139. The 1918 Flu Epidemic, and Ruth's memories of school, and "singing waitress" at Bryce Canyon.
The Flu of 1918 – Written November 1993 from Ruth's journal
I’ve heard that the flu of 1918 caused more deaths than the war did. (World War 1) Be that as it may be, a great amount of the deaths of the soldiers was terminated “flu.”
It was before the days of penicillin or any other drug we use now to fight bad colds or “flu” with. It was in Europe, and all parts of the United States and in the entire world.
It hit Panguitch about October so we stayed on the farm a few weeks longer so we would not get exposed to it. We moved from the farm November 11, 1918, into town as we came into town we could hear Church bells ringing, and school bells saying that the war was over, but the dying had just begun as far as we knew. For the town was full of “flu”. Everyone was wearing masks we made ourselves by doubling gauze several times and then had elastic top and bottom. (As the doctor now wears when they operate – at least on T.V.)
I never did get the “flu” as such. I slept upstairs while Mother took care of the sick of our family in beds here and there downstairs. Each morning she would call me and ask, “How do you feel?”, and then I’d almost wish I had the “flu” for I knew the cows and horses had to be fed and it was almost 2 blocks away up to the creek where they had to be watered, (as our water had frozen in the taps outside.)
This I did for our horses and cows as well as the close neighbors. I also had to take a hammer or club to break the ice in the creek so they could get a drink. Then take them back home, fed, and then put in the shed. (We were too poor to have a barn.)
Beulah, my sister-in-law, a nurse, had come to live with us. She would put on her red cross head dress and sleep upstairs with me. Nurses don’t get sick, or she didn’t, or kept going no matter how she felt. I remember her holding a picture of Earl (Ruth's beloved oldest brother -- her husband) and praying he wouldn’t get the flu. He was away at war.
Once she asked mother if I was old enough to go to Ben Cameron’s, my cousins, and stay with them all night and stay awake to hand them medicine. He and his pregnant wife and their nine children were down with the flu. I was 10 years old at the time. Mother thought it would be okay in the family. She wanted to help and offered me.
I remember that night. Ben and his wife were in bed and their nine children were scattered around every which way. I remember that Archie, a boy about my age, kept crying with the ear ache. Beulah came to see how they were about midnight and told me where the doctor was and asked me to go as quick as I could and tell him to come right up to Ben Cameron’s as soon as he could.
I remember that night, how I hated to go after the doctor. It was dark, dark, dark, and when I went the barn doors kept opening and then closing with a bang. Beulah had told me to show the doctor where to come and then go on home and go to bed. The next morning I learned that Ella Cameron had died, (the mother) soon after the doctor got there.
My school teacher I would have had that year died also. I loved Miss Cameron, and went to see her (the only dead person I had seen.) Panguitch didn’t have school the rest of that year. As one person would die, if there were well persons to dig the grave, they would go out to the cemetery, and just bury them. Then about March, we had a funeral for all of them.
I remember one of my friends who would have been in the same grade with me. They had 8 children. The mother and 4 of the children died. The father was left with the four children to raise. I still remember how she stared into space when at the town memorial they mentioned her mother and 4 brothers and sisters.
I don’t remember how many died in Panguitch, and I think it got pretty hit. A year never to be forgotten by me, and anyone who went through it. Thank goodness for penicillin and the other medicines we use so much now.
Jobs in my Early Life
I couldn't have been over 12 or 13 years old when I had my first job at the Church hotel making beds and cleaning rooms 7 days a week for $3.50 a week or 50 cents a day. The days were long I might say.
Then came 2 or 3 summers that I lived with Earl and Beulah, helped milk cows night and morning, tended the children during the day while Beulah made cheese, and then later helped with the cheese making. I still remember much of the good talks we'd have while bending over the cheese vat. Social adjustment was hard for me. Beulah sensed this and did much to help me understand I must look to myself to discover the cause of my unpopularity. By this time Earl was paying me $30 a month, more than most girls my age made if they were lucky enough to get a job at all.
