Interview of Howard Dyer, Otisfield, Maine
29 April 2009
The 1918 Influenza Pandemic
Interviewer: Henry Hamilton
The media is hot on the subject of an influenza pandemic so I thought it might remind you of the Spanish flu?
You see in 1919, I remember I woke up in the morning, I thought I was feeling pretty well. My father was going down to East Otisfield, I said can I go, he said sure, jump in. Before I got back I was so sick it seemed so that I couldn’t live. Well I didn’t have a bad time for more than two or three days, I started getting better all the time, but I’ve been deaf in my right ear ever since. A number of years ago a Dr said that if I’d let him he’d fix my ear. He put a steel plate in there but it didn’t help. He was wrong. Because our Doctor was Dr. Haskell, everybody believed in him. He told me when I was a kid that my hearing was gone for good. I don’t know how he knew, but he was right. I haven’t heard anything out of that ear for over 90 years.
Did the rest of your family get the flu also?
We was lucky. My sister and I had it, my father got it the first thing. Well, he needed someone to look after things and we were old enough and we did. He got better pretty soon. By and by, as I said, I went to the store and when I got back I knew I had it. My sister got it a week or so after. So we all had it but mother, she never got it.
But you knew that the flu was a very dangerous disease sweeping the country at the time?
Yes, you know, we had a good Doctor here, his name was Dr. Haskell. He took care of us. He knew a lot about flu. He said that about all he could do was to try to make you comfortable. He told us to drink a lot of ice water and he said that it would be a good idea to drink a root beer every day. That helped too. He told us that we should be careful, not get tired, lay around drink a lot of water and root beer and we did, but we felt terrible, but we got over it. And we all thanked him for telling us what to do. But when I was sick I wanted to die. I was 12.
Did many people have it in Otisfield?
Just about everyone. It was a strange thing, there was usually one in each family that didn’t have it. Now how do you account for that? You see, we depended a lot on Mother, she didn’t have it. Why we never knew, we expected her to get it, but she was a tough woman.
How about the death rate in Otisfield?
Well, flu took right off all our Civil War veterans, every one of them. We had seven of them, this week one would die, in a couple of weeks another would go, that’s the way I remember it, the death dates on their tombstones are all the same year.
Did the flu arrive in town pretty quickly and then leave, or did it linger?
It was here for quite a while, a lot of people didn’t get it, until, like if they would have a town meeting or something like that and then you’d see someone come down with it. Church could be a dangerous place.
How did it affect everyday life here?
Well, we all did the best we could, we never thought of asking for any help or anything. My sister and I were old enough, my brother wasn’t and Dorothy wasn’t thought of, well, she might have been thought of, but she wasn’t here yet. Anyway, it worked out good for us, you see, it didn’t upset things too much because Father had it, when he got better one of us would get it and then another one, so there was always someone who could do things that had to be done.
There must have been a lot of funerals in town, but that’s not anything I knew much about because I didn’t start attending funerals until I got 40 or so.
Did government restrictions apply in Otisfield?
I don’t think so, the people in Otisfield were this way, The Government isn’t going to tell me what to do. God dam them, if I want a regular funeral that’s what I’ll have.
I’ve read that in Portland that if you wanted to buy groceries that you had to hand the owner of the shop a note and he brought the groceries out to the street to you. Did anything like this happen in Otisfield?
Not that I know of. We used to go down to the store, Harry Stone had the store down here, and I’m sure we could go right in and get what we wanted, and I’m sure he had it, but he had someone who could tend his store.
Was there a shortage of grave diggers, caskets, and such?
We never had to think about it in our family because we didn’t lose anyone. Grandfather had it, and he was real sick, but he got better.
At the same time that this terrible disease was going on, the war was going on.
Well yes, the end of the war, on Nov. 11th we signed the treaty.
Also when the soldiers returned home that there was a second surge of it.
Yuh, I’ve heard that too.
Were there parts of Maine where the disease was worse than others?
I don’t think so. I think it was all over. It was really bad in Portland because there were so many people.
How did the epidemic affect life in town?
Now, we was careful. Mother wouldn’t let us go where there were other people. We couldn’t even go up to our grandfather’s. She’d say, no you stay here and we’ll see, perhaps we won’t get it. She didn’t. People tended not to visit and that was a hardship because that was the only fun we ever had was visiting. Over beyond where Garry lives by the corner there was a man named Wallace Lord. He run the Town Farm for years. His wife died and he gave it up. We felt it a hardship not to go to his house. His brother came to keep house for him. He was kind of, well, something in his head wasn’t wired right. We used to laugh at him and with him. But he was an awful nice man. We kids, not knowing any better, would correct him but he didn’t mind, he was just a good natured man, even though he wasn’t too bright.