Clarence Manning Falt (1861-1912) by Catherine Ryan
Clarence Manning Falt was a Gloucester poet and photographer, a son of a Canadian immigrant & fisherman and a Gloucester mother & homemaker (born and raised in a fisherman generations family herself). They had seven children. The Falt family eventually purchased 172 East Main Street; Clarence and his surviving siblings continued to live there as adults. It’s a huge home.
photo caption: 172 East Main Street, Gloucester, Mass. An Edward Hopper drawing of this Gloucester house, which I identified, was gifted to the Minneapolis Art Institute and included in a travel exhibition highlighting major drawings from this famous repository.
Clarence Manning Falt clerked for various businesses on Main Street to support his art practice.
By the 1900 census, clerk was dropped from the “occupation” category, “Author” stood alone.
Falt photographed and wrote about Gloucester, where he was born and raised during the late 1800s. His work reflects his own personal experiences including the fishing industry of his parents’ world. The best ones connect readers to this world because of his talents and an insider’s careful observations. Some of the writing relies too much on tropes and can be a chore, though never as difficult as the jobs he portrays, and may stick with you just the same because he is successful in providing such accurate and detailed examples of the business of fishing and the beauty of Gloucester. Some poems rise to evoke a full and cinematic day at the docks and ideas to mull over.
POINTS OF INTEREST: GLOUCESTER IN SONG
Falt’s book of poems and photographs, Points of Interest Gloucester in Song, was published in 1894, the year after his mother died. He dedicated the volume to her. Examples of his original and stunning photographs are from the copy held in the collection of the Library of Congress which was digitized. The pairings aren’t always successful and one might long for more photos, as I have. A few appear to be source photos for vintage postcards.
“To those who have grown up from childhood amid the grandeur and solemnity of these scenes, to the stranger who has become familiar with them, may their hearts be quickened with a keener appreciation for, and a deeper sympathy with, all that has made Gloucester and its suburbs charming and historic.”
THE BLUETSIN mosses greenA charming scene,To me a sweet surprise,In bright arrayThis fair spring dayThe bluets greet my eyes.Each dainty cup,Is lifted upWith tints of heaven’s hue; Each budding gemA diademBespangled with the dew.Like tiny shieldsAmid the fields,On bodies, slim and frail,,They wave and bendAnd sweetly sendThe Welcome Spring’s All hail!Where bright sunshineBy one divineCan reach each fragile heart,They lovely gleamLike some sweet dreamAnd Joy’s sweet pulses start.My better self(The heart’s stored wealth)Enraptured at the sightOn each sweet faceSee’s Heaven’s graceAnd life, immortal, bright.On, tiny blooms,When waking tombsLie buried ‘neath the snow,And Death doth keepGuard o’er thy sleepAnd blust’ring winds they blow,Backward apaceMy heart will trace,And bring, begemmed with dew,‘Mid mosses green The charming sceneOf you, sweet buds of blue.-Clarence Manning Falt, 1894, in Gloucester, Ma.
Bluets, photo courtesy Justine Vitale
WHARF AND FLEET
Falt’s volume of poems and photographs, Wharf and Fleet: Ballads of the fishermen of Gloucester, was published in 1902. A copy of the book held at the University of California was digitized and uploaded in 2006.
“…Ever since 1713 Gloucester has been the peculiar home of the schooner, and this is now and long has been the unvarying rig of her unrivalled fleet of deep-sea fishermen. The first entry of a schooner in Boston’s commerce occurs in 1716, — “Mayflower,” Captain James Manson, from North Carolina. As Captain Andrew Robinson was a direct descendant of John Robinson who preached to the Pilgrims at Leyden, it is conjectured that this “Mayflower” was the fist schooner, the original Gloucester craft. Be this as it may, her useful successors are numbered by the thousands,…”
and re: the 100 days War with Spain:
“At the Gloucester recruiting station, in the early summer of 1898 , 76.5% of the men examined were accepted. At Boston the percent accepted was 14.5; at New York only 6. This means that in physique and intelligence the fishermen of New England are very much superior to the merchant sailors of the great seaports. So valuable a national resource as the deep-sea fisheries cannot be suffered to decline.”
*Winthrop Lippitt Marvin – U.S. journalist, and author; Civil Service Commissioner of Massachusetts; secretary of the Merchant Marine Commission
Back to Falt
Clarence Manning Falt was clearly proud of his parents and hometown and had a linguist’s ear and aptitude for the music of words. He studied public speaking and drama in Boston and New York. This book incorporates strongly stylized dialect deliberately, heavily.
“There is no distinct vernacular used, for the nationalities represented in this fishing port are so complex as to render that impossible, but there are many phrases in general use which I have endeavored to bring forth in these ballads. Born in this seaport city, with blood of seafaring people in my veins, the grandeur and pathos of this variable life have ever enthralled me.”
Clarence Manning Falt
More From his intro
Gloucester’s “population at the writing of this work is about 29,000. As a fishing-port, it is the largest in the world. Here can marine life be studied in all its phases. Here, lying at their moorings, will be found the up-to-date Gloucester fishing vessels, for the modern type of fishing vessel is t he pride and delight of a Gloucester skipper’s heart. He considers his stanch craft his ocean home. Indeed, these handsome vessels are as fine as the stately yachts that daily grace the harbor, for one would immediately note their fine sheer, perfectly fitting sails, clean decks, trim rig, and crews of able-bodied seamen, marking a wonderful and almost magical development from the primitive types of the quaint shallops, pinnaces, and pinkies of the olden days.
Gloucester harbor, like some might arena of old, is terraced with impregnable bastions of rugged hills and seared and time-furrowed cliffs…At night its beauty is unrivalled. Seaward its light-towers flash and gleam…the fleets glowing to port and windward, vying landward with the city’s brilliant reflections, sparkling with the shimmering glows of the wharf lights, the anchored fleets, and the inverted spangles of the stars of heaven… The wharf life has also developed marvelously. Every up-to-date method of prosecuting this industry is employed. This development has brought many new occupations and newer characteristics of the life. ”
Clarence Manning Falt, 1902 excerpt from his introduction Wharves and Fleet
A Matter of the Ear
“Packin’ Mack’r’l” — that does sound musical, and easily missed! How it makes me smile imagining Falt enlivened by the sights and sounds all about, fishing for just the right words and photographs; all the while diligently preserving a specificity of Gloucester’s fishermen’s dialect; a language all its own, encompassing many nationalities; one in which he was fluent and could translate and that he felt through his art. I wish that there was an audio recording of his reading aloud (or under his direction).
reminder comparable- post Civil War there was an uptick of slang dialects expressed in American writing, notably Tom Sawyer published 1876 and Huck Finn 1885(US)
Falt poem & photos- Gloucester sound and “see”scapes
SELECTION OF FALT’S POEMS
Many of the poems from Wharves and Fleet include vivid definitions tagged beneath which are delightful, personal and informative.
In building a wharf, the piles are first inserted into holes made in the dock, then after being carefully inserted and put in shape, they are driven down to a certain point by a heavy iron weight suspended from the top of the scow.
“Fly an’ spider”: figuratively used when the heavy iron weight (“th’ spider”) strikes the top of the pile (“th’ fly”). An old saying, long handed down by the fisher-folk**.
Notes from – Clarence Manning Falt
**have you heard this expression?
Ride stilts- “reflections of the piles at low tide. As the hawser lifts and drips and the crew hauls upon it, the phosper at night gleams most beautifully.
Notes from – Clarence Manning Falt
Dryin’ time after a heavy rain or spell of easterly weather, one of the most picturesque scenes of the harbor is the hanging of hoisted and half-hoisted sails from all sorts of crafts to dry in the coming forth of the sun.
Note about “Drying Time” – Clarence Manning Falt
Some of the poems I like most helped me learn about ancillary jobs and a bigger , tender portrait of this port.
GITTIN’ UNDERWAY
GITTIN’ UNDERWAYIn th’ early dawn ere th’ doors unlock,Then it’s crick, crick, crick, an’ it’s crock, crock, crockAn’ it’s ho an’ hi fer th’ blocks ter talkIn th’ early dawn e’er th’ doors unlock.Then it’s ho na’ hi fer th’ dreams ter die,Fer th’ crews an’ th’ bunks ter say good-by,Fer th’ yawn an gape, fer th’ stretch an’ sigh,In th’ early dawn ere th’ cocks crow highThen it’s ho fer doublin’ th’ Woolsey smocks,An’ twicein’ th’ toes in th’ home-knit socks,An cuddlin’ th’ ears up under th’ locks,An’ haulin’ down tighter th’ souwes’ chocks.Then it’s ho fer housin’ th’ rubber boots,An’ firmin’ th’ heart in th’ stiff oil suits,W’ile the cuddies blaxe, an’ th’ coffee goots,An’ th’ windlass creaks, an’ th’ horn it hoots.Then it’s ho fer grubbin’ an’ hi fer drink,Then shadder th’ gangway an’ meet th’ brinkTer shape out th’ course an ter careful thinkIn th’ early dawn w’ile th’ stars still blink.
“Block ter talk”: the hoisting of the sails.
“Woolsey smocks”: flannel shirts.
“Souwes’ chocks”: the flannel-line lappets
that are attached to the sou’westers.
“Housin’ th’ rubber boots”: pulling them on.
“Cuddies”: forecastle.
“Windlass”: it is located forward the foremast,
and is used in weighing up the anchor.
“Horn”: the hand foghorn.
“Shape out th’ course”: making the grounds
by chart and compass.
“Sou’wester”: a broad-brimmed oil-cloth hat
with ear-lappets lined with flannel.
-------
Clarence Manning Falt, Wharf and Fleet, 1902, Gittin’ Underway, p. 37-38
TH’ NIPPERWOMANI SEE her black shawl mid th’ buttsClutched tight erpon her breast,I see her black cloud full uv rutsEr shamin’ off its best,I see her pinched an’ wrinkled faceEr quizzing uv th’ crew,An’ this ter-nigh is ole Mart Place,
That once wuz Marthay True.I see her lookin’ down th’ deckTer git some welcome nod,Or still perchance th’ courage beckTer put her feet erboard.I know her arms are tired outEr holdin’ uv th’ string,Fer ev’ry one is knitted stoughtTer pace th’ haddickin’. Oh, Marthay True uv long ergo,Could you have looked ter seeYer rosy cheeks an’ eyes erglow Come cryin’ back ter thee,Could you have looked ter see each braid Thin twisted stran’s uv snow,I know yer would ter God have prayed Fer ankrige long ergo.Oh, Marthay True that bird-like sang,An’ twined th’ red rose high,An bade my boyhood’s heart ter hang Er love-light in thine eye,Could you have known th’ years would flingYer, stranded wreck uv Time, Ter sell with ev’ry knitted ringEr dead heart’s silent chime,Er Nipper woman in th’ cold,Unnoticed an’ forlorn,Mid fisher faces sad an’ bold, With hearts bruised like yer own,I know yer would ter God have prayedFer ankrige long ere this,Than rather been by Fate errayed Er thing fer chance ter kiss.O, Marthay True, we laugh an’ woo, An’ twine th’ red rose high,
An prate, an’ tell what we will do, With laughter in our eye;But way down in our hearts we know Time’s but er fickle thing,An’ ere life’s winds begin ter blow Come grief an’ sufferein’.Oh, Marthay True, we laugh an’ woo,An’ twine th’ red rose high,An prate, an’ tell what we will do,With laughter in our eye;But soon, too soon, our castles fall,Our gay ships drink th’ sea,An’ what should been joy’s merry callJest tears fer memory.Oh, Marthay True, God wot that thouMeet luck with all th’ fleet,An if er kind word will endowI’ll speak it quick an’ neat.I know er fisher’s tender spotIs ankered in his heart,Fer once with Christ they threw th’ lot,An’ hauled er goodly part.Oh, Marthay True, yer tale is told.Th’ hearts are tried an’ staunch,An, they have trawled er sum uv goldTer speed yer in joy’s launch.God wot that thou mayst happy be.Jest keep yer sad heart bright,An’ He will steer yer down Life’s seaTer find Hope’s port erlight.
Nipper woman: one of a class of women who knit
and sell to the crews of the fleet the woolen
nippers worn to prevent chafing of the fishing lines.
It is an industry pursued in the winter
and sold to the firms and the crews in the
early spring, at the fitting out or in the fall
at the “shifting of voyages.”
Nippers: when the trawl gets caught,
--“hung up,” in fishing vernacular,
--mittens are removed and the trawls
are hauled in with a pair of nippers,
bracelets of knitted wool or
cloth held in the palm of the hand,
creased to allow of a better hold of the line.
------Clarence Manning Falt, Wharf and Fleet, 1902 Th’ Nipper woman, p. 37-38
Woolen nippers from Gloucester on view at the Smithsonian were exhibited in the 1883 International Fisheries Exhibition in London. I think of Falt’s poem, Th’ Nipper Woman, above, when I see this display, and find it all the more poignant now picturing the women & men working the dock and sea and seasons at port. Intimate and full. Gentle and rough.
photo caption: Nippers. ca. 1880s. US Fish Commission. National Museum of American History, Smithsonian, Washington, DC
GAFFIN’ FISH
GAFFIN' FISHW’EN th’ tide is out er flirtin’,An’ fergits ter shut its door,An’ th’ happy clams are squirtin,Playin’ injine with the shore, An th’ kids are ripe fer junkin’,An’ fer skippin’ rocks an’ shells,An fer woodin’ an’ fer punkin’Bobbin’ bottles in th’ swells,An’ yer hear th’ rats er squalin’Frum th’ black cracks in th’ walls,An’ yer quiz th’ tomcats stealin’ Nearer, nearer ter th’ calls, An’ yer mark some ole trap histid,Like er giddy thing on cogs,With its body kind uv listidT’ward th’ black spiles an th’ logs,All togged up in robes uv coal tar,Yaller oaker, sash’s an’ bo’s,P’r’aps er crimson-pintid five-starSunburs’in’ its puggy nose,Like some poor, ole primay donnay Thet has wobbled all her say,Now shoved further ter th’ corner W’ile th’ daybute works her lay,P’r’aps er ole T.D. er puffin’ Frum er drollin’ mouth er stern, Use ter bluffin’, use ter cussin’, Use ter words I know yer’v hern,Then yer know time’s ripe fer gaffin’An’ fer puntin’ roun’ th’ docks,Fer it’s then th’ crews git chaffin’An’ er rattlin’ th’ pitchforks,Fer it’s then th’ strays go slippin’Frum th’ ole caps with er thud,An’ th’ guick gaffs raise ‘em drippin’Ter th’ sly punts frum th’ mud.Oh, it’s art ter watch th’ sneakin’Uv th’ puntin’ through th’ spiles,Oh, it’s art ter watch th’ peekin’Uv th’ gaffers an’ th’ wiles,Fer it’s thievin’ pure an simpleAn’ it’s skittish work at bes’,Though th’ cheek may wear th’ dimple,An th’ eye stan’ heaven’s tes’.Oh, it’s risky work er gaffin’, Full uv duckin’s, fights, an’ jaws,Full uv skuddin’, full uv chaffin’,Full uv haul-ups, full uv laws.Fer if caught, as sure as Moses,Yer’ll be chucked deep in th’ dump,W’ile th’ smells uv sweet June roses Won’t c’logne up th’ homeward slump.
When the trips are being taken out,
often many fish slip from the pitchforks
and sink to the docks. A class of young
men and boys then row around in little boats,
called punts, and gaff up the fish beneath
the wharves and sell them. It is an illegal
business, and if caught, they are subjected
to a fine and imprisonment.
It is operated at low tide.
“Ole trap histid”: the old-fashioned shore
boats that haul up on the dock flats for repairs.
"Pintid five-star”: an old-fashioned emblem
For decorating ends of bowsprits.
------Clarence Manning Falt, Wharf and Fleet: ballads of the Gloucester Fishermen, 1902
Gaffin’ Fish, p.39-41
For me, this one is a compelling balance: he carries water for the skippers and (less) for the gray market hustlers. It’s messy. His dad’s guiding hand on this one. Scroll back up and look at the “Th’ spider an’ th’ fly” photograph, the pilings and surface of the water. The images and words flow and force, back and forth. The pairings aren’t so cut and dry.
