Day 7 - 76 -- Family History

Last evening I noticed the photo of my grandmother in the matriarchal lineage corner of the living room. She seemed to be looking right at me. That surprised me a bit, but I went about my usual evening routine with no further thought. As I left the house at noon today, her photo caught my eye and I stopped, realizing what my brain had been trying to get into the conscious thought area. I looked right at her and said, "You lived through this." Just 102 years ago, the Spanish flu pandemic killed about 50 million people worldwide. The first world war had just ended and returning soldiers took the virus with them as they headed home to their families. This was well chronicled in many books, but one I found interesting was "Flu -- the story of the great influenza pandemic of 1918 and the search for the virus that caused it" by Gina Kolata. That virus had been taken to Europe from North America as it spread through naval stations across the US and into Canada, places where men left for overseas. Standing at the front door today, I realized that two other women whose photos are part of that display also lived through that time -- my great-grandmother and her sister. Interestingly, on the other side of my family, my grandfather's uncle and aunt died of the flu, leaving behind a young daughter. She was adopted by my great-grandparents and grew up with my grandfather and his other sisters. I suspect that many families have similar stories in their histories.

Public health and epidemiology were fairly new-ish ideas, and the concept of quarantine and social distancing were not common. I would like to chat to my late family members about what they recall and how they dealt with the threat of disease. Currently, we don't have such resources available to us. A song that reminded me of the importance of family came to mind when I was thinking of the importance of oral histories. The song is shared here tonight. It is by a great singer-songwriter and comes from an album with a title that oddly fits our current global situation -- Apocaloptimist -- cool mix of fear and hope in that word. Enjoy!

Here we have my father -- James Lee Stanley