth. This was the meaning of the whistles, the bells, the horns, the flying papers, the confetti, the happy, excited marching crowds who had suddenly left their work to celebrate victory and peace.

“St. Louis was wild with unrestrained joy. Noised is Young America’s way of expressing itself, but many in their quieter moods must have shed tears and had feelings too deep for expression. Many doubtless lifted their souls to God in prayers of thanksgiving.

“The war is over. The long war. The greatest war. The world war. The war that cost millions of ives.”

THE CHURCH DOORS WILL SWING OPEN

On Sunday, November 17, 1918, the church doors of the city of St. Louis swung open to the waiting multitudes. “Practically the whole nation has been for weeks shut away from the accustomed places of worship. There has been a longing to return. Men cannot live by bread alone. They crave God, and the support and inspiration of the fellowship and companionship of the Christian Assembly.”