Cpt. Walter M. Falt (b. Canada April 18, 1823- d. Glouc. 1904) emigrated in 1845; fish dealer aka fish merchant 1870 census; skipper; master fisherman 1880 census; day laborer 1900 census misspelled as “Fault”, Cpt and Master Sea Foam 1878
Mother
Mary Carlisle Robinson (b. Glouc. 1826 – d. Glouc. 1893) parents married Nov. 30, 1847 “keeping house”
Resided family home
172 East Main Street, he and his siblings with their parents Edward Hopper drawing of this house in the collection of the Minneapolis Art Inst.
Day job
clerk for downtown businesses (drugstores on Main)
University
studied oration and acting
Occupation
“clerk” and “apothecary clerk” on earlier census “author” on 1900 census
6 siblings
dates on family headstone Marion, (1849 -1931) 1848? Walter P. (1851-1877) laborer 1870 census Julia Procter (1852-1924) Clarence M. (1861-1912) author 1900 census Austin C. (1866-1915) stevedore 1900 census Roland H. (1868-1870) Mary Taylor (1876-1917) 1874?
Published works
1894- Points of Interest: Gloucester in Song 1902- Wharf and Fleet: ballads of the Fishermen of Gloucester
Died
1912
Grave
family plot, Mt. Pleasant Cemetery
Under a Banner of Many Nations
Note from the author: Over the past week, I’ve shared Boston Globe Gloucester stories about immigrants: Swedish, Canadian, Italian, Sicilian, Portuguese , Irish, Scotch and so on. I thought of Falt’s books with each post.
Nations jump from the page when scanning vital stats documents, too- like this one from Gloucester birth registry 1868 – scroll over to the right through Occupation / place of Birth of Father/ place of Birth of Mother.
(To get the full experience, go big! The wordpress format reduces the size, however all photos in this post can be clicked, double clicked through, or pinch & zoomed to enlarge)
Captain Thomas Bohlin #3 “king pin among the halibut fishermen” (born in Sweden)
Captain Charles Harty tie for #2 mackerel “as a seiner his reputation has been made.”
Captain Solomon Jacobs #1 OG “widest known fisherman this country has ever produced…having started out as record beater, has had to live up to his reputation and has succeeded…” codfishery then mackerel seining – global expansion, lost everything & came back again “at the foot of the ladder. His old time luck had not forsaken him…” (born in England, brought to Newfoundland when a baby)
Captain Alex McEachern #7 high lines, particularly Grand bank codfisheries beat all records in 1897 (born Cape Breton)
Captain John W. McFarland tied for #2 “the only one to make two newfoundland herring trips, and marketed them in New York, on one season” (born in Maine)
Captain Andrew McKenzie #8 Iceland halibut and Newfoundland herring (born in PEI)
Captain Lemuel F. Spinney #5 “high line halibut catcher who is in the first flight of the “killers.” (born in Yarmouth, N.S.)
Captain Charles Young #6 halibut fleet -1895 record for most trips in one year (born in Copenhagen)
Captain Richard Wadding #4 halibut (born in England)
A June Morning – arch yes to my ear, and interesting catalogue of flora and fauna then
The 1918 Pandemic is widely known under the misnomer “Spanish Influenza”. Experts continue to analyze and study the origin and timing of this highly contagious, lethal and mysterious scourge. Most agree it wasn’t Spain nor limited to 1918, but rather spread in successive waves from early cases late in 1917 through recurrent epidemic in 1920. The month of October 1918 was the deadliest.
The disease is also known as the “forgotten pandemic” because it was eclipsed in real-time and in the history books by the Great War. To attempt to capture the magnitude of the loss, nutshell summaries repeat how tens of millions were killed by flu, more than by battle in World War I (WWI). Since the prevailing contenders for the original hot-zones for the disease were in or nearby military installations, perhaps there’s a case to be made for tallying civilian flu deaths together with any WWI datasets for a full impact of the casualties of WWI.
To this day, the precise number of cases of infection (morbidity) and deaths (mortality) caused by the 1918 Flu Pandemic are confounding and wildly disparate. A vast gulf of divergent research estimates from 17.4 million to as many as 100 million people1 died worldwide from this horrific epidemic; more than 700,000 died in the United States; and more than 260,0002 died in Spain.
When the Influenza of 1918 raged in Gloucester, Massachusetts, the death toll surged to 183* during six weeks in September and October.3
There was a perfect storm of transmissibility.
Until there wasn’t.
Gloucester ran a tight-ship.
*183 reflects the minimum deaths peak pandemic and published as of Oct. 26, 1918. A final tally would take into account pre and post pandemic.
Author note March 2020: Readers can search for surname, property, and addresses within the post to skip around for any relevant family info. Double click or pinch & zoom pictures to enlarge. The sources and inspiration (listed at the end) for this article were gathered from multiple books, journals, newspapers, rare old maps, local histories, photographs, background knowledge and family history. I confess to a certain deliberate favoritism & primary sources related to the arts. I am grateful for the great archives and open content. Voices from the past may interest descendants, and give us perspective and hope during Covid-19. With so many worthy of honor, especially those who sacrificed to keep Gloucester safe, and those who suffered and died, I thought it valuable to make Gloucester’s part in this history accessible to all. So I curated a resource and visual gallery to put Gloucester’s 1918 Pandemic history on line. The Gloucester Daily Times daily chronicle which I transcribed intentionally are exhaustive & inspiring, and no part since 1918 had been previously published, or its full pages and article reproductions searchable on line. Other newspapers are fully accessible including big (New York Times) and small (Manchester Cricket).
chapter 1 BEFORE LABOR DAY 1918
Crests of various flu waves circulated the globe during World War 1. Killer flu strains in France and England in 19174were portents of the pandemic to come. So too were milder variants that conversely spread like wildfire, through Allied forces and civilian populations, here and abroad. Since the former advents were isolated and the latter were mild– and all studied in depth– the documentation did not attract medical concern or public notice. Because of its rapid recovery and light side effects, the milder form was known as “three day fever” and “five day plague” when it reached Shanghai May 1918 and “swept over the country like a tidal wave”5. Contemporaneous reports are all over the global map: Camp Funston, Kansas, in February 19186; New York City Feb-April7; Camp Sevier South Carolina, China, and the Japanese navy in March; the Ford auto plant early April; Chaumont & Baccarat in May; the Royal Navy in France that spring and “Flanders fever” in the German trenches; Shanghai May-June; and more military establishments that spring and summer. Others pitched “German influenza,” insisting the disease originated in the German trenches before touring the world, crediting the French for coining the eponymous title after noting its severity in Spain.
Images of global spread – multiple sources 8
Setting aside conflicting prepandemic timelines and propaganda, consensus builds around what happens next.
In August 1918, naval and army establishments in Massachusetts sent the flu on a trajectory across the country.
WWI – SANITATION IN THE MILITARY
Forget hand washing and physical distancing: Challenging hygiene conditions are breeding grounds for lethal diseases for any nation at war. Clean water a luxury.
For a generation before WWI, infectious diseases like cholera, plague, dysentery, TB, smallpox, measles, and the flu were the dire norm. At the time and perhaps still, the Russian flu (1889-1892+) was considered the deadly disease bellwether, more disastrous than the 1918 Pandemic, lasting years past-pandemic and imparting after affect blows most severe. Accordingly, great steps were taken to minimize danger in order to preserve the health of the troops.
National WWI Museum and Memorial 9
Sometimes WWI field sanitation included serviceable latrines, portable tubs, and cleaning stations like the one in the American Red Cross (ARC) photo op.10
Troops were rotated back and forth to divisional bath houses for rest and relief from the line; and before re-entry back in the United States.
Library of Congress 11
Mobile bath disinfecting equipment, laundry machines, irons and delousing rinses were brought to the troops in the field or camps, and bases at home. Sterilizing wagons were deployed in New York to assist public health efforts to vanquish the flu.
The barbershop station was the last stop before returning to the U.S.
cleanliness is next to battlefields- block of images from multiple repositories12
Preventative measures weren’t enough. Virulent diseases are formidable foes.
FIERCE CONTAGION & FAST DEATHS
BOSTON NAVY YARDS
Densely populated bases and transports weren’t ideal sanitary environments. The Navy yards in Boston and vicinity were among America’s busiest for transportation of troops and supplies during World War I.
At the time of this aerial photograph circa 1906, the Navy Yards were called the Charlestown Navy Yard.
Boston Navy Yard a decade later:
Vintage WWI embarkation and return photographs give a better idea of the scale of the operation of war: vessels are teeming with enlisted men squeezed shoulder to shoulder, potential carriers.
Library of Congress 14
Library of Congress 15
In August of 1918, Navy sailors shoreside were hospitalized in Boston with a flu so contagious that dozens at a time were admitted, and 1200 died by early October. The following brief account about the Boston outbreak was written in 1920 by Warren T. Vaughan, Preventative Medicine and Hygiene Department of the Harvard Medical School. His book, Influenza: An Epidemiological Study, was published by the American Journal of Hygiene in 1921. This Pandemic 1918 essential read includes Vaughan’s research investigating an outbreak at Camp Sevier in South Carolina, and a massive civilian census–thanks to a grant from Met Life– in Boston following the 1919 wave. (Vaughan was a physician at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital when he was drafted May 29, 1917; he advanced to lieutenant colonel.)
“Autumn Spread in the United States 1918
By the first of July, 1918, convalescent cases of influenza began to appear among members of the crews of transports and other vessels arriving in Boston from European parts. The number of such cases on each ship was usually not more than four or five, but Woodward records that in one or two instances between twenty and twenty-five individuals were sick on incoming vessels. None of these were seriously ill, none were sent to the hospital, and none died. The disease in this class of persons did not become severe until late August. Woodward has found on inquiry among practicing physicians that typical cases of influenza were seen with notable frequency in private practice in the vicinity of Boston during the month of August, and that they had developed no serious complications, the only after effect being the marked prostration. These mild preliminary cases failed to attract attention; first, because of their relative scarcity, and second because of their benign character. Public attention was first directed to the influenza in Boston by the apparently sudden appearance during the week ending August 28th of about fifty cases at the Naval station at Commonwealth Pier. Within the next two weeks over 2000 cases had occurred in the Naval forces of the First Naval district. One week later there was a similar sudden outbreak in the Aviation School and among the Naval Radio men at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The first death in Boston was reported on September 8th. The peak of daily incidence in Boston occurred around the first of October. In the week ending October 5th a total of 1,214 deaths from influenza and pneumonia was reported, while by the third week of October this total had fallen to less than 600, and for the week ending November 9th was down to 47…On or about December 1st the incidence again rose and continued increasing daily, to reach its peak in a severe recrudescence around December 31…”, and “A sudden and very significant increase was reported during the third week in August in the number of cases of pneumonia occurring in the army cantonment at Camp Devens, seeming to justify the statement that an influenza epidemic may have started among the soldiers there even before it appeared in the naval force…”16
Warren T. Vaughan
Sea of men (LOC) the author’s grandfather served on this ship; medical staff, Commonwealth pier (LOC); Naval training camp, MS (Naval Mus.) 17
FIERCE CONTAGION & FAST DEATHS
fort devens
Besides the naval bases in Boston, Fort Devens in Ayer, Massachusetts, was another military epicenter with fierce contagion and fast deaths; an estimated 15,000 men were infected by the flu and more than 800 died. Fort Devens was one of the country’s largest WW1 military bases, serving tens of thousands of soldiers in transition. According to the War Department research in 1926, “Accommodations were provided for only 36,000 men, but this figure often was exceeded, more especially in August and September 1918 when the strength was approximately 45,000 and 48,000 respectively.” Fort Devens housed the prisoners of war, also.
The base looks nearly a metropolis in vintage photographs. A selection of interior (clean!) and exterior shots were taken before the storm of flu. 18
‘Barracks at Camp Devens, Boys on Hillside Writing Letters, Ayer, Mass.’ the Keystone View Company stereograph card, includes a write up about the barracks verso:
Barracks at Camp Devens, Ayer, Mass. Camp Devens, near Ayer, Massachusetts, was one of those national army camps that had a miraculous and mushroom growth during the summer of 1917, when everything had to be done with a rush to train our boys for the great combat overseas. In ten weeks time, 5000 men, on a weekly payroll of $100,000, built 1,400 buildings, laid 20 miles of road, 400 miles of electric wiring, 60 miles of heating pipes, and installed 2200 shower baths. All of this work was accomplished in time for the cantonement [sic] to receive 40,000 men early in September, 1917, when the first selective draft men were impressed into service, a service which the patriotism of most led them to embrace willingly and without a murmur. The camp was a veritable city, and a well built one for its purposes. It had a post office, telegraph and telephone service, police station, guard house, fire department and hospital, all directed and manned by service men. The auditorium seated 3000 men, and the base hospital treated at times as many as 800 men in a single day. Bare and uninviting as the camp was to men accustomed to the comforts, and in many instances the luxuries of home, it provided an unusual degree of comfort to men in training for military service. The laundries and central power plant with its great furnaces are installed in the buildings with high chimneys which we see in the distance. The soldiers in the foreground were using a leisure hour to write home, for in the intervals of training it was to home that their thought turned, and at home parents and sweethearts always eagerly awaited letters.
As with the navy images, photographs of separate divisions illustrate the density at these camps and impossibility of social distancing in some environments.
Library of Congress19
Portraits of divisions as thick as forests help to illustrate the shattering descriptions expressed by front line responders confronting so many felled by flu. Camp physician, Roy Grist, related “boys laid out in long rows, ” 20 and Dr. Victor C. Vaughan recounted bodies “stacked like cord wood” in his autobiography published in 1926.
“…In the memory chambers of my brain there hang many pictures. Some are the joy of my life, too sacred and too personal to describe to any save my most intimate friends. But there are also ghastly ones which I would tear down and destroy were I able to do so, but this is beyond my power…While I am engaged in describing the horrors of my memory picture gallery I might as well say something of the others, and then I will promise never to touch this gruesome subject again…The fourth canvas is quite as large as the others. I see hundreds of young, stalwart men in the uniform of their country coming into the wards of the hospital in groups of ten or more. They are placed on the cots until every bed is full and yet others crowd in. The faces soon wear a bluish cast; a distressing cough brings up the blood stained sputum. In the morning the dead bodies are stacked about the morgue like cord wood. This picture was painted on my memory cells at the division hospital, Camp Devens, 1918, when the deadly influenza demonstrated the inferiority of human inventions in the destruction of human life.” 21
Victor C. Vaughan
Library of Congress panoramas 22
As Dean of the University of Michigan School of Medicine and director of the Surgeon General’s Office of Communicable Disease, Vaughan was sent to Camp Devens as part of the federal government’s elite assessment team. Carol R. Byerly who wrote a book about the pandemic in 2005, The Fever of War, added in a 2010 journal article how, “Camp Devens physicians performing autopsies described influenza pathology as unique, characterized by “the intense congestion and hemorrhage” of the lungs. But as Vaughan and [John Hopkins pathologist William Henry] Welch investigated Camp Devens, the virus kept moving. Before any travel ban could be imposed, a contingent of replacement troops departed Devens for Camp Upton, Long Island, the Army’s debarkation point for France, and took influenza with them.”23 It’s no wonder Vaughan didn’t dwell on this savage disease.
Another Vaughan, Dr. Warren T. Vaughan– who wrote in 1920 about the Boston outbreak in the Navy mentioned above– was “one of a board of officers appointed to investigate” a milder advent that “had broken out among troops stationed” in the army base at Camp Sevier, South Carolina. He explained how difficult pandemics were to predict.
