March 6, 1963
Wed. Rainy and foggy with strong east wind in a.m. 30. Roads icy. Wind shifted at noon and it snowed from west in p.m. School started late, Sue went home with Becky. I finished ironing and my dress. Lights went out quarter to 5 in a dreadful wind and we didn’t’t have power until 9:30. Only Halls and us were without them. We called light company about 8 pm. Called Ella at night Merel was quite sick with flu.
Comment: We lost power quite often on the hill and when we did one of the problems was is that we had to milk the cows by hand. This made a one hour chore into a two hour chore.
Merel and the rest of his generation luckily lived through one of the greatest natural disasters in history, the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic. Strangely, I never heard any of them talk about it and I often wonder why. Were they so isolated in a rural area that it did not affect them? Not sure...here is a Wikipedia synopsis of what they lived through:
The 1918 flu pandemic (the Spanish Flu) was an unusually severe and deadly influenza pandemic that spread across the world. Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify the geographic origin.[1] Most victims were healthy young adults, in contrast to most influenza outbreaks which predominantly affect juvenile, elderly, or weakened patients. The flu pandemic was implicated in the outbreak of encephalitis lethargica in the 1920s.[2]
The pandemic lasted from June 1917 to December 1920,[3] spreading even to the Arctic and remote Pacific islands. Between 50 and 100 million died, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history.[4][5][6][7][8] Even using the lower estimate of 50 million people, 3% of the world's population (1.8 billion at the time[9]), died of the disease. Some 500 million, or 28% (≈1/4) were infected.[5]
Merel and the rest of his generation luckily lived through one of the greatest natural disasters in history, the 1918 Spanish Flu Pandemic. Strangely, I never heard any of them talk about it and I often wonder why. Were they so isolated in a rural area that it did not affect them? Not sure...here is a Wikipedia synopsis of what they lived through:
The 1918 flu pandemic (the Spanish Flu) was an unusually severe and deadly influenza pandemic that spread across the world. Historical and epidemiological data are inadequate to identify the geographic origin.[1] Most victims were healthy young adults, in contrast to most influenza outbreaks which predominantly affect juvenile, elderly, or weakened patients. The flu pandemic was implicated in the outbreak of encephalitis lethargica in the 1920s.[2]
The pandemic lasted from June 1917 to December 1920,[3] spreading even to the Arctic and remote Pacific islands. Between 50 and 100 million died, making it one of the deadliest natural disasters in human history.[4][5][6][7][8] Even using the lower estimate of 50 million people, 3% of the world's population (1.8 billion at the time[9]), died of the disease. Some 500 million, or 28% (≈1/4) were infected.[5]
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