Corona Virus, Pandemics and Remembering My Grandmother

Edward and Bertha Roth's wedding photo 1918

I have been reading about the Corona Virus for over two months now.  From the first outbreak in China up until counting the daily death toll here at home there has been little of anything else to think about.   It is on the TV news non stop.  And Facebook is no escape from it either.  There is the doom and gloom daily updates and the humorous daily memes to capture our attention online.   We are not supposed to gather in large groups right now.  Weddings are being cancelled and conducted with no guests.   There are questions about how to hold memorial services for our deceased when we are not supposed to gather in groups of more than ten.   Our schools are closed.  Many are without jobs.  We will never forget these days.   Much like watching the daily body counts from the Viet Nam war on TV we now are counting bodies by country and ranking which ones have the most deaths.  It's truly frightening and exhausting.

I was joking with some friends on Facebook today and we were comparing our efforts scrubbing our floors and house holds today.   As I scrubbed my own kitchen and dining area today with Pine Sol I took a deep breath and smelled the fresh scent of the Pine Sol.  I was immediately back in my Grandmothers tiny three room apartment.  She scrubbed and cleaned her apartment on a daily basis.  The minute I would walk into her home I was surrounded with the scent of Pine Sol.   I could not help but feel her presence with me today while I cleaned.

As I reminisced about her today it dawned on me that she was alive for the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic to which  out current situation is so often compared.   And yet I never remember her ever talking about surviving a pandemic.  Her name was Bertha Wilson but was known as Bertie to most of her friends.   She was born in 1897.   I stopped to think about what she might have been doing in 1918.   She was not bombarded with non stop daily updates about the pandemic.  Radio's were not common in most homes until the late 1920's.  There was no TV with twenty four news and daily Presidential updates.   There was no internet to surround her with doom and gloom.  So I have to wonder if she even  realized there was a terrible flu spreading across the world.

I did some quick research on the Spanish Flu today.  It started spreading across the globe in 1918.   One article stated that many believed the virus came to the United States through the military.  In 1918 my grandmother met and married her husband Edward Roth.

Edward Roth 1916

The second waveof  the Spanish flu arrived in the United State late summer 1918.  It is believed it was carried by the returning dough boys from World War I.  My grandfather was one of those dough boys returning home and was stationed at the newly opened Aberdeen Proving Ground.  The virus spread from Boston and to New York and Philadelphia before spreading west to St. Louis and San Francisco.

Dough Boys Returning Home - My grandfather Edward Roth upper left

Edward Roth 1918

Here in Maryland the first notice of the flu came in late September 1918 in a handful of soldiers at Camp Meade.  Each soldier was quarantined.  But visitors and other solders were allowed to come and go at will.  Then within a few days there were almost 2,000 cases reported at the camp.   In Baltimore theaters and railway and street car operators were asked to keep their spaces well ventilated.  They were asked to post signs suggesting travelers sneeze and cough into kerchiefs.

My grandmother Bertha Wilson and her mother Katherine Wilson

I do know my grandmother had a very active and busy year in 1918 during the epidemic. She met and married my grandfather. They moved from Maryland to Indiana, his home, after they were married that year. While in Indiana my grandmother had one child who was still born. She was very depressed and missed her home and family very much. So they moved back to Maryland in early 1919 while the flu was still active in the country. But she survived. I never knew my grandfather. He died when my mother was still a teenager during the Great Depression. My grandmother lived until 1976. She raised four children during the Depression. She survived the death of her husband. Every year she would watch our local 4th of July parade. When the military from Aberdeen Proving Ground would march past she would put her hand over her heart and say there go my boys. And she would always have a tear. Sad but sweet memories for her I am sure.




My grandmother often spoke of World War II. She would mention the black out drills, the rationing and the the Great Depression. She loved telling stories. But she never once mentioned the great pandemic of the Spanish Flu. She survived all of this. And we too will survive this pandemic. And maybe like her I will never mention it again.

My grandmother Bertha Wilson with me 1953

Plagues, Epidemics and Memorials - History Repeating Itself

Pestsäule - Plague Column - Vienna Austria

Travel is my passion,  and taking photos of my travels is my favorite hobby.   So when faced with social distancing and the threat of quarantine due to the COVID-19 virus, I find going through my travel photos and thinking of the beautiful places I have visited brings some sort of calmness to the madness all around me right now.  With all of the attention focused on Corona Virus today, I found myself being led to photos I have taken of Plague Memorials in Central Europe.  

