Bookshelf cleaning has become a necessary pleasure due to four consecutive days of isolation each week, but I’ll tell you what, books provide a quiet isolation the internet will never equal.
My brother, Woody, gave me a book called Denver for Christmas 1993. It got stored and not looked at until this Stephen King-like virus brought us all to the altar last week.
With plenty of time to not train the new dog, rearrange the bed pillow or text the living, I opened Denver.
Imagine my surprise to find that Katherine Anne Porter, who wrote Pale Horse, Pale Rider, was a columnist for the Rocky Mountain News in 1918.
“Miranda was ill, delirious with Spanish influenza. Her landlady wanted her out. ‘I can tell you they must come for her now, or I’ll put her on the sidewalk… I tell you, this is a plague, a plague, my God, and I’ve got a houseful of people to think about,’” Porter wrote about her central character, Miranda Gay.
Between September 1918 and June 1919, the influenza strain and pneumonia infected 13,000 Denverites and killed 1,500 of them. It was called Spanish flu because Spain had an early bout of it, but it likely originated in the United States in the spring of 1918. By August it had mutated and fanned out at red-zone speed from an East Coast military base to civilians. The virus eagerly sought human hosts, of which there was no shortage.
With no vaccine, Denver’s manager of health concentrated on prevention. On October 6 he suggested people wash their hands deliberately and relentlessly, cover their mouth when coughing, and stay out of crowds.
As the virus spread, he ordered schools, churches and theaters to close. After that he forbade all outdoor gatherings.
In early November the infection rate leveled, then fell.
On November 11, World War I ended. There was no keeping anyone away from anyone else. Cars and bicycles trailed tin cans, horns blared, and citizens whooped and hollered, 8000 of them jamming into the city auditorium to celebrate, listen to politicians take credit, and sing themselves silly.
Yikes!
Armistice merrymaking reinvigorated the perpetually hungry virus, so it was back to the ban on public gatherings. A new rule required shoppers and streetcar riders were to wear gauze masks.
The citizens balked. They doubted that such measures worked, and besides, they were convinced the worst was over. So, the health manager backed down and allowed churches and theaters to open, and no one had to be masked. Deaths skyrocketed for a bit, but as with war and other relationships, the flu ran its course.
Katherine Anne Porter survived, and also reached the depth as a writer she was always jonesing for.
“No more war, no more plague, only the dazed silence that follows the ceasing of heavy guns; noiseless houses with the shades drawn, empty streets, the dead cold light of tomorrow. Now there would be time for everything.”
It’s amazing that 100 years ago viruses were treated exactly as they are today, but it’s tender and delicious to find something worthwhile to read without leaving home.
Gets your mind off Coronas.