Register-Guard
Born in 1917, Bernice Homan was just a baby during the Spanish flu epidemic, which came a year later. When she caught the flu, she became seriously ill and her mother was told Bernice wouldn t make it through the night.
But her mother wasn t ready to let her daughter go. Compelled to save her, Homan s mother ran door to door asking people for a pumpkin so she could make some pumpkin seed soup, which she had heard was a cure for the Spanish flu.
She fed the soup to her daughter all night long. When dawn came, young Bernice was still alive.