Mary Beth Sartor Obermeyer grew up listening to her grandfather, Dr. Pierre Sartor, describing his remarkable life, including his collaboration with Mayo Clinic, which spanned several decades. Long after Dr. Sartor died, Beth found a handwritten memoir of his experiences caring for patients during the influenza pandemic of 1918 nestled among other family documents in a lockbox. Thus began the journey. Beth used her skills as a journalist to discover...

"In 1918, Minnesota and its residents were confronted with a series of devastating events that put communities to the test, forcing them to persevere through untold hardship. First, as the nation immersed itself in the global conflict later known as World War I, some 118,000 Minnesotans served in the war effort, both at home and "over there"?and citizens on the home front were subjected to loyalty tests and new depths of government surveillance. While...

The pandemic of 1918-20-commonly known as the Spanish flu-infected over a quarter of the world's population and killed over fifty million people. It is by far the greatest humanitarian disaster caused by an infectious disease in modern history. Epidemiologists and health scientists often draw on this experience to set the plausible upper bound (the 'worst case scenario') on future pandemic mortality. The purpose of this study is to piece together...

'Pandemic Re-Awakenings' offers a multi-level and multi-faceted exploration of a century of remembering, forgetting, and rediscovering the influenza pandemic of 1918-1919, arguably the greatest catastrophe in human history. Twenty-three researchers present original perspectives by critically investigating the hitherto unexplored vicissitudes of memory in the interrelated spheres of personal, communal, medical, and cultural histories in different national...

"On the 100th anniversary of the devastating pandemic of 1918, Jeremy Brown, a veteran ER doctor, explores the troubling, terrifying, and complex history of the flu virus, from the origins of the Great Flu that killed millions, to vexing questions such as: are we prepared for the next epidemic, should you get a flu shot, and how close are we to finding a cure? While influenza is now often thought of as a common and mild disease, it still kills over...

Set in Philadelphia during the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918, this is the story of a family reborn through loss and love. In 1918, Philadelphia was a city teeming with promise. Even as its young men went off to fight in the Great War, there were opportunities for a fresh start on its cobblestone streets. Into this bustling town, came Pauline Bright and her husband, filled with hope that they could now give their three daughters--Evelyn, Maggie, and...

"When unlikeable Elsie dies in the influenza pandemic of 1918, she comes back to haunt Annie to make sure she'll be Annie's best--and only--friend soon"-- Against the ominous backdrop of the 1918 influenza epidemic, new girl Annie is claimed as best friend by Elsie, the tattletale, liar, and thief of the class. But Annie would rather spend time with the other girls, since Elsie is so mean. When Elsie dies of influenza, Annie thinks she's free of...

"Sandra Dallas's Little Souls is a gripping tale of sisterhood, loyalty, and secrets set in Denver amid America's last deadly flu pandemic Colorado, 1918... World War I is raging overseas, but it's the home front battling for survival. With the Spanish Flu rampant, Denver's schools are converted into hospitals, churches and funeral homes are closed, and nightly horse-drawn wagons collect corpses left in the street. Sisters Helen and Lutie have moved...

"In an Ireland doubly ravaged by war and disease, Nurse Julia Power works at an understaffed hospital in the city center, where expectant mothers who have fallen sick are quarantined into a separate ward to keep the plague at bay. Into Julia's regimented world step two outsiders, a woman doctor who is a rumored Rebel, and a teenage girl, Bridie, procured by the nuns from their orphanage as an extra set of hands. At first, this Bridie seems unschooled...

"If any place on God's earth was designed to help one heal, it is Meadowland. Surely here, at her brother-in-law's Kentucky farm, Rose and her daughters can recover from the events of the recent past - the loss of her husband during the 1918 influenza epidemic, her struggle with tuberculosis that required a stay at a sanitarium, and her girls' experience in an orphanage during her illness. At Meadowland, hope blooms as their past troubles become rich...