Santa Maria della Salute, Venice Italy

Santa Maria della Salute on the Grand Canal in Venice

 In the summer of 1630 and up until 1631 a wave of the plague assaulted Venice killing nearly a third of its population.   As an offering for the city's deliverance from the plague the city vowed to build a church dedicated to Our Lady of Health, Santa Maria della Salute.  The city decided not to dedicate the church just to the plague or a patron saint.  They decided to dedicate it to the Virgin Mary who they believed was the protector of their Republic.  I visited Venice in the spring of 2002.   When I arrived in Piazza San Marco and walked to the water front of the Grand Canal this beautiful basilica dominated the horizon.   

Images of Santa Maria Della Salute

Church of All Saints - Sedlac, Czech Republic

Two years after my visit to Venice, I traveled to Prague in the Czech Republic in 2004.  I returned  again in 2015.  Both times I visited the Kostnice located in the village of Sedlac.   The Kostnice is an Ossuary or Bone Church.   It is named the Church of All Saints.   In all of my travels this is truly one of the most fascinating places I have seen. 

The cemetery and Church of All Saints - Sedlac, Czech Republic

  In the thirteenth century the Abbott of the Monastery in Sedlac was sent to the Holy Land in Jerusalem.  He returned with a mound of dirt believed to have come from Golgotha.  He spread the dirt over the Abbey cemetery.  Because of this dirt this became a very important burial location.  During the fourteenth century the cemetery was filled with bodies from the Black Plague.  A new chapel was built in the fifteen hundreds. Many graves were exhumed for the new chapel and the bones were stored in the basement of the new church.   In 1870 the history of these bodies from the Black Plague takes on a macabre and fascinating turn.   Frantisek Rint was a local woodcarver.  He was employed to organize the old bones that had been laying the basement for all of these years.  The bones were used to decorate the church.  Chandeliers, a chalice and altars were all transformed into bones.  Rint even signed his work by writing his name on the wall with bones.  

Signature of the artist

The plague Column of the Virgin Mary Immaculate in Kutná Hora, Czech Republic

Just a short walk from Sedlac is the village of Kutna Hora.  Located here is a Plague Column.  I have seen  several of these through out Europe.  This one was built as a reminder of the death from the plague of the early 1700's.  There is a statue of Mary on top of the column as on many Plague columns.  Many of these columns were built to honor Mary in hopes for protection from other plagues.  

Trinity Monument - Prague, Czech Republic

The Trinity Monument is another Plague Column in the Czech Republic.  This one is located in Prague's Lesser Town Square.   At one time there was a pillory and gallows here.  So this square is historically associated with death.  But now there is a monument here that memorialized the end of a disease that plagued the city of Prague.  After the outbreak of the early 1700's was finally under control, the city erected this Plague Column.

Pestsäule - Plague Column - Vienna Austria

The Trinity Column in Vienna is located on Graben, one of the main streets in the inner city.  It is one of the better know Plague Columns in Europe.  It was built after the great epidemic of 1679 and is one of the cities great pieces of art often compared to the work of Bernini in Rome.  While I was in Vienna I was not worried about the plague.  My luggage was lost and never arrived.  So I was concerned with buying underwear in a city where I did not speak the language.   I took photos of the monument without really knowing what it represented until I returned home and was doing research on my photos.   At the time of the plague the Habsburg emperor Leopold I fled the city but vowed to erect a mercy column if the epidemic would end. 

I 

.These churches and monuments were erected to memorialize the loss from the great plagues that challenged the western world in their time. They were also created to ask forgiveness for the sins they felt lead to these plagues and in hopes to protect their people from future epidemics. After the horrors of 9/11 we have build great monuments and displayed pieces of the World Trade Center in our major cities across the country. We have one here in Baltimore. In New York we have build a towering sky scraper complex to replace and memorialize the original World Trade Center. I am wondering tonight what will happen at the end of the current world wide pandemic. Will we be inspired to create art and memorial fountains to remember it? Will we learn from our greed and hoarding that is harming us now? Will our current leaders promise to build memorials to our sacrificies. Or will they build great monuments to themselves to brag about their self imagined great accomplishments in fighting this enemy? We will survive. We will recover. But will we learn from our mistakes?