Prairie Lives
We have been learning about the 1918-19 influenza pandemic from its origins in Kansas; its spread across the nation, aided by the movement of troops during World War II; its mutation into a more deadly form over the summer; and its reaching our region in the fall of 1918.
October 1918 was an awful month in our region. The influenza epidemic raged, infecting hundreds and taking at least 46 lives. Although nobody could have known it at the time, October was the peak of the plague here. More sickness and death lay ahead in the next few months, but not on the scale of that dark October.