Then came the day when LaVern called and asked me if I wanted to take a job as a cabin maid in Bryce Canyon that had been offered her. She had got a job in the Bruhn Cafe and wasn't going to take it. At this time Earl was delivering milk to Bryce and not making so much cheese, so to Bryce I went and then for about a week I made the unheard of price of $40 a month. But very soon I was transferred to the dining room with a base pay of $30 a month, plus tips. This was from about 5:30 a.m. to 8 or 9 at night with an hour or two off mid-morning and again mid-afternoon. But of course there was always the night programs to sing to and the "sing away" as each bus left. I soon found that my singing meant many extra hours practicing and performing with no extra pay except a tip once in a while. People were by then, used to tipping in the dining room but not at an evening performance.
This (waiting tables) was, I think, the hardest work I ever did. Yet I loved it. I loved the mountains, the canyon trails, the evening bon fires and all else that went with new experiences. "Rimming" (following the canyon rim trails) and "logging" (sitting on fallen logs close to the lodge,) were the moonlight pass time if you were lucky enough to get off work in time to indulge. Dorm doors were locked at 10 p.m. sharp, and woe be to the one who was late without an official pass. Only one pass a week was issued and that for 11:30. We were there to work and were not allowed to forget it!
The beautiful and well-known Bryce Canyon where Ruth worked.
Here for the first time in my life I was thrown in company with girls, some of whom used tobacco habitually and others used it on occasion to avoid being a "wet blanket". The only times I was harassed for not indulging however, was from L.D.S. girls I had known, who didn't then, nor as far as I know never did later, use it habitually. Why are young people so often more afraid of being different than they are of letting down their own standards?
On one occasion a "dude", (as we called the tourists) I had waited on all the while they had been there, gave me as a going away present a beautiful (if it can be called beautiful) cigarette case filled. Some of the girls thinking it funny that the "wet blanket" should be so honored, came to my room that afternoon to "help you celebrate". I certainly didn't care about keeping them as a souvenir, so just as the girls, or at least some of them were using the prize and the room was blue with smoke, there came a knock on the door and there stood my mother. How sick she looked. I was stunned. It took one of the girls to explain the situation to her and assure her that it was their idea, not mine. Of course they cleared the room quickly and mother and I were left alone to have one of the best heart felt talks I can remember.
A happier "goodbye present" was from a couple from the Metropolitan Opera Company. As they left they asked for me to be excused from the dining room long enough to sing once more for them. They requested "Indian Love Call." After I had finished they gave me a $10.00 tip. The biggest tip I ever received for anything. I shared this "tip" with my accompanist who played the piano.
I worked at the canyons -- Bryce or Grand for 6 summers, 4 of them after I started to teach in the winter time. It came in handy, believe me. In fact I just about had to work there in the summer so I could afford to teach in the winter. (She would have worked in the canyons from about ages 18 to 24, as she was married when she was 25.)
School Days (written in 1980, age 72)
If I wrote about all my school days I would have most of my life story written, for most of my life has been in school not only as a student but 40 years at teaching and I still (at age 72) do a lot of substituting in the schools of St. George and Santa Clara. Schools now have fewer students in class rooms. Each class room has a drinking fountain in it. Now you have "head start" schools and pre-school classes and kindergarten. We didn't have kindergarten. We just started in first great half a day, when we were six years old.
How well I remember my first day at school. We had to stay on the farm till all fall work was done. Then we moved into town. I started a few weeks late. This year my father (we called him "pa" instead of daddy or dad) was sick. He died and we had a funeral, and then the next Monday I started in school. Miss Excell was my teacher. She was so kind. When it was reading time she called me up with the others. She wrote on the board in cursive. We didn't print as you do now. She wrote: "We have a new girl today in our class." She pointed at me and they looked at me, and read it together. She let me sit next to her. Then she let each one read it. Then she asked, "Ruth, would you like to try?" Because it was about me, I had it memorized long ago, and then she said: "This is Ruth and she has learned to read the first day. Let's clap for her." How I loved Miss Excell!
In my teaching I looked back at Miss Excell and learned a lesson: "When you can compliment some student it is better to do it." She acted so happy and surprised (which of course I know now she wasn't), saying something like "Oh my, you learned to read in one day!" How it strengthened my self image. Oh if we could always remember to treat a child in this self assuring way. How much help it would be to them. But we in our haste to get things done forget the tender heart of a little child.
About all I can remember of my second grade teacher is that she once told me sharply to "sit down!" I think I was afraid of her from then on. "Brightest links of life are broken, by a single angry word." My 4th grade teacher, Miss Cameron, I'll talk more about in my memories of World War 1 and the "Flu" year. Miss Cameron died with the flu that year. When I was in 4th grade I started school band. Myrtle Sergant and I were the only 2 girls with 40 boys. In those days girls played the piano and perhaps the violin but very few attempted regular band instruments. I played the piccolo and Myrtle the flute. (Later I had a flute and was in both band and orchestra in high school.) My how I did love band, and Scott Worthen our director.
