My Grandma Told Me Bout the Spanish Flu

My grandma insisted on no food wastage.

You carefully took your bread crumbs and put them in your cup of tea once you were done eating.

She also softened hard bread.

Preserving food was no secret for her.

I remember some of her home remedies too.

Sliced potatoes (like potato rounds) dipped in rubbing alcohol, put in a scarf and wrapped around your neck (potatoes making direct skin contact). I think it was used if we had a cold, high fever etc. The potatoes were replaced after a while. She said they "draw out" your sickness or something like that. It kind of worked as far as I remember.

She was also gathering, drying up and using a lot of calendula, chamomile and other herbs. We used to go on hills and forests collecting these and other herbs. Great fun for us kids. If we scraped our legs playing she'd make a paste out of calendula and something else and put it on the wounds.

Another remedy when you were sick or didn't feel well was one bulb of garlic kept in each ear overnight. Can't remember what for, I never used it or liked the idea, but I saw her using it on others.

She always warned us to stay away from the gypsies because they're up to no good - she was speaking plainly and directly for our own good, no flower-power, let's all hug stuff.

Last Edited by RomanianGuy on 10/04/2018 05:18 AM

This reminds me-my grandpa sat by the garden with his shotgun all the time. That garden was serious business. The groundhogs were after their plants, and they needed that food. I used to think he would get into trouble for that, but he blasted many a groundhog and no one said a thing. LOL
I suppose all his neighbors in the area did the same. The law didn't bother them much out there.

My great grandmother was born in 1889 and died in 1981. Here are some cool things I remember as a boy.

I told her about a black and white film we watched in History class about Ellis Island, NY that was made around 1920. She then explained every image I told her about the film. "Oh...the Germans were on that boat and I wrapped Kelbasa in a cloth and carried it with me for food".

People of that era "loved" kerosene and used it for everything. Once she spread it all around the outside of the house. My dad asked her what she was doing. She said it keeps the ants away. Talk about a fire hazard! They even drank it as medicine. Crazy ha?

I used to carry 50 pound bags of potatoes into the cellar. Once I saw her bury potatoes in soil she had down there.

Home made wine they would crush with their feet. She had the best grape vine and MacIntoch apple tree. She made apple sauce all the time.

She would call our car "the machine". She would slam the car door real hard because she was used to real heavy doors. My dad would say "Jesus" when she slammed the door to hard.

She could sit and talk with you for hours on the front screened in porch. Nothing about current events either. She talked about neighbors and things we would see going by the house. We sort of lived in the moment. People of that era could tell very interesting stories.

Aye...........John Boy.

Whoops re the elderberries! I gather then each autumn and boil them up with sugar and then add an equal amount of brandy. Have a tot each night, and so far stayed away from the flu.

I lived far away from my grandparents and only saw them a few times when I was very young.

Grandpa's words of wisdom:

No, those are not wax teeth (popular candy like substance in the early 70's) and that is not chocolate (x-lax)

Well, in general and for certain things., elderberry is very good--but in certain kinds of flu, like the ones where they are dying of pneumonia a lot-there are better natural treatments that do not increase your white cells, and they work on other things to help you. Check into that a little bit and you'll find the best remedies for whichever years flu is prevalent. That type we had last year was a bad one that drowned people too.

Wow, i knew a couple of ancient people from the 19th century but never thought to ask them about the Spanish flu. I didn't know about it at the time.

I shot a rifle with a man from from the 1870s. That was memorable.

My Grandma was born on a Canadian Ojibway reservation sometime after the civil war in the US. She married a USA Chippewa indian (Same tribe, different pronunciation). I loved her to pieces. She would hold court in the big kitchens they had back in the day, around a big round oak table covered in oil clothe while Mama and her five sisters did beadwork, made quilts, mittens, put up Jam from berries we picked etc.

