Spanish Flu in Allegany County, Maryland
When an Avian-Flu-Like Epidemic Killed Hundreds in One Month
In Allegany County, Maryland, the Cumberland Evening Times took little notice of the Spanish Flu until the end of September 1918. At that time, it talked about the effect of the flu on other places and the problems it was causing.
Then people began to get sick and die.
County Takes Steps to Prevent Flu
On October 4, 1918, the Board of Health passed an order closing schools, churches, theaters and dance halls. Streetcars and other public transportation had to travel with windows open. Plus, a person couldn’t spit on the street and needed to use a handkerchief when he or she coughed or sneezed. This is because fresh air was believed to be the best defense against Spanish Flu.
The order came too late to help much. All of the obituaries for people who died that day died the day the Board of Health’s order was issued died from Spanish Influenza. The same issue of the paper also noted that hospitals were so helpless about treating the flu, they didn’t want to risk spreading the flu to other patients who would be susceptible. They asked that flu cases not be brought to the hospitals.
How Bad Was the Flu in Allegany County?
The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad had 6,000 employees in the county at that time; 1,000 of them reported sick with the flu on October 4.
On October 5, pool halls and bars were added to the places the Board of Health closed during the epidemic. Drug clerks were becoming overworked trying to fill all of the orders for medicines.
“The department stores, in fact the stores generally, are all hard pushed for help. At one large department store it was stated this morning that they were short some thirty-two clerks.”
Creating a Doctor Shortage When Needed Most
Doctor shortages was one of the insidious ways Spanish Flu worked. It not only sickened a person, requiring them to need medical attention, but it sickened doctors and nurses making them unavailable to treat patients who desperately needed their help.
The Cumberland Evening Times wrote, “The number of cases up to and including yesterday which have come under the notice of the physicians total four thousand. This, of course, does not include the cases which have not been attended by any doctors, which would increase the number to a large extent.”
On October 7, the city hospitals were afraid to admit flu patients because it might spread to the other patients. The Red Cross began opening emergency hospitals.
Other Problems Caused By the Flu
The shortage extended to gravediggers. The Cumberland Evening Times reported, “Several funerals may have to be postponed because grave diggers at Rose Hill cemetery are overtaxed. It was reported this afternoon that orders were in for ten graves to be dug, but one so far had been prepared.”
An article in the Journal of the Alleghenies read, “Bodies of Frostburg servicemen stationed at Fort Meade were sent back to Frostburg wrapped in blankets and tagged. Their bodies were stored temporarily in the corner house where the Frostburg Legion building now stands. Behind the post office in a carriage house, open doors revealed bodies laid on the floor. At the Durst Funeral Home from October 5 to October 31, 1919, ninety-nine bodies were prepared for the last rites. Those bodies, placed in rough caskets or wooden boxes, were carted to the cemetery and stacked until burial.”
The phone company also pleaded for people to only utilize the phones in case of emergency because they were short operators because of the flu.
Coal production in the numerous mines in the George’s Creek Region fell off because the miners took sick.
At this point, the B&O Railroad, which had 1,000 workers out earlier now had 3,500 people – nearly six out of every ten railroad workers in Cumberland – out sick with the flu.
The Flu Subsides
By October 16, doctors began to report that they were catching up in their case loads. Over the next couple weeks, new cases began to drop off and the hospitals began to empty of flu patients. On October 25, the Board of Health ban was finally lifted.
About 500 residents died of the Spanish Flu during October.
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