“Sudden onset regimental infirmary…careful bacteriologic examination was made at that time and predominating organisms were found to be a gram negative coccus resembling micrococcus catarrhalis, and a non-hemolytic streptococcus. They were uncomplicated cases..at the time none of us dreamed of any possible connection with a severe epidemic to occur later (at that wave bacilli weren’t present)…”
( Nat. Mus. Health & Medical Museum)(Nat. Mus. Health & Med.) tissue sample(Nat. Mus. Health & Med.)(Nat. Mus. Health & Med.) 1918(Frost)US spread US Census
Block of medical images, various collections 24
W.T. Vaughan felt not a single community in which there were reported cases reached tallying anywhere near the total of actual cases. And so he rolled up his sleeves. “Toward the end of January 1920 when recurrent epidemic as at its height in Boston,” Vaughn writes, “The author undertook with the aid of 13 trained social service workers and one physician graduate from the Harvard school of public health to make sickness census of 10,000 individuals,” in person, in six districts.
His statements from 1920 echo in today’s news:
On determining first cases of infection
“There is evidence –the collection of which has not been completed– pointing to the existence of cases of the disease in various centers, probably widely distributed, weeks before they were definitely recognized as influenza…”25– Warren T. Vaughan, 1920
On healthy carriers
“Yes it does exist.”26 – Warren T. Vaughan, 1920
On crowd gatherings
“Yet another phenomenon which would lead us to conclude that human intercourse is the most potent factor in the transmission of influenza is the fact that there is frequently a high increase in the influenza rate following crowd gatherings. Parkes observed long ago that person in overcrowded habitations, particularly in some epidemic, suffered especially, and several instances are on record of a large school or barracks being first attacked and the disease prevailing there for some days, before it became prevalent in the towns around…In discussing the recrudescence of influenza in Boston in November and December, Woodward remarks as follows: “Whether or not it may be more than a succession of coincidences it is certainly of interest to note that the November outbreak of influenza showed itself three days after the Peace Day celebration on November 12th, when the streets, eating places and public conveyances were jammed with crowds; that the December epidemic began to manifest itself after the Thanksgiving holiday…and that reported cases mounted rapidly during the period of Christmas shopping…” 27 – Warren T. Vaughan, 1920
By way of summary
Looking for signposts | on the manner of the flu’s spread
Vaughan looked to the past as he researched the present:
He quoted 1847 influenza research by Thomas Watson that resonates poignantly:
“…although the general descent of the malady is, as I have said, very sudden and diffused, scattered cases of it, like the first droppings of a thunder shower, have usually been remembered as having preceded it.”Thomas Watson on Influenza, 1847 29
Local enlisted lads wrote about the infamous flu in letters home to Gloucester, Mass., and other Cape Ann towns before Labor Day, although they weren’t read or published until after the disease exploded in Gloucester. Private John J. Smith wrote his mother, Mrs. Charles W. Smith of 5 Center Court, a long letter dated September 1, 1918. At one point he puts it plainly: “I feel better over here than I did in Camp Devens and sure have got that same good old appetite…”30 The letter appeared in the Gloucester Daily Times on the last day of September, included as part of the series, “Our Boys Write Bright Letters Home.”
Lt. J. Irving Baker from Manchester-by-the-sea wrote his mother, “Somewhere from France, July 23, 1918.” about how he was, “getting along fine now, you can tell by this paper. I went down the street myself and bought it. I have been moved into another building where I have a room with another officer. It is fine. From the window I can see hills and trees. It is a summer resort in the foothills of the Alps. There is a mineral spring here in which I hope to have a bath before I leave.” He broke off before mailing, and added an update July 31 from an Army base hospital in Allery, France, where he was sent to convalesce.
“We just arrived at the convalescent camp and are pretty tired, did not get much chance to sleep on the train. This is a small place called Allery [sic] about 180 miles northeast of Flermont. It looks a good deal like an army cantonment with wooden barracks, partitioned into rooms, tow in a room. The town is only a station, cafe and a few houses…You know I lost nearly all my things when I came to the hospital, I am managing to get a kit together after a fashion. …They raise many geese in this section of France…Aug. 5. I am feeling fine now, only short of breath when I go up stairs or exert myself–as I’m pretty tired just now.”
The letter was published in the Manchester Cricket on September 21, 1918 within a column devoted to “Letters From Our Boys at the Front”.
Allery [sic] photo, WWI Centennial Commission31
Another soldier from Manchester, Private Wade Revere Brooks, joined the Marines. In a detailed letter from South Carolina, he described multiple quarantines at basic training camp(s) that began for him immediately upon arrival, back in June 1918, and with each new skills rotation until deployment. His undated letter was featured in the Manchester Cricket on October 26, 1918, long after the crest of the pandemic. From the contents it seems to have been written in September. He signs off:
“…After coming off the range we were held for the influenza quarantine, and we are now awaiting for shipment to Virginia where we get our overseas training, which consists of gas attack drills, hand grenade throwing and more trench work. I hope we will move soon. There are six thousand trained troops waiting for the quarantine for Flu to be lifted. Well I have told you as much as I can think of just now, so I will close hoping this will interest you some. I am sincerely yours, Pvt. Wade Revere Brooks, Company 332, Battalion O, United States Marine Corps, Paris Island, South Carolina. 32
Acting Mess Sergeant Frank A. McDonald sent a postcard from the hospital at Camp Jackson, Columbia, South Carolina, conveyed in the Gloucester Daily Times October 22, 1918 , “Many Local Boys Had the Influenza”:
“He is in the base hospital recovering from a three weeks’ serious illness of influenza. He states that Herman Amero* (illegible) is recovering after four weeks siege of pneumonia, Herbert Joyce and Robert Smith, Gloucester boys at the same camp, are also on the mending hand. The other Gloucester boys are all well, he [Frank A. McDonald] says.”
Social distancing is absent in the post office at Camp Jackson when this photograph was taken that September. Camp Jackson utilized tents for its flu management.
(Nat. Mus. of Health & Med., 1918) Camp Jackson, SC33
War news produced by the military stressed the strength in numbers of America’s fighting forces as with this 1917 photograph “Embarked for France”.
National Archives
or this ‘We won’t stop coming till it’s over Over There’ image published on the front page of the Tribune Graphic September 8, 1918.
“This photograph, taken aboard one of the first American transports sailing for France has just been released by the censor. At the time Germany was still loudly boasting that we couldn’t get an army over there in time to make any difference. To-day she is singing another tune.”
Library of Congress 34
Besides arriving sick, more than 12,000 enlisted died from the flu pandemic on the troop transports heading to France before they landed.35 Men in the September 1918 photograph could very well have been among the afflicted.
When the flu was mentioned in Stars and Stripes, the newspaper written by American servicemen for soldiers, it was late news and downplayed. This article, “Hot Coffee Checks Flu at St. Nazaire: Colonel, Cooks, and K.P’s Steam Germs Out of Newcomers”, published December 13, 1918, claimed that coffee, climate and command vanquished the deadly epidemic.
“It was hot coffee—thousands of gallons of it –that ended the deadly influenza epidemic in the dark autumn days when that disease was working ravages among American troops en route to France.”
If the extent of flu deaths within the military that spring and summer were understood, the government’s fall conscription push for 15 million registrations may have been impossible. Who among us would knowingly support a draft for our sons and fathers, our brothers and friends, with such a lethal disease out of control at training camps and ships bound for France?
The records do appear to indicate that federal guidelines were mostly held back until after the September 12th national draft registration day (and the preceding parades and rallies that encouraged registration). By that date, officials including public health and infectious disease experts within the military knew key facts: that the death rate was higher in barracks and cantonments than tent camps; that quarantines were necessary at training camps; that geography was more important than cramped quarters; that healthy carriers exist; and that nurses and non commissioned suffered more than officers and privates. Gloucester would welcome and benefit from this military expertise.
Enlisted men who succumbed during training or transport, died from pneumonia or flu “in the line of duty. ”37 Still, death in battle was mourned more openly than death by disease, tamping down stories and comparisons about the flu. Efforts to reduce transmission at a time of heightened engagement in WW1 — whether communication was instantaneous (telegraph) or not; word of mouth or not; censored or not– were next to impossible by Labor Day.
The flu’s arrival in Gloucester was more or less timed with Boston’s.
LABOR DAY WEEKEND 1918
World War I guaranteed that the end of summer of 1918 wasn’t carefree and innocent. Dramatic photographs about World War 1 were published nationally. This photograph, a “remarkable view of a battle scene on the Marne in which lines of French infantrymen are crawling forward into action behind a French tank”, was printed on the cover of a photogravure insert of the Sunday New York Times.38
This collage layout39 conveyed the sheer scale of the Labor Day parade in New York City, and support for our nation at war.
LABOR DAY 1918 IN GLOUCESTER, MA.
The traditional Labor Day weekend in Gloucester, Massachusetts, was a big one with residents and visitors traveling to-and-fro thanks to its long established destination reputation. Families hosted guests from in state and out of state. Pleasure boats and fishing boats set out and returned. Art fans were encouraged to Rocky Neck studios and the Gallery on the Moors exhibition before their summer season exhibitions closed.
Despite a one-day traffic study banning cars that Sunday, to compel gas rationing, Stage Fort Park was packed:
“A large crowd participated in the picnic at Stage Fort Park yesterday, under the auspices of the Wainola Temperance Society and Waino Band. Two fine concerts were given by the band under the direction of Charles A. Glover. There were several tents for the sale of ice cream, tonic and lunches. Two baseball games attracted a large throng in the morning and afternoon…”40
On the pages of the Gloucester Daily Times and Cape Ann Advertiser and the Manchester Cricket, two local newspapers established in 1888, cultural events, casualty lists, and letters from enlisted men were published –unavoidably and disconcertingly –on the same page at times. Public notices and benefits in support of the war were broadcast over the long weekend, like this striking appeal for fruit stones for gas masks:
“Every peach stone counts: Patriotic barrel at board of trade will receive your contribution“The Board of trade peach stone campaign is meeting with wonderful success and the patriotic sugar barrel which has been placed in front of the rooms of Main street is rapidly being filled with the precious stones. Not only save the peach stones, but plum stones, olive pits, nutshells of all kinds except peanuts because they all make the best charcoal for making the gas masks our soldiers in France wear…One hundred peach stones makes enough charcoal for one mask and peaches are right in the height of their season. Get busy now and bring them…”41
peach pit photos 1918-1919 Boston, NYC, SF [National Archives]
The Gloucester Daily Times (GDT) regularly published submissions from the community on one or two inside pages, too. The individual joys & sorrows, boasts, and whereabouts were sorted by town and neighborhood with subheadings Rockport, Pigeon Cove, and Manchester; and in Gloucester, West Gloucester, Riverdale, Annisquam, Lanesville, Magnolia, and East Gloucester. The columns are chatty and informal, a bit Facebook meets Page Six depending upon the neighborhood.
Downtown, or specifically the Fort and Portuguese Hill, did not have a section.
Because the general public was not informed about the severity of flu deaths in the military that spring and summer, and even the experts missed possible tell tale signs, the busy destination season continued into September, as did the dreadful war.
The comings and goings over Labor Day were detailed within a September 3rd East Gloucester column. Residents hosting summer guests, including young men on furlough, were quite possibly literal harbingers of doom or vectors. Visitors on Mt. Pleasant returned to Worcester and Watertown, and back to Somerville from Chapel Street.
“…Joseph Ehler of the U.S. navy transport service is spending a brief furlough with his parents, Mr. and Mrs. James Ehler of Mt. Pleasant Avenue. Walter Peterson of Camp Devens, Ayer, spent the holiday weekend on 8 Davis Street with his mother, Nina. Mrs. Charles E. Locke and family returned to Worcester from Mt. Pleasant. Miss Suzanne Parsons of Mt. Pleasant back from a visit in the South to resume duties at Watertown High School…Mr. and Mrs. Fred Benson and little daughter Elizabeth of Somerville were the weekend and holiday guests of Mrs. Benson’s parents, Lewis Rowe on Chapel Street.“42
The East Gloucester column published on September 4th reveals a few more threads of what’s to come. East Gloucester would be hit particularly bad.
“…Walter Fenn, the artist, is improving gradually from his illness and at present he is at Rocky Neck.” (At the Chapel Street church school) “a full attendance is requested as business of importance is to come up for consideration and plans for the year made…There remains one more day to view the exhibition of paintings and sculpture at the Gallery-on-the-Moors…Members of the Chapel Street Baptist Sunday School will gather (for the end) of the summer season…” 43
The first day of school commenced Wednesday, September 4, 1918. Headlines from the paper pronounced a hopeful beginning, “Teachers and Pupils Enter on Work of the Year with Vigor”. That evening the city hosted a huge public event, “Community Sing at City Hall”.
“Community Sing Filled City Hall: Voices Raised High in Patriotic Song The Community Sing at City hall…combined with the addresses by Dr. M. M. Graham, district service manager of the United States Shipping Board and Corporal Fran A.H. Street, a returned soldier who was twice wounded and later gassed while serving with the Canadian forces, attracted an audience which filled City Hall. Patriotic music was sung, opening with the “Star Spangled Banner,” following which a proclamation was read by President Antoine Silva of the municipal council, representing the city, after which the vast audience joined in singing “Speed Our Republic”…Among those on the platform was Private Joseph Merchant, who has recently returned from “over there” on a furlough after being wounded. The meeting closed with the singing of “America.”44
This special event revved up attention for the draft registration two weeks away. Under the Selective Service Act, all men ages 18 through 45 would be required to register on September 12, 1918, the third and final registration for WWI. 45Local volunteer committees handled registration for this mandatory conscription and dispensed draft cards and exemption rulings. Booster efforts like the Community Sing in Gloucester were successful. About 13% of Gloucester’s total population would show up at the polls to register.46
Two days later, the first article about a lethal flu in Massachusetts was published in the Gloucester Daily Times on September 6, 1918 with the state surgeon general’s warning. There was no mention of the disease striking Fort Devens, or any other camp or military branch. The spread of the virulent flu was aptly described as a “pandemic”. Though small and buried on the inside pages of the GDT, it was printed– ahead of other papers—, “Lookout Now, Old Mr. Grip is Around”. 47
Old Mr. Grip was already here.
PATIENT “ONES” – FIRST PUBLISHED MENTION OF A GLOUCESTER FLU DEATH
The funeral announcement for young mother Mrs. Margaret E. Miller of Bass Avenue (see maps)48 who died September 9th, 1918, “after an illness of only a week”, was one of the first published flu deaths in Gloucester, Massachusetts. Miller’s funeral was held at home, which was common, at her in-laws on Traverse Street in East Gloucester. She left behind a husband and their three month old daughter. The first civilian flu death reported in Boston was just one day earlier. Quincy came 6 days later. Worcester ten.
As the first major American offensives in France were underway, the Massachusetts battle of the flu turned into a public health crisis.
On September 11, 1918 hundreds of cases of flu in the general public were reported in Boston and dozens in Quincy. The previous day, visitors from Everett and Quincy (where the flu flared early as well) were visiting East Gloucester; the church event advertised earlier in the week assembled a crowd of 140 people; and another resident on Rocky Neck was sick, Letter Carrier Sherman T. Walen. 49
Were the Gloucester residents among the carriers or those exposed to the virus?
“Mrs. John Brainerd Wilson has been entertaining her sister, Miss Hildreth of Everett, who is supervisor in the public schools of that city. Mrs. Fred Pierson and Mr. and Mrs. Winthrop C. Sherman and child, all of Quincy, are spending a week at 62 Mt. Pleasant avenue. Letter Carrier Sherman T. Walen is indisposed at his home on Rocky Neck…The Ladies’ Society of the Chapel Street Church will hold a basket picnic in West Gloucester tomorrow…The Chapel Street Baptist church school gathered on Sunday noon, for the first time after the summer adjournment…There were 140 members of the school present…”50
The School Committee convened, voting to uphold the marriage bar for female teachers, unless the husband was deployed. Duncan Wright of Annisquam was brought to Court by the Board of Health for “collecting swill without permit”. Sometime that week the Schooners Natalie Hammond and Athlete left Gloucester Harbor. And on the front page of the paper September 11, 1918 a reminder about Registration at all the voting places was the headline:
“All Flags to Fly and Bands to Play tomorrow– From 7 o’clock tomorrow morning until 8 o’clock tomorrow evening the voting places in this city and Rockport will be open for the enrollment of those coming within the new draft every man between the ages of 18 to 45 years both inclusive not already registered must register tomorrow for the Selective Service Draft.”51
“Tomorrow our streets will be thronged with men,” the Governor’s proclamation urging liquor stores to close began, “The day should be devoted entirely to such activities as will best expedited the enrollment of such a large number of men as are required by the National Government to enroll for military service.” Gloucester encouraged a corps of volunteers, registrars and interpreters for those unable to speak English.