She was educated,(like my Mom and my sisters and I), by French nuns from Quebec. So they spoke English, Ojibway and French all at once thinking my cousin and I, who were sitting on the big oak leg braces wouldnt understand the gossip and joking. In fact all it ment was were polyglots by age four, LOL. We also had Latin in church and Dads father spoke german and his mom spoke gaelic. This was quite commen back then, everyone spoke several languages. Today they cant even speak English.
She had her boys drop her off each berry season to a clearing where she set up a tent, got fire wood and went to a nearby stream or lake and got water. The first day she just fasted and prayed. Later we women and girls came out and the last day,the old pick ups would come to the "camp" to get us and we would have berries enough to make jam for PJB's for school lunch and jam for toast for a year.(plus herbs and "medicine")

Once we went picking raspberries by the gravel pits, where we had to share with the black bear, who were binge eating for their hibernation, and Mama insisted Dad come along to protect us kids. My dad was born in 1898, was a combination of the Dad in "A Christmas story" and Jason Robards. He brought his Lash LaRue western to read and his revolver (Hollow point .22 will handle a black bear, he was an NRA instructor and ace shot).He gave us a stout stick and said if they get too close, whack them on their sensitive noses and hollar for me. Gramma said arent you picking and he said, "Im a white man, I dont pick berries." This is how they talked back then,LOL, gramma gave as good as she got,too.

Years later, Mama had died of diabetes, like her sisters and Gramma. Dad came to live with us and at supper I said "remember when we picked berries at the old gravel-pit and you brought your gun along to protect us" and he said "hell, kid, I never ever had bullets in that old gun! Too many little kids around...after all, you had a good stick with you."

Love this story!

My mother's side has Cherokee blood. Of course, by this time in the line of descent, I'm probably about 1/32nd Cherokee. But still, they had some interesting stories.


Their family was from Virginia, which then eventually became West Virginia. My Great grandfather, whom i never knew, told my grandma stories about how he had to fight at school ever single day, because of his mohther being indian. He grew up fighting to protect her honor. I have pics of her and it couldn't have been easy back then marrying a white man. Her husband my great great grandfather, was also given hell at work--for marrying a "black woman" which he always had to explain she was Cherokee Indian. They were all racists and just ignorant compared to now. Very sad though.

Another time, an old relative came from out west to visit her, and my grandma wouldve been about 6 years old (prob about 1910 or so)--she was shocked to see this man, who was an Indian, and ate with his hands at the table, and no one said anything. I thoguht that was a precious story really, a child not understanding this, and maybe they didnt' even explain it.


The familyhistory way back is full of indian interpreters, during the colonial days and later during the Rev War and I imagine this may even be because they were either married to or part native American themselves.

My grandpa would tell us things of those days in 1918.

He said everyone was afraid, because what would often start out as a cold in the morning, could turn into a fever by afternoon, and death by night-time.

Schools were closed, church services cancelled, dances and other public gatherings were banned, playgrounds, parks, theaters and any other source of amusement were forbidden, banned. If someone was ill with the Spanish Flu and found outside, they were fined. All the restrictions made people afraid to see anyone outside their own family in their own home.

They were told to keep their windows closed. They isolated one or more of those who were sick inside one room in a house, everyone wore masks inside their house and whenever they went outside. There were rumors everywhere on who, what and how this flu was being spread. They started running out of pine caskets, and funeral homes began asking soldiers to dig graves.

Many of the death certificates gave bronchopneumonia as cause of death, rather than the Spanish Flu. Many reasons for that, including denial, not wanting to admit to the fears.

Good info. The almanac says this year will be a rough winter, and flu is already all around us here. I hope we survive it.

My Dad said more people died of the flu than got killed in the war. He lied about his age and got in the army quartermaster corps and then the medics. He was in the 40/8, the yellow shield with a horse head on it ment forty men could fit in a train car or eight horses.

