Focus on History: 1918’s pandemic, local graveyards and other 2020 history highlights | The Daily Gazette
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In 2020 it has been hard not to frequently look back to compare COVID 19 to the influenza pandemic of 1918. There were 176 deaths in Amsterdam in 1918 from influenza or pneumonia which often followed the flu.
Many of the victims were young. Joseph Bryk, 25, of James Street had come to Amsterdam in 1918 and met Appolonia Bogdan. They were to have been married the day Bryk died.
In 2020, this column introduced readers to area residents who have taken it upon themselves to research and preserve old graveyards.
A retired Saratoga Springs science teacher, Joanne Blaaubour, has a home in Fish House, a hamlet on the Great Sacandaga Lake in the town of Northampton. Blaaubour has focused on a graveyard next to the former Fish House Presbyterian Church. Abraham Beecher, buried there, was a church deacon who died in 1845. He was the cousin of Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”