Though undoubtedly effective in generating support for the war and community, the local notices, meetings and events predate the coming calamity. With hindsight they make for a wincing read. Unlike the general population in those days, contemporary readers know how each of these gatherings, little or small, ordinary or special, might spread the deadly contagion and end.
Badly.
Burn the peach stone barrel!
Avoid committee meetings!
Steer clear of the crowds—especially singing ones!
Stay home!
DRAFT REGISTRATION DAY & FIRST PUBLISHED STORY OF A GLOUCESTER FLU OUTBREAK
10 Days after Labor Day weekend . 5 Days after the Community Sing rally.
There was a massive turnout on draft day, September 12, 1918. “Cape Ann Awake to Registration: Over 1500 Had Respond to Country’s Call Before 11’ O’clock This Forenoon” was the headline, and after all the registrants were counted,
“The Total registration in the entire country is expected to pass the estimated 13,000,000 mark. Massachusetts has contributed 472,000, it is estimated and Boston has listed 102,867. Total registrations here yesterday were 3024 including 321 at Rockport and Pigeon Cove and 145 received by mail. Today 14 more have come in, making the grand total 3038…”52
Enlisted immigrants comprised nearly 20% of the US Army during WW1. The draft in Gloucester indicates a comparable percentage of declared and non-declared registrations on September 12th. Volunteers helped with in-person interpretation and written translation in multiple languages, especially Italian and Portuguese.
(Lib. of Congress) Vice President Thomas R. Marshall draws draft number 53
A second, smaller headline was startling: “Post Office Hit By Grip Malady: Eight Carriers and Two Clerks Victims of Prevailing Distemper,” 54the first article reporting a flu outbreak in Gloucester, published 10 days after Labor Day, a week after the community sing, and two days after Letter Carrier Sherman T. Walen’s failing health was listed in the East Gloucester column. [A little over a week after Registration day, William Francis Murray, the Postmaster in Boston, died from the flu on September 21, 1918.]
Post Office staff City Directory, 1917. Annotated with red arrows to indicate flu cases in 1918. 56
Inside the community pages, two enlisted Ehler brothers are mentioned in the East Gloucester column, and a brother-in-law visiting on leave; a third brother had visited from Camp Devens over Labor Day. With so many ill neighbors, the column required a sub-heading: “Spanish Influenza Prevalent Here” and included the first obituary to mention Spanish Influenza as the cause of death. Bertram Goodwin of 16 Highland Street fell sick September 5th and was dead within a week, among the first victims of the flu in Gloucester and the first to be public.
“Mrs. Carrie Hamsdell of Winchester is the guest of Mrs. Nellie M. Parsons of Highland street. Mrs. Parsons has just returned from a visit (illegible) the guest of Mrs. Jewell , of Boston, in Stratham, N.H. The Ladies’ Aid of the Methodist Episcopal church will hold a business meeting in the vestry this evening. Mr. and Mrs. J.H. Mason of Fall River, spent the week end with Mrs. Mason’s mother, Mrs. James Ehler of 51 Mt. Pleasant avenue. Mr. Mason is stationed as first class cook in naval service at Newport and he was here on two days leave of absence. Mr. and Mrs. Victor D. Ehler and family the former who is stationed at Bumpkin Island and Walter A. Ehler who is stationed at Camp Devens were (…illegible…). Spanish Influenza Prevalent Here The prevailing distemper of grip and Spanish influenza is felt much in this ward. Harry Dagle of the U.S. Mail Force is ill at home on Highland Place. Sherman T. Walen also of the U.S. Mail Force is very ill at his home on Rocky Neck. Freeman Hodson, a native of this place and letter carrier in the Mt. Pleasant Avenue lower district route of ward one, is confined to his home on Essex Avenue. Stanton and Eleanor Farrell, both children of Mr. and Mrs. Frank Farrell of East Main Street are ill with the malady. Agnes Ryan, the young daughter of Mrs. Alice Ryan is confined to her home on East Main Street. Fletcher Wonson, the young son of Mr. and Mrs. Frank P. Wonson has been ill for several days. Chester Brigham of Haskell Street, agent for the Metropolitan Insurance Company, was out yesterday, after a severe attack of the grip. Ida Gerring, the little daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Herbert Gerring of Avon Court is a late victim of the distemper. Mrs. Joseph T. Moulton was stricken on Tuesday, at her home on Highland Street. Miss Blanch Gilbert of East Main Street was stricken Tuesday and Dr. Arthur S. Torrey took to his bed today with the same trouble that has stricken a large number of his patients. Sudden Death of Bertram R. Goodwin Bertram R. Goodwin a well-known citizen of this ward, died at his home on Highland Street yesterday morning resulting from the effects of the prevailing disease, grip or Spanish influenza, which is broadcast at this time. The deceased was taken ill last Thursday…seven years ago he married Miss Della E. Frost of this ward. The funeral will be strictly private, owing to illness in the family.”57
Gloucester Daily Times, East Gloucester column, Sept. 12
On September 13th a tiny notice was released nationally, prompted by complaints from colleges. The War Department cancelled football for “colleges and universities with Students’ Army Training Corps,” surely a preventative flu measure based on so many military outbreaks, but not stated directly.
Letter Carrier Samuel Curtis died Saturday, September 14th, at his parents’ home, two of his siblings still sick. That same day, the first guidelines from the U.S. Surgeon General were published nationally, very likely ready to go, but held back until after the draft registration.
Message from the U.S. Surgeon General
“Because the pandemic of influenza occurred more than 25 years ago, physicians who began to practice medicine since 1892 have not had personal experience in handling a situation now spreading through considerable part of the foreign world, and already appearing to some extent, in the United States. For that reason Dr. Blue is issuing a special bulletin for all medical men who send for it. In order to reach physicians of the country without a day’s delay, however, Dr. Blue has provided for transmission through the Associated Press the following summary of methods for control of the disease:
Methods of Control
Infectious Agent – The bacillus influence of pfeefifer [sic]. (Illegible) secretions from the nose, throat and respiratory passages or (illegible)
Incubation period: one to four days, generally two.
Mode of transmission – by direct contact or indirect contact through use of handkerchief, common towels, cups, mess gear, or other objects contaminated with fresh secretions. (illegible)
Period of communicability as long as the person harbors the causative organism in the respiration tract.
Method of control
(A) The infected individual and his environment. “Recognition of the disease- By clinical manifestations and bacteriological findings.
Isolation- Bed isolation of infected individuals during the course of the disease. Screens between beds are to be recommended.
Immunization- Vaccines are used with only partial success.
Quarantine- None; impracticable.
Concurrent disinfection- The discharges from the mouth, throat, nose (illegible)causative organism is short-lived outside of the host. (B)General measure- The attend of the case should wear a gauze mask. During epidemics persons should avoid crowded assemblages, street cars and the like. Education as regards the danger of promiscuous coughing and pitting. Patients, because of the tendency to the development of broncho-pneumonia should be treated in well ventilated, warm rooms. The present outbreak of influenza may be controlled more or less extent only by intelligent action on the part of the public. “There is no such thing as an effective quarantine in the case of pandemic influenza,” Dr. Blue adds, “but precautionary measures may be taken and should be taken. Thus far we have little information as to the susceptibility of children, but it is fair to assume this type of Influenza might spread through a school as easily and rapidly as measles for example.”
– End of U.S. Surgeon General Notification, published in the Gloucester Daily Times 9/14/1918
Gloucester Fights Back
By Monday three more deaths were reported and at least 300 cases of flu in town. A second letter carrier, Sherman T. Walen, succumbed. Not surprisingly, 600 students and 10 teachers skipped school, maybe sick or helping at home, or too scared to attend. Before the next school bell rang, Mayor Stoddart issued the first flu proclamation closing schools and banning all indoor gatherings. (The exemptions? Bars and churches were the last to close, and only after guidelines and state mandates.) The school board had to scramble and assemble to vote for closure as the action preceded procedure. Addison Gilbert Hospital was closed to visitors to prevent contagion. A Red Cross Emergency relief hospital was readied for patients, installed within the Spanish War Memorial Hall of the police station.
This strong roll-out happened within the first five or six days of Gloucester’s outbreak!
Clearly, city officials and various movers and shakers must have already sprang into action based on how fast they moved. Gloucester had the courage and foresight to get out ahead of the epidemic as much as possible, and far too much experience with the enormous sense of urgency and resolve required to handle a crisis after so many thousands of fishermen lost at sea. (From 1900 – 1918 nearly 800 Gloucester fishermen died at sea. A single February storm in 1879 claimed 143.) The devastating Influenza deaths in just five weeks added to a legacy of loss and coping.
On September 23 Boston reported 23 deaths from Influenza; Gloucester 11.
At the post office where the disease surged, nine staff still struggled and cases in East Gloucester surged. A few vessels returned with sick crew. Sawyer Free Public library closed on the 24th. Physicians and nurses from other towns arrived to help. There were so many new cases in Gloucester they enlarged the new Red Cross emergency hospital at the police station (and would again). Still, more hospital beds were necessary. The State Armory on Prospect Street seemed the ideal site to ready, however the State refused the request. Alderman (City Councilor) Poole headed to Boston with Osborne Knowles, Christian Saunders and John Radcliffe, representatives from Gloucester’s Board of Health and Public Safety, to negotiate with state and federal officials in person.
“That the authorities were fully cognizant of conditions in Gloucester was evident from the statement of Mr. Long, who said that Revere; Quincy and Gloucester were the most infected of any in the state. Mr. Long offered the committee every assistance and relief that could be given to handle the situation…In the opinion of state officials and leading physicians the out-door method of treating the disease is the most effective and successful. So interested were the officials in the local situation that the surgeon-general’s department yesterday afternoon notified Capt. Carleton H. Parsons, senior officer of the local state guard units; instructing him to present to the local authorities the offer of the state to send to Gloucester a military hospital unit to cope with the situation.”
Lieut. John A. Radcliffe, State Guard, resident, and veteran Gloucester Daily Times (GDT) reporter of nearly 20 years & volunteer on the Board of Health for 15 prior to the pandemic
The state discussions prompted additional protective measures, informed by the best doctors in the armed services. There were more cases in Massachusetts by then than all the other states combined. Influenza cases at Camp Devens had already climbed to 11,000. The Gloucester contingent left the Boston conference armed with a state of the art plan for a crisis team to be deployed in Gloucester, a military unit of doctors, nurses and multiple local State Guard companies. It would be the first one established for care of civilians and a model to follow. All necessary presentations and votes were sorted by nightfall.
“The adjutant general’s department in Boston was immediately communicated with, and arrangements made to send tents, physicians, nurses’ field kitchen, military equipment and supplies to this city.”
John Radcliffe, Gloucester Daily Times
Meanwhile, another floor was added to the Red Cross Emergency Hospital, State Guard called out, and police instructed to enforce any Board of Health recommendations such as the anti-spitting rule and fruit stand closures. Various strict fumigation requirements were put into immediate effect and there would be no crowding on street cars. Without calling it a quarantine, mighty efforts to effectively shut Gloucester down ensued. The City banned outdoor gatherings now, too. A women’s suffragist meeting and Liberty Loan rallies were among the first cancellations. “Gloucester calls her people to rise promptly to the emergency!” urged the op Ed.
Statewide the precise number of infected cases was a guess at best. (It would be a week before reporting deaths was required by law, ten days after Gloucester so ordered.) In local war news at this time, Gloucester advocates were seeking reimbursement from the federal government for vessels sunk by submarine– while pressing for flu support. Massachusetts established an Emergency Public Health Committee on September 25, 1918. Their first order of business was to ban all public gatherings especially in light of the upcoming liberty loan rallies and parades. It was suggested that the Federal Government was likely to take charge in Massachusetts as a war measure. The State Board of Health published treatment guidelines the next day because of the scarcity of physicians and nurses, and push back after bans and restrictions, which Henry Endicott defended mightily:
“…There are undoubtedly towns and cities in the Commonwealth from which the influenza has not been reported, but of course we must face the fact that the chances are very much in favor of the spread of the disease. I urge such communities to assume their part of the common responsibility, and to act as if they were already in the midst of the epidemic.
The doctors and nurses of Massachusetts who are devoting themselves to the care of the sick in this emergency are all heroes and heroines, and many of them have paid the penalty. Not one of them, as far as I am aware, has shirked in any way; they have overworked; they are without sleep—yet, still they go on. Massachusetts can never repay its debt to this noble band of men and women. We are using every effort, both through the government and outside the State to get additional help for these people… (Regarding) Cancellation of the Liberty loan meetings… It will never be said of Massachusetts that she was so immersed in her own private troubles that she for one moment failed to heed the Nation’s call to practical service. Massachusetts must and will do her part.”
Henry B. Endicott, Chairman Massachusetts Emergency Public Health Committee, established Sept. 25, 1918
Dr. Kelley, Massachusetts Commissioner of Health and a member of the state’s Emergency Public Health Committee, reached out to U.S. Surgeon General Blue. The Federal government lent army and navy doctors to take over doctor assignments. Kelley appointed a nursing Commission and assigned Miss Billings from his department as chairman. They hired 100 nurses to serve in case of emergency in the Massachusetts State Guard. “These nurses were given the rank and pay of Lieutenant. It is believed that this is the first time such rank and pay have been given to women in the United States…” 59 The state deployed fifteen to Gloucester plus about 10 more registered nurses. The federal government released a detailed “Influenza” circular September 26. By then forty percent of Gloucester’s telephone company were absent “on account of sickness either of themselves or relatives whose care is devolving upon them.” The Gloucester Manufacturing Company “closed their plant indefinitely” and the Ipswich mills announced a shut down. There were 49 deaths in the city, up from 11 three days prior, among them Laura Silva, Alderman Silva’s sister, who died that morning from “pneumonia following an attack of the prevailing influenza.” Acting Governor Coolidge appealed to the President, select neighboring states, and the Mayor of Toronto for physicians and nurses:
“Massachusetts urgently in need of additional doctors and nurses to check growing epidemic of influenza. Our doctors and nurses are being thoroughly mobilized and worked to the limit. Many cases can receive no attention whatever. Hospitals are full, but arrangements can be made for outside facilities. Earnestly solicit your influence in obtaining for us this needed assistance in any way you can.”
Governor urgent telegrams disseminated 9/26/1918 (published in GDT 9/27/1918)
With no time to spare, the State Military Unit was installed on the grounds of Addison Gilbert Hospital Friday September 27, 1918, and completed before the sun was down Saturday.
“In a remarkably short space of time the tents were up and the unit well established, so that this afternoon it will be ready for patients. There are 100 tents for patients, each waterproof, provided with board floor, cot and other essentials for the proper care of the sick…The field hospital is a wonderful institution and shows in a large measure what the State Guard can be depended upon to bring about. Day and night the men have worked to put the hospital in shape and to look out for the sick ones. It is simply remarkable the way the many details have been arranged to establish such a wonderful institution well worthy of the name. Electric lights, water, sewerage and floors in the tents have all been put in, chiefly through the efforts of the fine types of men that compose the State Guard.”
John Radcliffe, GDT
Another 100 tents for the state guard, plus any necessary for administration and operations, were erected. Over on Main Street, the Red Cross established a children’s hospital in the Girl’s Club over Gloucester National Bank. Anticipating great need, the public safety committee announced an Emergency Fundraising drive for the Local Red Cross administered by Cape Ann Savings Bank. The Mayor and all but one Alderman were struck by flu—all those meetings! — and still that Monday they brought forth more precautions, seizing any and all educational opportunities and community measures possible to halt the spread. Public funerals were banned and soda fountains closed, though the latter was rescinded in one day. Detailed flu mask (face masks) instructions were published as part of optimum patient care and prevention.
