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Holland, Michigan, and the 1918 Influenza Epidemic

I was exploring the Joint Archives of Holland on Hope College's website, and found a scan of the Holland City News from 1918, from Thursday, October 31, 1918: https://digitalcommons.hope.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1043&context=hcn_1918

Being in the heart of the 1918 Flu Pandemic, there are some interesting facts and tidbits in there. A front-page article declares "Next Sunday again to be 'Churchless': Secretary of State Board Of Health so tells delegation of ministers." Much like CoViD-19, they were taking things week by week, making assessments and decisions to stay on top of the situation. Local ministers implored the State Board of Health "if some way could not be found to place the churches on the same basis on which the schools are operating." The state denied the request, citing the fact that schools were subject were under medical inspection, which churches were not. The State doubled down, and ordered every church in the state to be tightly closed.

On Page 4, there's a small blurb about the town of Otsego being overwhelmed with influenza, with 100 new cases in the past week. They had to call in assistance from nearby Plainwell. Further down Page 4, it also mentions an epidemic of mumps making the rounds in the City of Holland.

Page 5 reminds us of the grim reality, with the headline "Zeeland Girl Dies Suddenly." Suzie J. Barense, 19, of Zeeland succumbed to the flu. The bug had gotten her family, and everyone had recovered wtihin a week, but it seems like the flu infected her within just a few days. At the end of the article, there's a note to the Fraternal Order Of Eagles reminding members to pay their yearly dues, and that there'll be a secretary on site to handle payments on Saturday and on Monday; an appropriate mirroring to our current contact-free world we're living in.

Perhaps most chilling is this passage from Page 6: 
"So far the epidemic is under perfect control and the indications are that it will stay there if tho people continue to live up to the regulations as they are doing at present."
Hindsight is 20/20, and we're able to look back and see how things played out – which is, not great. Our current situation can learn quite a bit from the prevention methods of last century, with everyone's favorite buzzwords of "social distancing" to "flatten the curve" of new infections.

Page 7 brings some positive news, in that Third Reformed Church vowed to issue its weekly bulletin every Saturday during the churchless period. Given the context of late October, 1918, the bulletin that week has a prayer to the soldier boys and girls; Armistice Day, ending World War I, would come less than 2 weeks later, and we still had doughboys in the European trenches.

Works Cited:
Holland City News, "Holland City News, Volume 47, Number 44: October 31, 1918" (1918). Holland City News: 1918. 44. https://digitalcommons.hope.edu/hcn_1918/44

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