He got down to brownsville, Texas and guys were dropping like flies. It was EARLY ON in the epidemic and these guys werent coming home from Spain or whatever but from a home base he thought was Kansas. He heard Mama's people talk about the blankets taken off of soldiers dead from smallpox and shipped to the reservations out west as part of treaty payments and the mothers covered a nest of little ones with the nice "army" blankets and whole tribes died of small pox that way, so he right on thought the flu was from here and was ment to be given to all of Europe by our troops to stop the fighting.

Any how, he and this other guy thought it such a waste of money to wash the poor boys off with good alcohol and so they added water to the bottles and drank it because it was so sad to see these very young kids dead and put in body bags and stacked up like cords of wood to go home.(My Dad was Irish and Mama was Indian so I dont dare drink...but Dad even drank mouthwash if he had to. I loved him dearly but he had a disease they couldnt cure.

Mama had a brush with small pox. Just after the turn of the century, she was supposed to make First Holy COmmunion. There were no proper dress shops or even catalogs so a lady came over from Canada and measured all the little kids and they picked out their clothes style and she brought the finished ones back, went home to canada and died of Small pox. Soon many of the little Indian kids were buried in those only new clothes they ever had.
The men quick rode out through the Spring slush on horseback to find our priest, a white haired holy man who was our doctor and healer. The priests up here walked hundreds of miles a month on snow shoes...Padre was given the horse to ride back at once. Whichever homes he went in, they stopped dying.

The army doc had come down from the fort and told my Grandfather, his wife and new baby would die to just give us all lemonade with turpentine. And he left. Padre came in and held the baby and said she'd be okay.

After it was over the army guys came down and set up tents and Mama and her family went in, were scrubbed raw with vinegar, given a donated change of clothes and every thing in the house that was cloth was burnt in the back yards.Even the dolls and babys hand crocheted heirloom blankets and her dads new fireside chair he saved up for a long time for. She nursed us and we were vaccinated for smallpox at school but it wouldnt take because that gave us immunity.

How interesting.

Such good stories.

My vaccination also wouldn't take, and I never knew why. Everyone else got big scars from theirs, I got not even a tiny mark. Nothing. My husband is the same, they gave him his vaccination for smallpox twice, and neither one took.

I'm also Irish on my Dad's side. Lots of alcoholism in the family. I don't drink either.

Iwish I could see those times, but then again, they were hard times, and it would be hard for us to try to survive after growing up in this era. Another reason why I like knowing more about these old ways.

What really interested me was when I found the flu bypassed Greece. I suspect it is because they did not innoculate with the vaccine made for WWI like the rest of the countries.

Great thread!

My mom's family was in West Virginia, Keyser, near the Pennsylvania border and Cumberland Gap. They followed the railroad and coal mining jobs.

At one point they homesteaded in Utah, great grandmom and her sister and their husbands. They all lived in a 15x15 foot house. Tried to dig a well, by hand, got 150 feet and no water. It was desert. My grandmother was the first white woman born in Escalante Desert Utah. They stayed 2 years, crops failed and they headed back to West Virginia.

They had to be very brave people back then. and able. Was normal to have 8 kids and only 2 survived. Scarlet Fever got some of them.

Was fun to trace the genealogy tree. the stories are the best part.

Awesome egg tip. I'll try that next time my chickens are laying well.

My mother went through it when she was 2. Once you got it you had an extreme fever for 7 days and then you died or you 'recovered'. A high fever puts pressure on the brain that results in lifelong changes.
She was almost blind in 1 eye and not the best vision in her other eye.
She was extremely sensitive to any drugs, 1/2 of 1 beer and she would be pissed so she didn't drink.
She had no power in her hands as far as holding them together and a child could pull them apart. I showed her how wrestlers interlock their fingers so that fixed that.
She had extremely fast reflexes even if they came with no practical use.
She would go through a bout of hysterics every month or so. She found a Dr who could tell what she had been through and 'atavin' turned out to be the ticket to stopping the hysterics.