When I went to Dixie College I did not take band or orchestra. My flute was a black wood one and all others I observed were by then brass or other metal. How foolish the pride of a teenager!
When I was in the 6th grade my brother Earl was my teacher. He had just come back from the army from World War 1. I remember how I loved to hear him read poetry to us. This was where my life long love for poetry developed. This was also a hard year though, for Earl in his need to have the rest feel he was fair, watched and corrected me I felt, more than my share. I loved him so much and was so sensitive that even a quick questioning glance in my direction would crush me. (Earl was almost 12 years older than Ruth. She would have been about 12, and he would have been about age 24.)
When I was in the 8th grade we came to St. George for Philo's health. He had been ill for about 2 years. (He was 7 years older than Ruth, so he would have been around 21 years old.) Soon after we got down there I heard they had released the 8th grade in Panguitch to enter High School, because there was one year we didn't go to school at all because of the flu, but now they thought a blanket promotion was justifiable. I was heart broken when I heard this -- not to be in high school with my class. At Christmas time I went back to Panguitch to live with Earl and to enter high school. I had one-half years work to make up plus keep up with regular class work. I don't know that I would have made it without Beulah's help. She not only helped me with my school work but saw to it I had decent clothes to wear to school, to Church and to dances. I remember well her remodeling a yellow taffeta dress of hers. This was my first dance dress. If we had one dress for dances and Sunday and perhaps 2 for school, we were in good shape. We didn't have much by today's standards, but neither did anyone else. Yet we were happier, it seems to me, making our own fun, than kids are now with T.V.
In high school I again enjoyed band and orchestra and Opera, where again Myrtle Sergant and I were the leads. Here also I received my first private vocal lessons from a pretty little red headed English teacher -- Miss Hodson. Miss Williams was an outstanding Home Making teacher. How I loved the peach colored dance dress I beaded and made in her class. Beaded dresses were the height of fashion then.
(By Ruth) The last I remember of that dress is when living in Salt Lake City. One winter Vina Ruth wore it to a costume party on Halloween dressed up as a Queen of Sheba. (Vina also wore it to a program in high school -- see the photo.)
I’ve heard that the flu of 1918 caused more deaths than the war did. (World War 1) Be that as it may be, a great amount of the deaths of the soldiers was terminated “flu.”
It was before the days of penicillin or any other drug we use now to fight bad colds or “flu” with. It was in Europe, and all parts of the United States and in the entire world.
It hit Panguitch about October so we stayed on the farm a few weeks longer so we would not get exposed to it. We moved from the farm November 11, 1918, into town as we came into town we could hear Church bells ringing, and school bells saying that the war was over, but the dying had just begun as far as we knew. For the town was full of “flu”. Everyone was wearing masks we made ourselves by doubling gauze several times and then had elastic top and bottom. (As the doctor now wears when they operate – at least on T.V.)
I never did get the “flu” as such. I slept upstairs while Mother took care of the sick of our family in beds here and there downstairs. Each morning she would call me and ask, “How do you feel?”, and then I’d almost wish I had the “flu” for I knew the cows and horses had to be fed and it was almost 2 blocks away up to the creek where they had to be watered, (as our water had frozen in the taps outside.)
This I did for our horses and cows as well as the close neighbors. I also had to take a hammer or club to break the ice in the creek so they could get a drink. Then take them back home, fed, and then put in the shed. (We were too poor to have a barn.)
Beulah, my sister-in-law, a nurse, had come to live with us. She would put on her red cross head dress and sleep upstairs with me. Nurses don’t get sick, or she didn’t, or kept going no matter how she felt. I remember her holding a picture of Earl (Ruth's beloved oldest brother -- her husband) and praying he wouldn’t get the flu. He was away at war.
Once she asked mother if I was old enough to go to Ben Cameron’s, my cousins, and stay with them all night and stay awake to hand them medicine. He and his pregnant wife and their nine children were down with the flu. I was 10 years old at the time. Mother thought it would be okay in the family. She wanted to help and offered me.