Mayor Stoddart urged fresh air and ventilation.
“Every house whether a case of disease has existed or not, should be thoroughly aired during the day…Clean up the back yards, dumps and filthy places. If your neighbor will not act, consult the Board of Health or its emergency agents and prompt action will be taken. Let everyone co-operate and assist our health officials in the excellent work they are doing.”
Mayor Stoddardt, September 30, 1918
The deadline for the Draft Registration questionnaire was postponed until influenza was over. One bright note that bleak weekend, ten nurses arrived from Ontario, Canada, and five from the state thanks to the commonwealth’s plea and Gloucester’s hustle. Unlike other locations during the Pandemic 1918, folks rushed here to help rather than away.
On October 1 the City implored women to volunteer in the fight against the flu. Major A. N. Thomson, an esteemed infectious disease specialist, was detailed from the US Army Medical Corps to command the entire camp. The Major was empowered by the Federal authorities to take over facilities and property should they fail to be turned over, which never happened. Mayor Thomson’s excellent communication skills were evident his first day: daily briefings and public health notices commenced and a Civilian Relief Committee was established. Some restrictions were specific to Gloucester such as the mandatory fumigation of any vessels coming or going, the need for heaters for the State Guard and the curious ban on milk dealers, at the time believed to be a vector in this city. The general boil order may have covered it sufficiently; political savvy can be added to Major Thomson’s talents.
On October 2 the state issued its first Official influenza Bulletin
Doctors at Tufts University announced vaccine research and gave the city supplies and face masks. The Governor added to a growing insistence to bring teachers back to help since schools were closed. Deaths and infections continued rising in Gloucester. The Red Cross Emergency Hospital was open 24 hours a day until physicians would be able to resume nightly calls; the base was closed to all but patients and caregivers. Despite fumigation and social distancing protocols, 33 men from the street railway (trolley) were afflicted.
On October 3, 1918, after the community sing that first week of September, after registering for the draft on September 12, after advocating on behalf of the citizens of Gloucester, after traveling to Boston, Alderman Poole died from the flu.
These public servants were aware of the dangers of viral infection –if not the extent of this particular lethal disease– yet they met in person with great exigency, to keep people safe. They looked to science as they wanted to deliver model guidelines of care. As the death toll climbed they worked hard to determine how to halt its spread and prevent transmission.
The flu battle continued. The city spread lime on “bad spots and catch basins” throughout the city. Major Thomson estimated 800 cases of infection, a marked decrease. Local businesses donated food and treats to the base camp. The Red Cross measured the State Guard for winter uniforms and shoes. At the three week mark since the first deaths were reported, Gloucester recorded 137 deaths by flu. Dr. Manning was brought from France where he had charge of a children’s hospital, helpful with so many children sick, or having lost a parent, maybe two. Major Thomson declared that the teamwork in Gloucester “was certainly most remarkable, the like of which he had never before experienced and congratulated the city upon its good fortune.”
Bars were closed October 8. The death list fell to 3.
There are at present 10 patients in camp whose condition is normal, these being children who are being kept in camp under the supervision of the hospital staff until such time as proper home conditions are found for them. The number of patients sick is 32, those dangerously ill 3, and those seriously ill 2. During 24 hour period from yesterday noon there were three deaths. A noticeable feature in connection with the hospital camp is the very small percentage of sickness that has occurred among the soldiers.
Major Thomson October 8, 1918
Dr. Street joined Thomson’s medical team. He was the first to volunteer in Massachusetts to fight the flu and the last to leave Gloucester’s emergency. He had been practicing in China for 20 years. After Gloucester, he was sent to France.
Conditions were improving .
Not only the state, but the nation as well has its eyes on Gloucester at the present time. The first open air camp was established at Corey Hill, Boston, for the merchant marine, but the one in this city is the first for the civilian population and is far ahead of even the one at Corey Hill, so Col. Brooks, surgeon general, has stated. The wonderful success of the out-door treatment, the wonderful organization of the local unit and its many details is being set up as a model for other communities to follow.
John Radcliffe writing for the GDT, October 8, 1918
Plans turned to social work and after care. There were 121 patients at the hospital camp on October 10. Thanks to Dr. Manning,
This morning the big convalescent tent was completed and fitted with chairs, settees, tables, a graphophone and literature. Here the patients who have reached the convalescent stage will go each day, until they are in proper health to return to their homes. The graphophone was kindly donated by the Y.M.C.A. who have extended many other courtesies and valuable assistance in the present emergency.
John Radcliffe
The Mayor encouraged substantial philanthropy: Elizabeth Sherman (Mrs. Henry Souther) “offered the Red Cross the free use of (one of the) Souther residence(s in Gloucester), on Brightside avenue, Bass Rocks, as a children’s nursery for the care of the children now under treatment at the State Emergency Hospital Post and who on account of sickness or other conditions at their homes cannot go to their homes upon being discharged from the hospital.” [She was the daughter of Judge Edgar J. Sherman who built the iconic home perched on Bass rocks and nicknamed the gilded birdcage and Judge Sherman Cottage. Souther developed Bass Rocks and Sherman was a Trustee.]
Anticipating the closure of the camp and emulating its success, excitement built for a permanent out-door hospital to handle communicable diseases, and for pivoting efforts to support the Home Service Committee of the Local Red Cross:
“Only those who have been in close touch with the local conditions can have any idea of the extent of the suffering, or of the conditions that exist in many homes on account of the inroads of the epidemic. Whole families have been stricken and that means that the earning power of these families have been shattered. In many families it will be weeks before the members of the families who work will be (illegible) back bills to be paid, homes to be cleaned up, the sick made strong even after the over-worked doctor has ceased his visits. And in many homes where death has entered, sometimes both father and mother have been taken, leaving children who must be looked after and cared for for a long time, and where the father has been taken the mother and the children without the father’s care for a long time.”
John Radcliffe, GDT October 11, 1918
On October 15th, Dr. Manning and some of the nurses were reassigned. The Trustees of Addison Gilbert Hospital were willing to grant the Board of Health and hence the City use of it land for such an out-door hospital, and voted that way just in case. In the end the city opted to purchase the Braewood property, the former estate of Maria H. Bray. (Bray operated a popular summer inn from her home; Louisa May Alcott was one famous guest.) For convalescents not yet ready to go home and any lodging necessary for nurses, the site was ideal. St. John’s stepped up to provide shelter for convalescents that were homeless. Major Thomson’s last day at the base was October 16, the first day no deaths were reported. The State Guard started to breakdown the State Emergency Hospital Post. On October 18th the city council voted to continue the ban on public gatherings until October 22, 1918, and the school committee voted to re-open October 23. A resolution of appreciation of all who helped in the epidemic was passed October 24th. The State Emergency Hospital Post officially closed October 25, 1918. The total number of infections on closing day was 70 cases. Despite harrowing weeks at war and battling the flu, Gloucester surpassed its fundraising allotment for liberty bonds AND an emergency health fund.
Gloucester’s destination reputation, proximity to Boston, fishing industry, people & cultures, and their patriotic hearts– evident in strong showings at the community sing Sept. 5 and draft registration Sept.12– heightened gatherings and travel into and out of the city, especially at the end of the summer and the first weeks in September. Enlisted on leave came home. People traveled for art. Sadly, the timing was a tragic storm of transmissibility.
City, state, and federal leaders’ decisive response to establish temporary emergency facilities to address a broad range of needs, and to recruit personnel were stunning. An extensive operation was set into motion right out the gate, beginning with crucial partnerships with organizations like the Gloucester District Nursing Association, Salvation Army, and district Red Cross, as well as priming boards and committees, and a doctor and nurse network. The bold decision that both the “new” Armory on Prospect Street and Addison Gilbert Hospital would remain non-contaminant institutions in full operation was a masterstroke that allowed for maximum state and federal support not to mention the best in public health care. The government could send crisis teams straight away and did. Gloucester benefited from the latest military research, and top doctors serving in the U.S. armed forces. Major Thomson, the army major dispatched to lead Gloucester’s Flu Battle from the State Emergency Hospital Post was a nationally recognized epidemiologist. Expertise, speed and collaboration were possible thanks to an indefatigable army of citizen volunteers, and great hiring.
CONCLUSION
Although hit at the same time as Boston, the severe flu outbreak in Gloucester, Massachusetts, is relatively unknown. With a population just under 25,000 in 1917, Gloucester was perhaps too small to be on the radar of significant research study, notwithstanding its steep death rate, outstanding communication, bold decisions and impressive teamwork among local, state and federal officials. The city of Gloucester was struck early by the pandemic and should rightly be remembered for its sacrifices, resolve and model response.
Catherine Ryan, March 20, 2020
NOTES FROM the AUTHOR
Here is the impressive list of key properties* of significance modified throughout the 1918 Pandemic flu battle in Gloucester. (*author note: search for surname, property, and addresses within the post to see skip around for any relevant info. Double click pictures to enlarge)
123456789101112131918 Pandemic: Flu Battle properties of significance in Gloucester, Ma.
City Hall including DPW and sanitation
Police Station – site for Red Cross Emergency Hospital for the afflicted which expanded three times: the Spanish Veteran’s Hall; then the Old Army; and the district court offices
New armory – National guard HQ
State Emergency Hospital Post, out-doors, on the grounds of Addison Gilbert Hospital for the afflicted added. Both hospitals were FULL.
Red Cross Nursery for families of front line workers and orphans in the Girl’s Club over the Gloucester National Bank and Children’s hospital
Gloucester District Nursing Assoc.
Red Cross HQ and Public Health Dispensary
Emergency Food and needs pantry
Souther estate at Brightside on Bass Rocks for children convalescents, and orphans
Braewood – convalescence for those not well enough to go home (across from Pauline’s gifts)
Fundraising for Red Cross and support Cape Ann Savings Bank
Tibbet’s block – Emergency committees, Liberty Bond drive and Draft Registration
Gloucester Daily Times corner of Pleasant and Center- David Cox in the photograph
Post Office
FAST FACTS – Population
Gloucester, Mass. population in 1917: 24,478 (2020 hovering 30,000) *183 flu deaths at peak pandemic
Essex County population in 1917: 436,477 and in 1920: 482,156
Worcester, Mass. population in 1915: 162,267 *est. population was 180,000 and 1294 flu deaths all waves (pre, peak, and post epidemic) in 1918
Worcester County population in 1920: 455,135
Quincy, Mass. population in 1917: ___ *flu deaths at peak pandemic 150
Norfolk county population in 1920: 219,081
Massachusetts population in 1915: 3,693,310 and in 1920: 3,852,356
United States population in 1917: 103,208,000
World population in 1917: 1.8 billion
Mortality and Morbidity (cases) counts remain speculative. US Deaths from flu: 675,000 – 800,000
Regarding 183* deaths in Gloucester, Mass.: The estimates of morbidity and mortality in Gloucester are not final or definitive as they encapsulate solely published stats at its apex. For the time being, the 2020 Covid-19 closures limit access to research. Final numbers will increase and are estimated to be more than 250. Follow-up will expand window from 1917-spring 1920, especially August and November 1918, to verify death records and tracing, etc., also delving into nuanced themes I’ve developed and curated here. Though the Fort was targeted for clean up, East Gloucester was the epicenter. The timeline of the flu impact on the fishing industry does not precede the Gloucester epidemic. Commonplace examples of prejudice sting: draft categories; status of women; and class.
“Spanish Influenza” in the Gloucester news accounts was also known as: grip, grippe, malady, prevailing affliction, pestilence, prevailing distemper, dread influenza, Grip Malady, flu, new distemper, ‘three day fever’, and malady.
The State Emergency Hospital Post installed on the grounds of Addison Gilbert Hospital was also known as: a military hospital camp, field hospital, state hospital, hospital camp, state military hospital, tent emergency hospital, out door hospital, and portable hospital.
No surprise here: Thacher Island is spelled Thacher and Thatcher.
What happened? Was it super spreader carriers or locations? How many patient zeros? Margaret Miller, Bertram Goodwin, and five Walen family members — each from East Gloucester– were among the first Gloucester deaths, followed by many more in East Gloucester. The Post Office was a ground zeros locale. All those war letters and stamps a red herring it seems. Other post offices were not devastated like Gloucester. Vaughan (1921) guides the lay person past dead ends. “Still another fallacy in the comparison of incidence in institutions and the like is proven by the work done by Jordan, Reed and Fink, who found that in the various Chicago telephone exchanges the attack rate varied from five per cent to twenty-seven per cent, although the working conditions were approximately the same.” Enlisted men on leave traveled back and forth to training camps and naval bases. Gloucester was a destination for visitors from in and out of state, including artists and art enthusiasts.
I was inspired to help connect local history and remember the victims and families impacted by this savage flu. The medical and military personnel, public officials and volunteers who performed heroically during this pandemic have not been memorialized in Gloucester. Councilor Poole lost his life; Councilor Silva lost his sister. What happened to Radcliffe and Drs. Thomson, Street and Manning? Gloucester could recognize the grand scale of the Lost Generation as a double tragedy – WW1 and the 1918 Pandemic. There are scarce memorials worldwide.
For my grandfather whom I adored, who lived to 101, a WWI veteran residing in Southie at the time; and his brother Arthur, whom he cherished, and died in the 1918 Pandemic while enlisted.
WHO’S WHO 1918 – Gloucester Flu fighters
Look to the front line helpers that faced down this dreaded virus: I hope the many, many local heroes of the 1918 Pandemic in Gloucester are remembered. Readers in 2020 will recognize surnames, many associated with the very same neighborhoods then as now, and connect descendants that continue to volunteer in the community. I suggest searching surnames and/or street addresses within this piece.
LOCAL who’s who
MayorJohn A. Stoddart
Aldermen Antoine A. Silva, William F. Poole, Asa G. Andrews, Augustus Hubbard
Gloucester Board of HealthDr. Philip P. Moore, M.D., Chair, Osborne Knowles, Christian D. Saunders, John A. Radcliffe, Clerk. High School Faculty – Miss Mary Bennett asst. clerk, stepping up to help Radcliffe
Gloucester Board of Health Special AgentsSimeon B. Hotchkiss, Fred W. Tibbets and Fred A. Shackelford (also Chair of Fuel Committee), and Senator Charles Brown
Gloucester Public Safety Committee, Chairman Thomas J. Carroll, John A. Stoddart, Mayor, Henry F. Brown, Secretary
City staff (incomplete list) Clerks- John J. Somes, John Drohan, Mrs. Mildred A. Hall, Allen F. Grant and Willis Wheeler; Board of Registrars- Addison P. Burnham
Physicians at the time Gloucester physicians listed in the 1917 City Directory: Silas H. Ayer; Parker Burnham; Hanford Carvell; Alton Choate; Horace Choate; Thomas Conant; SPF Cook; Mary D. Dakin; John Egan; Daniel J. Finegan; Albert Garland; Roy Garland; William Hale; Edward Hallett; Edward Hubbard; Avis Keith; James Knowles; Philip Moore; Scott W. Mooring; Charles H. Morrow; Albert F. Oakes; Percy C. Proctor; Charles M. Quimby; William Rowley; Ellwood Shields; Philip Shinn; Arthur W. Smith; Arthur Torrey; Harper E. Whitaker. Also: Major Sturgess [alt. Sturgis], of Salem, was sent to open up the State Guard unit before the emergency hospital post and worked with the city’s physicians; Mayor hired Dr. A.A. Haig of Essex and Dr. Ernest A. Dyer of Salem to work under direction of Dr. Philip Moore at Red Cross Emergency Hospital Sept. 21, 1918. **red indicates some infected while taking care of patients** Shinn received vaccine trial samples from Tufts study
Gloucester Registered nursesGloucester nurses listed in the 1917 City Directory: Madge Brideson; Mary E. Buckley; Mary E. Butler; Rachel B. Coffin; Alice M. Collins; Louise Connor; Kate W. Cook; Betsey Curtis; Hester M. Dann; Christy Dart; Carrie Davis; Florence Dickinson; Mrs. Mary A. Dinnen; (Lydia) Florence Griffin; Emma Hanson; Katherine Macdonald; Gertrude Maddocks; Mrs. Alva Pennington; Sally Pew; Mary E. Powler; Ella P. Richardson; Mrs. Belle Robinson; Mrs. Ethel M. Sanborn; Eva Thurston; R. Fannie Thurston; Eva Wheeler; Mary A. Walters; Mrs. Mabel E. Wardrop; Esther B. Wonson; Mrs. Annie Woodbury; Gloucester District Nursing Association (Dir.,Florence Griffin)
Gloucester District Nursing Assoc. All nurses and organizations supplying volunteer nurses reported at the District Nursing Association each morning for instruction.<
Women of Gloucester volunteers as nurses’ aides and other duties are not named. A Mrs. Alfred W. Spurr is mentioned.