I'm sure some other traits could be linked to that. I'm also quite sure anything that causes a similar condition will show the same damage. Something as simple as untreated altitude sickness can cause permanent damage and they have similar results. I'm also quite sure the medical community doesn't want that connection to be as researched as it should as adding O2 to you air supply might be the 'drug' most people need to straighten out some minor ailments that currently either have no cure of the side effects of the cure are worse than the ailment.

Going very far down that path will show the public is used as lab rats by big pharma wile they know the damages and make sure they avoid them. Baffin Correctional Center would be the 'story' that would show that to be the case here in Canada and if it is happening here it can happen anywhere.

4 later

Wow. I didn't know that. Now I'm gonna check into that more. Thanks for the info. Sure makes one wonder, doesn't it.

Can you even IMAGINE going from West Virginia to Utah???Wow. WVA you can grow just about anything. The ;problem is usually things grow TOO much. LOL hey must have been shocked at the desert conditions.

The older generation in my family swear by this old cough tincture

Cut a large spanish onion in half

Leave on a clean plate

Cover both halves of the onion with sugar and wait a day for the sugar to dissolve

The syrup left at the bottom of the onion on the plate is the tincture

Take a table spoon every couple of hours

Apparently it works for flu too

I have tried this when I've felt really ill and it worked for me, the cold was gone in a day...

I can't discount the placebo effect though as I really felt bad and I really wanted it to work!

In the old days sugar was rationed (during and after the world war 2), so you had to feel REALLY bad to do this

Last Edited by TheFierceOne on 10/06/2018 07:08 AM

This sounds similar to what I just went through. wow.
Loss of ability grip, difficulty swallowing, confusion, needed oxygen, felt like altitude sickness, drug sensitivity for sure.
Don't remember a fever, doctors were clueless. Had red spots on my belly, blood blisters. Red spots in my stomach and bladder, doctors never identified just treated with the best pharma they could prescribe, total lab rat. I believe I was poisoned by carbon monoxide and something else sinister.
Cured myself by going for IVs to rehydrate at molecular level, took 2 years to recover.
But this was also in H1N1 and Zika epidemics. I believe both those were genetically modified diseased used for genocide, but no answers.

Yes, they were great farmers, healthy farmers. Then nothing would grow. And they had 2 babies out there. Born without hospitals at home.
Pioneers.

They didn't complain, they just picked up and tried again. Death was more natural back then too. No big drama, just a natural part of life treated with love and respect.

Years later my mom took up smoking cigarettes. She said that it was the "new" thing because spitting tobacco in the streets was outlawed because of the spread of Spanish Flu and other communicables. She insisted that the smoke killed all the germs around her and would wave her cigarettes around in a ceremonial cleansing process.

Wow,thanks for that. I saw a tincture many swear by. I am gong t try it, and see if it works.

There was outbreaks here of diphtheria it killed my grandfather's brother's little girl she died on his lap waiting in the hospital waiting for the ER.
Grandmaw and her friend got together and shut off the rooms of their houses where wallpaper was on the walls at.
They said it was coming from the wallpaper of the houses they moved into in a coal camp that has now been torn down not that long ago here.
They came back here after the WW's.
They said they thought mold was behind the paper and coming through it from dampness in the house that had no centralized heating source.
It only had a coal burning stove, pot belly style in the Living Room.

They stripped everything down and cleaned it up while keeping it shut off and none of their children got sick and died.

Bold edited.

Last Edited by Wondering Mind on 10/07/2018 02:33 AM

Interesting. Do you think black mold or something was mistaken for diptheria?

My Great Grandpa was 10 years old when the last man was hanged in Ripley,WV.
His father forbid the family to go,though he,himself was going.
His son,my Great Grandpa, sneaked his way there. Said he sat upon a fence.
Saw the man's tongue hanging out as he turned purple.
Jumped off the fence and ran home.
Heard his Father tell his Mother, he wished he had not gone.
My Great Grandpa wished he hadn't gone either,and always told me so.

Just wanted to add,Grandpa died at 100 years old.
He was born in 1887.
Died 1987.