I remember that night. Ben and his wife were in bed and their nine children were scattered around every which way. I remember that Archie, a boy about my age, kept crying with the ear ache. Beulah came to see how they were about midnight and told me where the doctor was and asked me to go as quick as I could and tell him to come right up to Ben Cameron’s as soon as he could.
I remember that night, how I hated to go after the doctor. It was dark, dark, dark, and when I went the barn doors kept opening and then closing with a bang. Beulah had told me to show the doctor where to come and then go on home and go to bed. The next morning I learned that Ella Cameron had died, (the mother) soon after the doctor got there.
My school teacher I would have had that year died also. I loved Miss Cameron, and went to see her (the only dead person I had seen.) Panguitch didn’t have school the rest of that year. As one person would die, if there were well persons to dig the grave, they would go out to the cemetery, and just bury them. Then about March, we had a funeral for all of them.
I remember one of my friends who would have been in the same grade with me. They had 8 children. The mother and 4 of the children died. The father was left with the four children to raise. I still remember how she stared into space when at the town memorial they mentioned her mother and 4 brothers and sisters.
I don’t remember how many died in Panguitch, and I think it got pretty hit. A year never to be forgotten by me, and anyone who went through it. Thank goodness for penicillin and the other medicines we use so much now.
Jobs in my Early Life
I couldn't have been over 12 or 13 years old when I had my first job at the Church hotel making beds and cleaning rooms 7 days a week for $3.50 a week or 50 cents a day. The days were long I might say.
Then came 2 or 3 summers that I lived with Earl and Beulah, helped milk cows night and morning, tended the children during the day while Beulah made cheese, and then later helped with the cheese making. I still remember much of the good talks we'd have while bending over the cheese vat. Social adjustment was hard for me. Beulah sensed this and did much to help me understand I must look to myself to discover the cause of my unpopularity. By this time Earl was paying me $30 a month, more than most girls my age made if they were lucky enough to get a job at all.
Then came the day when LaVern called and asked me if I wanted to take a job as a cabin maid in Bryce Canyon that had been offered her. She had got a job in the Bruhn Cafe and wasn't going to take it. At this time Earl was delivering milk to Bryce and not making so much cheese, so to Bryce I went and then for about a week I made the unheard of price of $40 a month. But very soon I was transferred to the dining room with a base pay of $30 a month, plus tips. This was from about 5:30 a.m. to 8 or 9 at night with an hour or two off mid-morning and again mid-afternoon. But of course there was always the night programs to sing to and the "sing away" as each bus left. I soon found that my singing meant many extra hours practicing and performing with no extra pay except a tip once in a while. People were by then, used to tipping in the dining room but not at an evening performance.
This (waiting tables) was, I think, the hardest work I ever did. Yet I loved it. I loved the mountains, the canyon trails, the evening bon fires and all else that went with new experiences. "Rimming" (following the canyon rim trails) and "logging" (sitting on fallen logs close to the lodge,) were the moonlight pass time if you were lucky enough to get off work in time to indulge. Dorm doors were locked at 10 p.m. sharp, and woe be to the one who was late without an official pass. Only one pass a week was issued and that for 11:30. We were there to work and were not allowed to forget it!
Here for the first time in my life I was thrown in company with girls, some of whom used tobacco habitually and others used it on occasion to avoid being a "wet blanket". The only times I was harassed for not indulging however, was from L.D.S. girls I had known, who didn't then, nor as far as I know never did later, use it habitually. Why are young people so often more afraid of being different than they are of letting down their own standards?
On one occasion a "dude", (as we called the tourists) I had waited on all the while they had been there, gave me as a going away present a beautiful (if it can be called beautiful) cigarette case filled. Some of the girls thinking it funny that the "wet blanket" should be so honored, came to my room that afternoon to "help you celebrate". I certainly didn't care about keeping them as a souvenir, so just as the girls, or at least some of them were using the prize and the room was blue with smoke, there came a knock on the door and there stood my mother. How sick she looked. I was stunned. It took one of the girls to explain the situation to her and assure her that it was their idea, not mine. Of course they cleared the room quickly and mother and I were left alone to have one of the best heart felt talks I can remember.
A happier "goodbye present" was from a couple from the Metropolitan Opera Company. As they left they asked for me to be excused from the dining room long enough to sing once more for them. They requested "Indian Love Call." After I had finished they gave me a $10.00 tip. The biggest tip I ever received for anything. I shared this "tip" with my accompanist who played the piano.