Addison Gilbert Hospital Miss Leach (Matron of AG) Miss Wylie (may be misspelling– Miss Wyles from state) Miss Brooks; and Fred A. Barker of the trustees
The Red Cross: Temporary Red Cross Emergency Hospital set up at the Police Station where it was expanded 3x (first in the Spanish Veteran’s Hall, then expanded into the “old Armory” and enlarged a 3rd time with the whole 2nd floor district court offices, “turned over to the Red Cross by Judge Sumner D. York for use for hospital purposes.”); Doctors beyond Gloucester jumped in to help until state hospital established; Dr. Carter of Haverhill, head of Essex County Chapter of Red Cross; Dr. Bullock retired physician; Others from Lawrence and Salem; Nursing – see local list above for registered nurses. Miss McCarthy of the Red Cross mentioned in paper; “In addition to the regular nurses, a large volunteer force is assisting in the work necessary for the carrying on of the hospital. Yesterday afternoon the rooms of the Girls’ club over the Gloucester National Bank were taken over by the Red Cross as a children’s section, after small children whose parents are sick are being cared for there. It is the intention of the Red Cross to establish a children’s hospital there. Big and small additional jobs (woolen socks, uniforms and shoes for all companies); 24 hour Face “Mask Factory”; social services; and RN Mrs. Raymond Calpin mentioned as point of contact at the state hospital.
Civilian Relief Committeebig wheels volunteering working with the Military field hospital: Fred W. Tibbets (selected as Chairman), Walter C. King (selected as Sect.), Mayor Stoddart, Alderman Andrews, Hubbard and Silva, Daniel T. Babson (Cape Ann Savings Bank), Fred A. Shackelford, Rev. Albert A. Madsen, Miss McCarthy of the Red Cross, George W. Woodbury, Fred A. Barker and Miss Wylie from the hospital, George Frye Merrill, and Chaplain Bertram D. Bolvin of the State Guard.
State Guard Cmdr. Captain Carleton H. Parsons of Co. L; Lieut. Radcliffe in command Company L on account of illness of Capt. John J. Burke; Company K commanded by First Lieut. Charles T. Smith; Quartermaster-General, Lieut. Emery directed delivery of supplies; supply division commanded by Lieut. Cole of Salem (later replaced by Capt. Richmond) of the Supply Company 15th infantry, detailed by Col. Edward H. Eldredge; Command of the base Information Depot, Rev. Capt. Bertram D. Bolvin, chaplain of the 15th regiment. Thomas L. Devlin 1st Lieut. Company K. Local members of the state guard, “some 30 of Gloucester’s leading young business men…sacrificing their businesses and vocations…”, unnamed
Police department Early flu work included transporting patients to hospital and later enforcing Board of Health edicts added to scope. Police staff mentioned in newspaper (uncommon): Officers: Cronin and Harry Foster
Public Works (incomplete) [enforcing new City edicts- extra lime/cleaning]
Private philanthropists thanks to Mayor- estate of Mrs. Henry Souther was used for children including orphans; estate of Mrs. Maria H. Bray, 531 Essex Ave, formerly Braewood Property sold to John D.W. and Eliza Estabrook / realtor = Fred A. Shackelford, sect. Board of Health, negotiated sale to city during pandemic as convalescent home, later TB clinic. **author note: Articles mention that support from summer residents to battle the flu was lacking during this autumn wave. Despite crewmember deaths and illness aboard Sch. Natalie Hammond, and history of large philanthropy in Gloucester, I did not see John Hays Hammond family in this time frame, maybe later? Ditto A. Piatt Andrews and other Eastern point notables. Some were quite active in war efforts. Andrews busy cofounding the American Field service, for example.**
Small businesses extend courtesies to community and cause, and hospital and guardsmen: many their employees are the state guardsmen; Sponagle, barber at 68 Main Street, partnered with Red Cross to open an emergency food center and prep and later use as staging for dispensing clothing articles to those in need; M. L. Wetherell gave ice cream; Edward Hodgdon donated green corn; Samuel Curtis & Sons donated tomatoes; Dr. Elmer Babson gave corn; Rockport farm sent apples; Everett P. Wonson and Henry C. Brown supplied smoking material; George L. Browne, undertaker; William T. Morton of the Woolworth 5 and 10 cent store joined state guard collection of toys for tots
Bigger businesses: Daniel T. Babson, Cape Ann Savings Bank, Treasurer of the Home Service Red Cross Emergency; Gloucester National Bank Headquarters for Red Cross District Nursing Assoc. then childcare, and children’s hospital; Gorton-Pew Fisheries Company $1500 donation; $500 contributed by the Gloucester Electric Company; several unnamed $100 donations
Organizations: Y. M.C.A.; Girls Club (over Gloucester National Bank); Salvation Army (Adjutant and Mrs. Gunn)
Places of Worship: St. John’s parish on Middle Street was used for adult convalescents; Clergy Rev. Albert A. Madsen, Trinity Congregational Church; William J. Dwyer;
Teachers Miss Mary Bennett high school faculty filled in for Radcliffe
School BoardDr. Garland, Chair, Vice Chairman Jordan, Mr. Carroll, Mrs. Curtis, Miss Brooks, the Mayor, Mr. Patch (deployed in France), Mr MacInnis (state guard) and Mr. Phillips; Supt. Haines
Individuals: A. Manton Pattilo and Story & Shepherd gave use of vehicles for police ambulances; Arthur J. Grimes and William A. Bolger volunteered to drive nurses around to homes; Mrs. William Hooper (Alice Forbes Perkins) of Manchester major assistance
Boy scouts of America local chapter- 60 or more, unnamed
Groups includingFighting Fourth Liberty Loan Men’s committee, chairman Kilby W. Shute, and Tibbets; Fighting Fourth Liberty Loan Women’s committee, chairwoman Mrs. Preston O. Wass, and Mrs. Alan S. Rowe; other women’s clubs such as Riverdale Range and Girls Club Of Manchester and its Allied Associations; Fuel Committee, Chairman Fred Shackelford
STATE who’s who helped in Gloucester
Governor W. McCall
Sect. to Governor Henry F. Long
Senator Charles D. Brown; Representative Lukin
Massachusetts State Surgeon GeneralCol. William A. Brooks
State Commissioner of HealthDr. William C. Woodward (1918);
State Board of Health– Miss Wyles
Massachusetts Emergency Public Health Committee established. Sept 1918: Chairman Henry B. Endicott*, W. L. Putnam, Manager; Matthew Luce, Secretary, commissioners: Dr. William A. Brooks*, Miss. B. W. Billings, B. Preston Clark, Dr. E.R. Kelley*, George H. Lyman, Mrs. F.S. Mend, W. Rodman Peabody, James J. Phelan, A.C. Ratshesky*, Adj.-Gen. Jesse F. Stevens, John F. Stevens, Mrs. Nathaniel Thayer, Dr. William C. Woodward* *indicates someone that worked closely with Gloucester. Kelley was colleague friends with Major Thomson; their approach was in concert. Boon for Gloucester.
At request of Surgeon General Brooks, Commissioner Kelly appointed a Nursing Commission with Miss Billings of his dept. as chairman. “Patriotic response came from across country for service in afflicted sections. 100 nurses were given the rank and pay of Lieutenant. FIRST time such rank and pay have been given to women in the United States.” Because of shortage of doctors, nurses, and nurses assistants, Dr. Kelley reached out to US Surgeon General. Blue. The US government lent Navy doctor to take over the state’s doctor assignments.
FIRST in country – State Appointed Emergency Hospital Post (for civilians) Crisis team in Gloucester (coordinating with local and state boards; civilian relief committee; Red Cross Emergency Hospital and Addison Gilbert Hospital; Gloucester District Nursing Assoc.; and social service agencies) includes many from Gloucester
COMMANDER Major A. (Alec) N. Thomson (misspelled initially Thompson), U.S.A. Medical Corps, Commander
Aide to Major Lieut. John A. Radcliffe, from Gloucester
Military unit of doctors including
Dr. John B. Manning, field hospital Superintendent (Harvard)
Dr. Lionel A. B. Street (lead Gloucester and helped in Manchester and Rockport) the first physician in the state to volunteer to fight the pandemic. Later Supt. after Thomson left before his Red Cross assignment overseas
Major Sturgis/Sturgess/Stugis, prominent Salem physician, state guard, early help then assigned at Red Cross Emergency Hospital, then to The State hospital post at AGH
Capt. George E.B. Strople of Co. M, Haskins Hospital, Rockport
Dr. Atwood
Dr. Gosman
Fourth year medical students did “fine work”
15 nurses from the State Guard; Mrs. Raymond Calpin
5-15 nurses from the State Department of Health (one named: Mrs. Augusta Weeks who stayed through the end)
Red Cross R.N. Mrs. Raymond Calpin mentioned as point of contact at the state military hospital (not sure if she is local or state hire)
Out of state and International: nurses, including 12 from South Hamilton, Ontario: C.E. Alward, Beatrice Dellimore, Nora (illegible), A.E. Lindrum, Martha Long- (illegible), Ruth Wilthum, Henrietta Patterson, Mrs. Harriette Willoughbey, Lillian Futa(illegible). Others serving from out of town are Vera Averill, Maine; M.E. Barker, Cushing Hospital, Boston; Esperie Cahors, Boston; Lieut. T.M. Develin, Boston; E.H. Hastings, Providence, R.I.; Dr. John Lehner of Boston; Dr. John O’Keefe of Leominster; Mrs. A.F. Weeks of Maine
Volunteer registered nurses
Civilian orderlies (unnamed)
5 ambulance crews (reduced to three)
Nurses’ aides – 100 women in Gloucester volunteered | Mrs. Alfred W. Spurr volunteered at post
Executive Post Adjutant, in command of companies L, K, M and I state Guard Captain Carleton H. Parsons of Co. L
State Guardsmen – one hundred (30+ from Gloucester) a few named individually in news stories: Thomas L. Devlin 1st Lieut. Company K,;Sergeant Earl O. Philips and Corporal J. William Darcy with Company K
Cook – Frank H. Shute, a well-known Gloucester hotel proprietor and experienced steward head commissary, and Harold S. Maddocks — for patients, staff and 100+ state guard all living at the camp
Chaplain Bertram D. Bolvin, commonly termed “fighting parson”
Mayor Stoddart and George Frye Merrill a committee to confer with Major Thompson to see what assistance could be given the military hospital
Area Universities and colleges
FEDERAL who’s who helped in Gloucester
President Wilson – Gov. Coolidge direct appeal to the President
United States Public Health Service led by US Surgeon General Blue. Dr. Rupert Blue, a physician soldier, appointed by Taft, was the 4th Surgeon General. He served 1912-1920 – coordinated with state board and committees
United States Army physician and 22nd Surgeon General of the US Army (1914-18) William Gorgas
Doctors serving in the United States armed forces
VESSELS REPORTING AFFLICTED CREW
Flu cases in Gloucester’s fishing industry came after the reported civilian and post office cases by a couple of weeks. Mandatory Fumigation was instituted September 28, 1918. Five deaths and many crewmen were stricken aboard the following schooners, steamers, and seine boats:
Note: Where names published various spellings on different days I have included each spelling version. At a minimum, 19 children of fishing fleet suffered the loss of one parent.
Sch. Natalie Hammond, Capt. Charles Colson- 16 returned to port: 8 crew member infected, 3 died– William or Wallace Doucette of Lynn; Soren Bjerm or Bjerrum of Gloucester: and Augustus Thompson who left a widow and 5 kids—their 6th child, an infant, died a couple of weeks before
Sch. Polyanna or Pollyanna, Capt. John G. Stream, skipper and crew all sick
Sch. Laverns, Capt. Robert Wharton, turned back after getting as far as Provincetown with 11 sick
Sch. Edith Silveira, two sick
Steamer Killarney
Sch. Saladin (illegible)
Sch. Adeline, one of the “Portuguese fresh haddocking fleet”, 10 sick men, 1 hospitalized
Sch. Arthur James, Capt. John Seavey, another seining vessel returned with sick crew
Sch. Hjela J. Silva skipper and crewmembers ill
Sch. Henry L Marshall, skipper and crewmembers ill
Sch. Athlete, crew sick, from report 10/2/1918 crewmember Frank Dagle died – ship left several weeks back (week of Sept 9, same time as sch. Natalie Hammond)
Sch. ______ (Illegible) Crew so sick difficulty landing when arrived at Canadian Port
Sch. Harmony, Capt. George Hamor & cook seriously ill
Sch. Gov. Foss, Capt. Ernest Young (Not the crew. Captain returned to ill family: his sister in law died, brother and their kids sick at hospital; also his sister and brother-in-law)
Sch. Marjie Turner, crew sick on 2nd trip out (all ok)
Three captains’ wives died:
Vessel name_____, wife of Capt. Manuel P. Domingoes, Mrs. Marion B. (Brown) Domingoes died of flu; they had 8 children
Vessel name_____, wife of Capt. Avaro P. Quadros; they had two daughters
Vessel name_____, wife of Capt. Thomas J. Benham, Mrs. Ruth M. (Springham) Benham; three kids
Anthony Cooney Fish Dealer at the Fort Passed Away at Rockport 10/2/1918 Jimmy DeLouchery, Waterfront Authority, American Halibut Co. employee died WW1 and fishing industry news of the day : Lufkin/city leaders seeking reimbursement for torpedoed ships (See Sept. 28, 1918, Gloucester Daily Times, below)
LOCAL NEWSPAPER
The coverage of the pandemic in the Gloucester Daily Times was excellent, and deserving of rediscovery and recognition. If ever there was a posthumous award they’d be eligible.
The Gloucester Daily Times and Cape Ann Advertiser (GDT) employed 7 beat reporters, all but one were men, and most resided in Gloucester: John D. Woodbury, J. Harold Russell (11 Summit), Roy L. Parsons (7 Trask), John A. Radcliffe (27 Mt. Vernon), Alexander G. Tupper (60 Mt. Pleasant Ave), William S. Webber, Jr.(5 Columbia), and Margaret A. Dwyer (4 Phillips Ave. Pigeon Cove, Rockport). George H. Procter was the President and Associate Editor. Newburyport resident, Fred E. Smith, was the Managing Editor. Arthur L. Millett, the City Editor, lived downtown at 18 Mason Street. Representatives from the GDT joined former and active well-known newspaper men in establishing the Gloucester Press Club. Members included Walter Osborne, who owned and operated a hotel on Eastern Point Road in retirement, Wilmot A. Reed of the Associated Press, and James Pringle correspondent for the Boston Globe. Many of these writers served their community and country.
Looking back through daily newspapers, customary gatherings whether happy (celebrations/Church functions/first day of school/art exhibits) or serious (funerals/public meetings/draft registration/art exhibits) help to pinpoint the track of the virus and its containment by the crisis team led by Major Thomson, a nationally acclaimed infectious disease specialist. There are no bylines so sorting who wrote each article is unlikely. Perhaps some families found drafts in their attics.
