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Saturday, March 14, 2020

The Pandemic of 1918 at Marianna's School for Boys

264 sick and thirteen dead in 48-hours.

by Dale Cox


The African American dormitory at Florida Industrial School
for Boys, where 196 of 198 students fell ill within 48-hours.
The Florida State Reform School became the Florida Industrial School for Boys (later Dozier School for Boys) in 1914. Four years later, it was devastated by the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918.
The flu hit with a vengeance, and the best efforts of doctors, nurses, and public health officials were quickly overwhelmed. Reports prepared by the latter indicate that 371 Floridians lost their lives to the flu during a twelve-day period that ended on October 17, 1918. And these deaths were just the beginning.
Jacksonville officials quarantined their entire city and urged citizens to wear masks. St. Augustine closed its schools, theaters and soda fountains while banning public gatherings and even church services. The month was remembered for years there as “churchless October.”
The Great Flu Pandemic of 1918 was the most severe and deadly pandemic in recorded history to strike the United States. Estimates vary, but between 500,000 and 650,000 Americans lost their lives, as did millions of people worldwide. The number of deaths from Spanish influenza was higher than the number of battle deaths suffered in World War I.
Children wearing masks during the
1918 Spanish Influenza pandemic.
Influenza spread like lightning, and in Jackson County, as much as 50% of the population fell sick within a matter of days. The Florida Industrial School for Boys, tragically, was not exempt.
Of the 267 students at the school, 264 fell ill within 48 hours. The assistant superintendent of the North or “colored” campus became sick, as did his entire family. All three of the school's engineers succumbed to the illness, along with all of the students that helped them run the school’s power, water, and sewage systems. With no one to run the pumps, the school’s water dried up.  With no water, the toilets and sinks stopped working. The small hospital, a wooden building measuring only 16 by 16 feet, had no water, power, or sanitation.
The African American North or “colored” campus (as it was called in that day) was overcrowded before the Spanish flu. Within three days, 196 of the 198 students and eight of the ten employees there fell ill. The matron of the North campus was the first person at the school to die. Her body lay unburied for 24 hours because there was no one to dig a grave. On the white or South campus, meanwhile, 68 of the 69 students became sick along with all but one or two of the employees.
The situation deteriorated so quickly that “horror” is the only word to describe it:
Nurses helping sick soldiers during the 1918 pandemic. The
Spanish Influenza killed more American soldiers than died
from enemy fire in World War I.
Conditions at the school are very bad. Sewerage imperfect, no sanitary rules at all, screens broke, fleas by the thousands. There were thirty-five cases of pneumonia, lack of medicine and lack of proper nourishment. No linen, boys lying under wool blankets, naked, with dirty mattresses on the cement floor; the reason said to be that the husks would all run out if put on a cot. The condition was one of filth, body lice, improper food, no bathing for lack of towels.[i]
Dr. George W. Klock, who wrote the above, was an official with the U.S. Public Health Service. He arrived at the school as influenza was raging and conditions were at their worst:
 The dinner of the well colored boys the day I was there being hoecake and bacon grease thickened with flour. The dinner of the white boys being rice and bacon grease gravy. One boy said he was flogged for refusing to cook peas full of worms; that meat sent to the boys was kept until spoiled and then fed them and they all were sick.[ii]
Klock did not note in his report that the citizens of Marianna were also suffering from the flu. Only one of the city’s doctors remained on his feet and was so overwhelmed that he simply could not care for the hundreds of patients pleading for his help. Most citizens had to care for themselves as deaths multiplied across Jackson County. Graves dating from the fall of 1918 dot the landscape at cemeteries throughout the area. Many of the dead were children.
Eleven students and two employees died at the Florida Industrial School for Boys during the Spanish Influenza pandemic. Although the University of South Florida, citing a Miami Herald report, claimed that all were African American, school records indicate that both white and black students were among the deceased:
Wilbur Smith, 1918; Influenza; African American; Student
Willie Adkins; 1918; Influenza; African American; Student
Lloyd Dutton; 1918; Influenza; White; Student
Hilton Finley, 1918; Influenza; White; Student
Puner Warner, 1918; Influenza; White; Student
Ralph Whidden, 1918, Influenza, White, Student
Unknown, 1918, Influenza, Race unknown, Student
Unknown, 1918, Influenza, Race unknown, Student
Unknown, 1918, Influenza, Race unknown, Student
Unknown, 1918, Influenza, Race unknown, Student
Unknown, 1918, Influenza, Race unknown, Student
Unknown, 1918, Influenza, African American, Female Employee
Unknown, 1918, Influenza, White, Male Employee
The "Boot Hill Cemetery" on the Dozier School
campus was shown on topographic maps as
early as 1948. 25% of the people buried there
died of the Spanish flu in one week.
The flu continued with deadly effect at the school until doctors and nurses from the Florida State Hospital in Chattahoochee reached the scene. The arrival of trained medical personnel stopped the spiraling death rate and improved conditions at the school.
Governor Sidney Catts ordered an investigation of conditions. A group of three physicians made this inquiry and issued a report in January 1919. On the defensive, the doctors scalded Dr. Klock for his failure to investigate better the causes of the horrific conditions he witnessed:
…Did Dr. Klock say that the superintendent was not a well man? That the assistant superintendent, in charge of the colored department, with all his family were stricken? Did he say that one of the matrons died and remained for hours without attention because the few not in bed had to give aid to the living? Did he say that the attending physician, the only doctor on his feet in Marianna and surrounding community had ten times as much to do as any human being could perform? Did he say that the school was without water for lack of help to run the pump, causing the sewers to choke? Did he say that sixty-eight out of sixty-nine white boys and one hundred and ninety-eight colored boys were down practically at one time? Did he say that the dining room…with cement floor, was temporarily converted into a hospital by a physician, to relieve the congestion in their dormitory?... Did he say that the good people of Marianna had been acting as nurses of this institution until the needs of their own families and surroundings took them away?[iii]
Spanish Influenza affected the region for decades to come. Families struggled without their lost loved ones, while children still in the womb later suffered much higher rates of learning and physical disabilities than babies born just one year later.
Physicians and scientists study the pandemic of 1918 to this day, searching for lessons to help them rates of death and infection from new worldwide outbreaks.

References:

[i] Report of Dr. George W. Klock, U.S. Public Health Service, reprinted in Tampa Tribune, November 2, 1918.
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Report of the Physicians’ Committee to the Commissioners of the Board of State Institutions, Marianna, Florida, November 5, 1918.

1 comment:

Martha Nebel said...

This is unconscionable. The conditions before the pandemic were horrible. A lesson is to be learned from this to help us protect ourselves and others for the current scare.