Regardless, this busy fleet of writers delivered war news and essential pandemic coverage –fast facts and fast writing—that saved lives. Even at this time of war and battle all around, the journalists shared memorable small moments. See October 4th 1918 for Some Good News when the state guards initiated a collection for toys for the Red Cross childcare and children’s hospital (with help from the local Woolworth’s) and the doctors daring house call on a stormy night to the Lightkeeper’s family on Thacher Island. Don’t miss the double page spread on October 11, 1918, a sweeping recap of the efforts to combat the epidemic. Every day is worth a read; even the one revision I came upon was smart: “Charles Tifft Far From Dead: Summer Resident Reported Influenza Victim Talks With Wife On Phone”. [A true “Finnegan’s Wake” (1864 ballad) moment for me: “Common Jesus do you think I’m dead?”] Daily crisis reports were a matter of life and death and all involved went to great lengths to ensure the counts were accurate.
Emergency information and top expertise were broadcast in Gloucester in large part due to the specific talents of John Radcliffe. By the time of the pandemic, Lieutenant John A. Radcliffe was steeped in the city. He worked for the GDT for nearly 20 years, and had volunteered on the city’s Board of Health committee, acting as secretary, for 14 years, where his esteemed service was noticed at the State level. When the military hospital post was established he was a natural appointment. As a result, medical recommendations and decisions were gleaned from meetings first hand; and best practice notices were disseminated as fast as any in this digital age. His colleagues singled him out for credit.
The paper published a wrenching quantity of personalized obituaries. The flu took one employee: Mrs. Chester H. Dennen, Ella L. (Putnam), a beloved proof reader at the Gloucester Daily Times, died September 25, 1918. She was the second in her family to succumb. Although she was on staff, there was no article or mention on the front page of the paper, just the obituary. Maybe she preferred it that way.
TIMELINE
MAP OF SPREAD IN GLOUCESTER
–coming–
Need to confirm death reports beyond *183 peak window
NOTABLEs- flu cases and the arts
President Woodrow Wilson, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and General Pershing were infected. David Lloyd George, the Prime Minister of England, the King of Spain, Gandhi, and the German Kaiser- all stricken. The youngest son of the King of Sweden died. Cultural notables including Georgia O’Keefe, Raymond Chandler, Lilian Gish, Mary Pickford, Groucho Marx, Walt Disney, Virginia Woolf, John dos Passos, and Kafka lived to see another day. Gustav Klimt’s death in Vienna in February 1918 may have been an early wave contender. Painter Egon Schiele died peak pandemic, October 1918, three days after his spouse, Edith, and their unborn child. His family portrait, unfinished, a deliberate and devastating memorial.
Symbolic and perhaps apocryphal, the funeral procession for Guillaume Apollinaire, French poet and art influencer, wended and intensified amidst the jubilation of armistice celebrations.
While a journalist in Denver, Katherine Anne Porter barely survived her peak pandemic case that October. Her niece and fiance did not (nor Denver’s Mayor). Like Munch, Porter had preexisting conditions, having spent two years prior in a Texas sanatorium recovering from bronchitis. She published her masterwork, Pale Horse, Pale Rider(first edition 1936)– three short novels together– amidst rising global tensions leading up to WWII. It’s the most well known work of art of the dual terrors. Great War, Great Flu.
“But not the singer, not yet, said Miranda. “Death always leaves one singer to mourn.”
Katherine Anne Porter –the singer — Pale Horse, Pale Rider (1936)
William Randolph Hearst’s mother died April 1919. Edvard Munch surmounted his bout that spring. Having chronicled a lifetime impacted by disease, he turned to art and life for this horror, too. Self Portrait with Spanish Flu (seated on bed) oil over crayon fetched 1,688,000 GBP at Sotheby’s auction in 2006. [You can see the vertical self portrait, seated with flu at the National Gallery of Norway, and the after at the Munch Museum.]
Expecting parents W.B Yeats and Georgie Hyde Lees nearly suffered the fate of the Schieles, had Lees not pulled through. Yeats wrote Second Coming (Second Birth) while she recuperated. Their daughter Anne was born in February 1919.
Yeats
Spouses, poet T.S. Eliot and writer Vivien/ Vivienne Haigh-Wood, were ill in 1919. Eliot drafted bits of the The Waste Land (1922) in 1918, a time of demons — war and flu and an unhappy marriage. Author Willa Cather suffered during a late Influenza wave as well. The influenza pandemic is mentioned in her Pulitzer prize winning book, One of Ours (1922). The fictionalized snippet is asterisked to acknowledge she took liberty with the menace’s timeline– no offense, nor ignorance: *The actual outbreak of influenza on transports carrying United States troops is here anticipated by several months.” Maybe not. See prepandemic outbreaks.
That night the Virginian, who berthed under Victor Morse, had an alarming attack of nose-bleed, and by morning he was so weak that he had to be carried to the hospital. The doctor said they might as well face facts; a scourge of influenza had broken out on board, of a peculiarly bloody and malignant type.
Willa Cather, One of Ours (1922)
During the height of this public health catastrophe, companies sold elixirs and cures and plastered the papers with advertisements presented like news. They increased in frequency during Gloucester’s desperate days of September and October 1918. Less than a year later, Vick’s vapor rub was no match for the 1918 pandemic: The flu killed its inventor in August 1919.
fake news
The two brothers who co-founded the Dodge Bros. automobile manufacturing company contracted the flu in New York in 1919: John died at the Ritz hotel in January 1920, and Horace in December 1920 after a wicked year battling its complications. Poet John Crowe Ransom published “Sickness” in Poems of God, 1919. I don’t know if he had the flu, but in two lines he managed to express the suffering that everyone must have felt from the war (mustard gas) and influenza. (Here Lies a Lady was published in Chills and Fever, 1924).
And on this poisonous glare of dawns,
The whole world crumples in disease
John Crowe Ransom – lines from poem, Sickness (1919)
There are classic depictions in which artists transformed their experiences touched by WWI and/or disease in real time including Walter Bayes, Lovis Corinth, Kathe Kollwitz, Amy Lowell, Paul Nash, C.R. Nevinson, August Sander, John Singer Sargent, Walter Sickert, Edward Wadsworth and John Hall Wheelock.
Some of the best art created in the midst of war and the “Spanish Influenza” pandemic came from syndicated artists like Clare Briggs, W.E. Hill, Winsor McKay and Walter Allman.
Hill was commissioned for a few syndicated series with different publishers. There’s a “Spanish Influenza” single panel from Among Us Mortals. I thought of it immediately when friends mentioned passengers moving to one side of a NYC subway car if there was coughing in the last week of February during Covid-19.
With all this Spanish influenza around, it was no time for the delivery boy at the other end of the car to choke on a chocolate almond and start coughing (Library of Congress)
(You may have seen the optical trick illustration on the left, first published in 1915, without knowing W.. E. Hill’s name.)
The political cartoons were at times stunningly direct, even international examples printed in the U.S. papers. “Slaughtered by Influenza: Here lies confidence in our military medical authorities.” was from Zurich.
The generation fighting in WWI grew up captivated by Winsor McKay’s elaborate and glorious comic strip. In WWI , McKay created editorial cartoons for Hearst and Liberty Bonds. McKay’s son, Robert, an inspiration for Little Nemoin Slumberland, returned with war honors.
Pestilence is more than included in this single panel 1918, it pops.
A. Hyatt Mayor, esteemed curator with many connections to Gloucester, included McKay’s work in an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 1960s.
Another artist, Walter R. Allman shines brightly, even more when you learn that, “The Doings of the Duffs, ” comic strip was a daily. He succeeded in depicting ideas about war and influenza together, a rare instance of pandemic in the art of its time. Enjoy five strips to get a sense of his brilliant art, humor and commentary all from 1918.
Here’s Allman on the Draft Registration and Influenza Advice to open windows, “Speaking of Air and Questionnaires”:
And two more inspired by the final Draft Registration for males age 18-46. These were a bit PSA.
Here’s Allman on the timely Call to Woman to work or help, a side nod to the Red Cross, and an evergreen husband gag
Here’s Allman with the mic drop “In Flew Enza” reference, a meme of its time (probably did more for public health message than any bulletin!)
Look at the sweet arrow! “Tom Thought They all had Spanish Flu.”
I don’t know if Allman had the flu personally but he did battle that punishing schedule. And he had a baby in 1917, so there’s his life as a dad in the mix. Sadly, he had some type of health issue or breakdown for months before dying in 1924. Others continued the Duffs strip for nearly a decade. (**Author note: Look again at the Federal guidelines related to Influenza methods of control September 26, 1918 and artists for whom interiority was an intrinsic source of inspiration like Munch, Woolf, and Porter. Severe mental health after affects were forewarned and expected: “Former epidemics have been characterized by marked mental depression.” Madness hung in the flu air– and suffering from shell shock and other effects from the war broadcast in newsreels. **)
Families in 2020 can appreciate Clare Briggs October “Influenza” and Halloween panel from The Days of Real Sport. A great Briggs single panel can last a day.
Works of art that predate the pandemic, created during– or inspired by– prior infamous pandemics, were used to illustrate 1918 Pandemic news stories. For example, a John Collier painting from 1902 was used to illustrate a syndicated article in October 1918 :
“The English Artist [John] Collier’s Famous Picture of “The Plague [1902].” Such Epidemics Which Ravaged England and Almost All of Europe in the Seventeenth and Earlier Centuries Are Now Impossible, Modern Medical Science Having Devised Infallible Means of Coping with Them. The Influenza, Bad as It Is, Is a Slight Disorder Compared to Ancient Pestilences That Followed Wars.”
[John Collier 1898 painting, Lady Godiva, about 5 ft’ x 6 ft’, Herbert Museum Coventry, UK]
Not sure any matched Max Klinger – Plague (Pest), from the series Death, Part II (Vom Tode Zweiter Teil) etching from 1903
And of course WWI posters by James Montgomery Flagg
Influenza added materially to the handicap of other diseases.
I will append this section with more local examples and inspiration at Cape Ann Museum when Covid-19 restrictions subside. The following poem, Autumn, translated from the French from Lamartine by Mary A. Witham, was published in the Gloucester Daily Times October 19, 1918.
“the flower in dying gives out its last perfumes…”
SOURCES/FOOTNOTES
Listed at the end.
The sources and inspiration for this article were gathered from multiple books, journals, newspapers, rare old maps, local histories, photographs, background knowledge and family history. I confess to a certain deliberate favoritism & primary sources related to the arts. I am grateful for the great archives and open content. Voices from the past may interest descendants, and give us perspective and hope during Covid-19. With so many worthy of honor, especially those who sacrificed to keep Gloucester safe, and those who suffered and died, I thought it valuable to make Gloucester’s part in this history accessible to all. So I curated a resource and visual gallery to put Gloucester’s 1918 Pandemic history on line. The Gloucester Daily Times articles below which I transcribed intentionally are exhaustive & inspiring, and no part since 1918 had been previously published, or its full pages and article reproductions searchable on line. Other newspapers are fully accessible including big (New York Times) and small (Manchester Cricket).
DAY BY DAY – Gloucester Daily Times
Excerpts 9/1/1918-10/26/1918 related to the 1918 Flu Pandemic from the files of a Gloucester, Massachusetts, daily newspaper, Gloucester Daily Times, also known as “GDT” were transcribed by author, Catherine Ryan, from spooled reels, scanned by and from originals held at BP, accessed at Sawyer Free Library, and published for the first time since 1918 as first access to all. The selection includes full article reproductions. When various and sundry items not GDT are included on telling days, they’re so noted. The GDT did not publish a Sunday paper.
If you have time for just one day, make it October 11, 1918
**author note: Face masks 9flu masks) DIY sewing pattern instructions, September 30, 1918**
Presented by the four libraries of Cape Ann, the group exhibit, Once Upon a Contest: Selections from Cape Ann Reads, featuring original children’s picture books, is on display at the Rockport Public Library until February 29, 2020. Rockport is the 5th and final stop and hosting a reception on February 29th at 11am. At each venue, a Cape Ann Reads participating artist was invited to create a special temporary installation. Betty Allenbrook Wiberg is the Cape Ann Reads Invited Artist for Rockport. The show is made possible with support including the Bruce J. Anderson Foundation.
BETTY ALLENBROOK WIBERG
Pine needles, foam, playhouses and gnomes – custom family toys, miniatures and games from the artist’s archives and attic spanning 1969-2019
The Invited Artist for the Rockport stop of the travel show Once Upon a Contest: Selections from Cape Ann Reads is Betty Allenbrook Wiberg, a long-time Rockport artist and resident and former Bearskin Neck gallery owner. Wiberg has installed original toys she’s made over 50 years inside a display case and Children’s Room at the Rockport Public Library. Made by hand with love out of common materials found at home and in nature– like paper, foam core, seeds and acorn caps– these personalized toys were inspired by her children and grandchildren’s favorite books, hobbies and changing interests. In particular she chose examples of characters and worlds brought to life from the pages of books. Wiberg hopes the menagerie of custom toys for those dear to her will engage young and old alike and inspire ideas to try at home with any ready materials at hand.
As Wiberg placed acorn cap people within the display case, she explained how she was aiming for fanciful “haphazard” children’s worlds as when kids play. The red gnomes and stylized forest might blend together with the world of air dry, clay acorn figures, boundaries or not. Painted sculpey villagers parading past tiny painted blocks, a stand in for Bearskin Neck in Rockport, might stop for tea at an outdoor blue chairs circle. An interior scene inspired from Beatrix Potter books is draped with sculpey play food and housewares, set atop tables and hutch, dining seats and floor. Wiberg can’t help but design family directly into these captivating scenes. (The Allenbrook and Wiberg family trees are steeped in the arts.) Charming ephemera associated with loved ones, or expressed as figures and actions, are intrinsically dispersed and personal. A few of the acorn capped musicians were inspired by her son-in-law, a performer and musician. Her mother and daughter Kristy are painted waving from the window of the teeny Bearskin Neck home. A Lilliputian trophy was hers when she was a little girl.
In preparation for this installation, with help from her daughters pulling boxes from the attic and dusting off these cherished family toys, Wiberg recalled a favorite book from her childhood, Maida’s Little Shop (by Inez Haynes Irwin*), and how much she wanted to have a toy shop like the one in that story. With so many creative toys adapted for kids and grandkids spilling across every surface imaginable unearthed and under consideration for this installation, her family didn’t miss a beat. “You do have a toy shop!” they laughed.
“This show has me remembering books,” Wiberg stated. “I’ve never forgotten that that little book arrived in a bushel of books delivered as a gift by artist friends of my parents. Perhaps they were from a library sale. To this day I tend to give other children books, because they’ve had such an impact on me and my daughters.”
Betty Allenbrook Wiberg illustrated the children’s picture book, Little One, written by her eldest daughter, Kirsten Allenbrook Wiberg, which they submitted for the Cape Ann Reads contest. Little One is about a small elephant that struggles with growing up, encounters danger, but survives to live a long life. The story is illustrated with 13-14 pages of Betty’s stunning, full-size black and white images of African wildlife focusing on the small elephant and his/her family. Little One earned a Cape Ann Reads Gulliver Award. Kirsten Allenbrook Wiberg, eldest daughter of Betty, lives in Gloucester where she has maintained her therapeutic body-work practice since 1991.
In addition to the children’s picture book, Little One (included as part of the Once Upon a Contest group show), and these personalized toys she’s shared in public for the first time, examples of Wiberg’s still life and portrait fine art are also on view.
About the Artist
Betty Allenbrook Wiberg was born in London and moved to the United States as a child. She received a fine arts scholarship to attend Boston University, and she completed her formal training at Massachusetts College of Art. She continued to study under her father Charles T. Allenbrook, a well-known portrait artist who resided and worked in Rockport and Florida. In 1957, she married Lars-Erik Wiberg and they settled in Rockport, Massachusetts, where they raised three daughters. Betty created designs for George Caspari Cards, designed fabrics for Bagshaws of St. Lucia, served as an artist in Federal Court, provided artwork for the Hoosac Tunnel documentary, and operated a gallery and studio on Bearskin Neck. Wiberg recalls bags she created for the Rockport Public Library toy check out and drawings of England, local freelance work for the Lions Head Tavern menu at King’s Grant Inn on Rt.128***. She presently maintains a home portrait studio in Rockport. See her artist statement below.
*** bonus photos north shore fun fact: King’s Grant Inn Lion Head’s Tavern menu that Betty Allenbrook Wiberg illustrated
Betty Allenbrook Wiberg artist statement, Feb. 2020
As a youth my family lived in New Rochelle, New York. I remember drawing and painting from an early age and assisting my father at the local art association. We visited Rockport for vacations when I was a child and my father painted the local landscape.
My parents, Margaret and Charles T. Allenbrook bought “the Snuggery” in 1952 on Bearskin Neck and opened Allenbrook’s portrait studio. It had living quarters in the rear and upstairs. When I became more serious about my drawing, I would go out in the studio and draw portraits from my father’s models as they posed for him. This was the way I became comfortable drawing before others. Sometimes I would entertain the children so they would sit better for my father. I used masks and other toys to accomplish this or read them a book. When I was around seventeen I started doing painted silhouettes for a dollar and that was exciting to be earning something with my own efforts. I also helped with framing my father’s work. My father would give me advice and instruction on my efforts and I assembled a portfolio of my work which won me a scholarship to Boston University.
In 1954, I met my husband Lars-Erik Wiberg outside my father’s Rockport studio while he was working on a car. Yes, in those days one could park there. We married in 1957 and lived at the Fish House, 27 Bearskin Neck while I transferred to U Mass Art. After school, I opened a gallery in our home on the Neck. I did silhouettes and sold my fanciful drawings, block prints and other handwork. Later, we expanded the Fish house and had two daughters, Kristy and Margaret. When our third child, Brenda was on the way, we moved to larger quarters at our present location.
My husband made the children a large puppet theater* which sparked a series of handmade puppets of various sorts and materials. The children were eager art explorers and we had costumes and other creative materials ready at hand. We were regular visitors to the local library. I made cloth bags for toys which became a part of what could be borrowed from the Rockport Public Library.
I started doing commission work part time and also did volunteer work. In the 1980s this expanded to part-time work for the TV studios which brought me into another world since I was sketching in courtrooms. Once, I ended up on the sidewalk finishing a sketch, while the reporter waited to grab it and take it into the truck for transmission. It was hastily done and later when I viewed it, I saw they had zoomed in for a tight shot. I was embarrassed to see how careless the work appeared. It was an unnerving experience at times because the culprits were sitting right near the artists while we heard testimony of their serious misdeeds. I had a tongue stuck out at me by one of them and heard others’ lives threatened. My work exceeded the art budget of the TV station during the Angelo trial which went on for over a year.
This all changed when my father passed away in 1988 and I joined my mother at the studio on Bearskin Neck. I was happy to be working closer to home and sometimes could walk downtown to do portraits. It was very nice to spend more time with my mother and be drawing people and children who posed for me instead of trying to catch them from a distance as in the courtroom. Our daughter, Brenda later joined me and drew animal portraits from photos after she graduated from U Mass. art school. We worked together for about three years until 1996 when my parents’ studio was sold and we moved the studio to my home on South Street. Our daughter, Margaret, an art graduate also exhibited her art work and handmade jewelry with us. Over several years, we have had open studios and invited family and visitors to see our endeavors. Lately, this has been dormant but with grandchildren also creating their own art we are considering another open studio. It is a grand way of connecting with others who enjoy creating with various materials and share ours.
Thinking further about this show at the library, and Rockport, I was President of the Friends of the Rockport Library years ago, and also did some art work for them. And I spoke before the local rotary about my courtroom work long ago.
I would very much like to thank Catherine Ryan who has encouraged and inspired me to bring forth my art efforts through the Cape Ann Reads project she created with the local libraries. It has been far more of an adventure then I anticipated and brought many local artist and writing talents to the public through an exhibit at the Cape Ann Museum and the Libraries. I’ve had the opportunity to do a paper craft workshop at the Cape Ann Museum and hope to give one at the local library. Stay tuned in! – Betty Allenbrook Wiberg, February 2020
Betty Allenbrook Wiberg is the Invited Artist for the Once Upon a Contest: Selections from Cape Ann Reads travel show at the Rockport Public Library venue, February 2020, presented by the four public libraries of Cape Ann with support from the Bruce J Anderson Foundation | The Boston Fund.
~large puppet theater gifted to The Waldorf School
Installation views Once Upon A Contest: Selections from Cape Ann Reads
at Rockport Public Library February 2020
clone tag: -2744994135565511216
Claire Wyzenbeek
Enjoy ” Seek and find” activity sheets you can photograph to bring with you to the show or print out. (There are copies on site as well.) The first one is harder and may take longer. The mini one is geared to the youngest visitors.
————————-
Notes:
*Inez Haynes Irwin (b. 1873 Brazil – d. 1970 Massachusetts) author of Maida’s Little Shop, was a renowned early 20th century, award-winning Massachusetts author, suffragist and feminist. She attended Radcliffe. Her parents were from Boston. Haynes married newspaper editor Rufus Gillmore in 1897; they later divorced. She married William Henry Irwin in 1916. She wrote fifteen books in the Maida series beginning with Maida’s Little Shop in 1909, first published by American publisher B.W. Huebsch**, and concluding with Maida’s Little Treasure Hunt in 1955. Haynes was the first fiction editor for The Masses. She served as Vice President and President of the Author’s Guild of America. In 1924, she received an O. Henry Award her short story, The Spring Flight. Her aunt, Lorenza Haynes (1820-1899), was the first public librarian in Waltham, Massachusetts, then one of Massachusett’s first three ordained female ministers. The aunt’s assignments began in Maine, where she also served as Chaplain to the Maine House of Representatives and Senate. Her ministries included two in Rockport: the First Universalist Church on Hale Street (1884) and the Universalist Society, Pigeon Cove. (“She was an acceptable preacher and did good work wherever her lot was cast.” Universalist Register, 1900. Scroll up and down – fascinating to compare the complimentary entries for the male pastors in these pages. For a more detailed entry see this nutshell on Lorenza Haynes ). Inez wrote about her aunt and big family in this major essay. In it she corrects the record that her aunt left posts because of unfair pay, not her frality as reported in biographies.
Artist Betty Allenbrook Wiberg did not know that the little Maida book she recalled so fondly was part of a series or about its author or the aunt’s ties with Rockport. “I haven’t thought about that book until I worked on this show. It’s almost providence at work when you hear connections like these!”
1875 City directory
**About Inez Hayne’s first publisher, B.W. Huebsch– His eponymous firm sponsored writers and was credited with building interest for Joyce, Strindberg, DH Lawrence, Sherwood Anderson and others. His imprint was a 7 branch candlestick with his initials BWH. Later, he merged his firminto a nascent Viking Press and continued at the helm as editor in chief. According to the NY Times obit he was a leader in the A.C.L.U.
The blanketing New England autumn is stronger on the walls at Cape Ann Museum than the fall landscape all around us just now. (When I saw this ravishing exhibit at the beginning of June, I had that same feeling about ‘summer’.) Though the seasons of color may disappoint us one year to the next, the impact of these paintings only intensifies with close observation. This is a show for anyone with an interest in painting. Rockbound at Cape Ann Museum features a terrific variety of iconic Cape Ann seacoast scenes and artists. There’s an added urgency to see the show in person: most are on loan from private collections, shown together for the first time. Come fill your eyes and heart before this exclusive opportunity passes by.
Rockbound: Painting the American Scene on Cape Ann and Along the Shore closes October 29th.The Cape Ann Museum “gratefully acknowledges the many collectors* who lent to this exhibition and the following individuals: Mary Craven, Margaret Pearson, John Rando and Arthur Ryan.” *anonymous private lenders, Endicott College, Roswitha and William Trayes, JJ and Jackie Bell, and others
(The wonderful Fitz Henry Lane exhibition that just opened will be on view through March 4, 2018.)
3 works by W Lester Stevens
EXHIBIT MYSTERY
I think that the “Unattributed decorative mirror for over mantel” may be the hand of artist Frederick Stoddard. Perhaps it’s from a series or the “Morning Mantle Decoration by Fred L. Stoddard” that’s listed in the 1923 Gloucester Society of Artists inaugural exhibition.
INSTALLATION highlights
Margaret Patterson, Motif Number One Rockport Harbor, ca.1920, goauche, collection Roswitha & William Trayes, installed at Cape Ann Museum 2017 Rockbound exhibition
Artists include Yarnall Abbott, Gifford Beal, George Bellows, Theresa Berenstein, Hugh Breckenridge, Stuart Davis, Marsden Hartley, Aldro Hibbard, Max Kuehne, Emma Fordyce Macrae, Margaret Patterson, Lester Stevens, Anthony Thieme, and more (hover over image to see artist information)
photos pairings below: Finding Cape Ann Museum Rockbound color/mood inspiration just outside in Gloucester October vistas (not literal place/time pairings but that could be done as well!)
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Many of you have probably visited The Paper House at one time or another if you grew up in Rockport or Gloucester. I remember visiting it as a child when my grandmother (God only knows how she found it) took us there. My mother and I went to visit it again yesterday. It is a cool tucked away little treasure in Pigeon Cove, well worth a visit if you’ve never been, or a nice memory to return to if you haven’t been in years. It was built by Elis and Esther Stenman, who must have been a very unique and interesting couple. You can learn more about it at http://www.paperhouserockport.com/index.html. It seems to always be open, and is run on the honor system, where you leave your $2 admission in a metal mailbox by the front door of the main house. There are signs, but it is a little tricky to find. From Rockport, take left just before you reach the Tool Company, go up a little and take a left and then your second right (watch for signs). It is #52 Pigeon Hill Street. Coming the other way, take the right up a hill, right after you pass the Tool Company, then first left and second right.
If you look closely, the 2nd photo includes The Boston Post edition from April 16, 1924, in which the Sox apparently lost with 24,000 fans watching.
E.J. Lefavour
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It has been decades since the ring of the 100 ton drop forge has been heard at the Cape Ann Tool Company. It took most of 2013 to get the smokestack down. Now it is time to dream about what will go behind the five doors.
My wish list:
1) A restaurant: Northern India plus Seafood. Greg Bover wants it named “The Tan Dory”. Or Mexican Seafood. “The Pigeon Cove Taco”. This will include a bar which does not require ordering a Cove Burger in order to be served a Fisherman’s IPA.
2) Coffee Shop and Bakery: fresh coffee and a bagel. Opens at 6 AM and imports Brother’s Brew Butternut Crunch Doughnuts.
3) Village Market: loaf of bread, butter, potatoes, onions, six pack of beer, Cape Pond Ice, scratch tickets, Allen’s Coffee Brandy.
4) Tackle Shop: bait, rods to rent for kids to catch a flounder behind the store, T-Shirts from Cape Pond Ice.
5) Art Studio: Art CO-OP, all media, pottery, ceramics, Rockport Art Association North Colony.
What’s on your wish list? A fresh seafood market? In-N-Out Burger? Uniqlo?
Retail Space Available: 617-482-6050
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I physically can’t shovel snow and Janet had shoveler’s fatigue. This morning, I saw three people walking up the street, all carrying shovels. We asked if they were looking for work, and they started clearing our driveway and walkways. These were, in fact, our neighbors Eva Maria (L), Heike (mother of these kids), and Levin (R). They did an outstanding job, speak German (their native language), and I asked them to come back after the next snow storm.
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Click the photo for a larger Panorama. (The roof is not tilted, that is my iPhone 6+ panorama stitching the photo.)
Cape Ann Tool Company November 10, 2014.
So the renovation seems a little weird but now I think I got it. Ream out the inside and put in nice new windows and redo the stucco on the stone end of the Cape Ann Tool Company. I would have thought those would be done last but I think they are aiming to get businesses in there quickly.
I could see a coffee shop, a little market selling fish, bread, and coffee, maybe even some light tackle so a kid could go catch a flounder over on the right. If I was dreaming I couple picture Plum Cove Grind moving into the front and a restaurant moving into the back overlooking Pigeon Cove.
No law against dreaming. An Indian Seafood Restaurant! Anmol II. Be still my heart. If you did that Anmol I promise to bring my family dining at least once a week.
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I’m safely back in Pigeon Cove – Home. It feels like I have a new life. Again, thanks to all the professionals and friends who helped me along the way. I’ll never forget you.
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Today, Sunday 6/8/14, I’m being discharged from the Rehab and going home. It has been a grueling five month journey. Along the way, I resided at three medical facilities that treated and nourished me back to health. Without them, I wouldn’t be traveling the next path – to my home in Pigeon Cove. “One never reaches home, but wherever friendly paths intersect the whole world looks like home for a time.” Hermann Hesse (1877-1962) Pigeon Cove map 1852
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From some shots I took last summer I have been putting this together. A montage of sorts. As you look at it, there appears more than just rusty relics of buildings, but also Pigeon Cove and the granite breakwater. Thought I’d share this different view.
Cape Ann Tool
42.577834 -70.767597
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July 24, 2013. This is the Cape Ann Tool Company in Pigeon Cove, Rockport. The defunct industrial site will be made into single family housing and incorporate a public harbor walk.
Photo taken November 16, 2013. It took months for workers to jackhammer the tower down to a height within reach of the excavator (foreground), which finished the job in short order.
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A very nice couple from Melrose stopped in for a second time today, and bought a Rockport mug. “We’re renting in Rockport for the winter,” they said. Where? Pigeon Cove. I just happened to be framing this photo at the time. They’re now on the gallery mailing list for future events. They love it here. Who wouldn’t? Heaven on earth.
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Click twice to embiggen: sucker is 9,283 pixels wide.Panorama on the new iPhone 5 is pretty slick. As simple as can be and no waiting. Sometimes it says to slow down as I pan across. Here is one of my first shots. Oh Em Gee! When I pointed the camera directly into the sun I detect a purple haze. Apple is going to die for this!
The pano stitching is pretty good. Handheld and turn the phone. The horizon is a tad ragged on the left hand side but the clarity through out is not too shabby. All three lighthouses , couple of boats, a dog and a duck. I over saturated the colors on a lower resolution and I can do a better job with a smooth sweep with practice. If dogs or people move when you are sweeping they can become quite amusing, scary, and mutated.
I’ll write my review of the iPhone after I use it for a week.
First impressions: I can talk in a monotone robot voice pretty easily so Siri can dictate notes and email. It does pretty well and I think I might use that feature.
The maps app with siri is seriously amazing. I have not driven off a cliff yet. Get in the car and tell Siri to drive to an address and #boom she is a chatty little thing telling me the way.
Bizarre quirk: We haven’t figured out the command to tell her we have arrived and we would like her to quit the map program. Siri, quit maps, Siri, stop driving, Siri, shut up. None of them worked. Sue finally told her to shut the fsck up and she replied, “that’s not very nice” and quit the app. She is amusing and I hope I do not get locked up when found on a street corner swearing at my phone in one hand with a Rubber Duck in the other.
Click on the pick for the full monty. Stella, Rubber Duck, Chapin’s Gully, Pigeon Cove.
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Today’s Scientific American has a story here explaining why we have not had a winter yet. Something about the NAO or North Atlantic Oscillation keeping the jet stream straight and high to the north of us. Could it stay up there? They can’t seem to predict that. What? Can’t predict the weather? I wouldn’t mind if spring arrived sometime early February. I bet you could go out and clip some forsythia to force right now. Go ahead. Meanwhile …
This was shot February 27th of last year. Click the photo for a shot of Motif #1 the same day. So we need to sneak past February before we can start thinking that we have skipped an entire winter.
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Rockport Class of 1961 50th Reunion was held at the Cafe Sevens Seas, Gloucester House July 2, 2011, with a Dinner Buffet. There was a “Memorabilia” table with pictures and mementos, music of the era, and a booklet for class members. There were also gifts from the Rockport High School Alumni. Class members attended from California, Florida, Tennessee, New York, and New England, as well as Cape Ann & Rockport. It was a fun evening!!
Rockport 50th Reunion Committee Members
Rockport 1961-The “Pigeon Covers” Class Members
Rockport 1961-The “Downtowners & South Enders” Class Members
Rockport 1961 50th Reunion all attending Class Members
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I don’t know very much about the Cape Ann Tool Co., so if anyone has a good online source of information or first-hand knowledge, please pass it along!
Thanks! —Sharon
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Good Morning Gloucester 