I worked at the canyons -- Bryce or Grand for 6 summers, 4 of them after I started to teach in the winter time. It came in handy, believe me. In fact I just about had to work there in the summer so I could afford to teach in the winter. (She would have worked in the canyons from about ages 18 to 24, as she was married when she was 25.)
School Days (written in 1980, age 72)
If I wrote about all my school days I would have most of my life story written, for most of my life has been in school not only as a student but 40 years at teaching and I still (at age 72) do a lot of substituting in the schools of St. George and Santa Clara. Schools now have fewer students in class rooms. Each class room has a drinking fountain in it. Now you have "head start" schools and pre-school classes and kindergarten. We didn't have kindergarten. We just started in first great half a day, when we were six years old.
How well I remember my first day at school. We had to stay on the farm till all fall work was done. Then we moved into town. I started a few weeks late. This year my father (we called him "pa" instead of daddy or dad) was sick. He died and we had a funeral, and then the next Monday I started in school. Miss Excell was my teacher. She was so kind. When it was reading time she called me up with the others. She wrote on the board in cursive. We didn't print as you do now. She wrote: "We have a new girl today in our class." She pointed at me and they looked at me, and read it together. She let me sit next to her. Then she let each one read it. Then she asked, "Ruth, would you like to try?" Because it was about me, I had it memorized long ago, and then she said: "This is Ruth and she has learned to read the first day. Let's clap for her." How I loved Miss Excell!
In my teaching I looked back at Miss Excell and learned a lesson: "When you can compliment some student it is better to do it." She acted so happy and surprised (which of course I know now she wasn't), saying something like "Oh my, you learned to read in one day!" How it strengthened my self image. Oh if we could always remember to treat a child in this self assuring way. How much help it would be to them. But we in our haste to get things done forget the tender heart of a little child.
About all I can remember of my second grade teacher is that she once told me sharply to "sit down!" I think I was afraid of her from then on. "Brightest links of life are broken, by a single angry word." My 4th grade teacher, Miss Cameron, I'll talk more about in my memories of World War 1 and the "Flu" year. Miss Cameron died with the flu that year. When I was in 4th grade I started school band. Myrtle Sergant and I were the only 2 girls with 40 boys. In those days girls played the piano and perhaps the violin but very few attempted regular band instruments. I played the piccolo and Myrtle the flute. (Later I had a flute and was in both band and orchestra in high school.) My how I did love band, and Scott Worthen our director.
When I went to Dixie College I did not take band or orchestra. My flute was a black wood one and all others I observed were by then brass or other metal. How foolish the pride of a teenager!
When I was in the 6th grade my brother Earl was my teacher. He had just come back from the army from World War 1. I remember how I loved to hear him read poetry to us. This was where my life long love for poetry developed. This was also a hard year though, for Earl in his need to have the rest feel he was fair, watched and corrected me I felt, more than my share. I loved him so much and was so sensitive that even a quick questioning glance in my direction would crush me. (Earl was almost 12 years older than Ruth. She would have been about 12, and he would have been about age 24.)
When I was in the 8th grade we came to St. George for Philo's health. He had been ill for about 2 years. (He was 7 years older than Ruth, so he would have been around 21 years old.) Soon after we got down there I heard they had released the 8th grade in Panguitch to enter High School, because there was one year we didn't go to school at all because of the flu, but now they thought a blanket promotion was justifiable. I was heart broken when I heard this -- not to be in high school with my class. At Christmas time I went back to Panguitch to live with Earl and to enter high school. I had one-half years work to make up plus keep up with regular class work. I don't know that I would have made it without Beulah's help. She not only helped me with my school work but saw to it I had decent clothes to wear to school, to Church and to dances. I remember well her remodeling a yellow taffeta dress of hers. This was my first dance dress. If we had one dress for dances and Sunday and perhaps 2 for school, we were in good shape. We didn't have much by today's standards, but neither did anyone else. Yet we were happier, it seems to me, making our own fun, than kids are now with T.V.
In high school I again enjoyed band and orchestra and Opera, where again Myrtle Sergant and I were the leads. Here also I received my first private vocal lessons from a pretty little red headed English teacher -- Miss Hodson. Miss Williams was an outstanding Home Making teacher. How I loved the peach colored dance dress I beaded and made in her class. Beaded dresses were the height of fashion then.
My sister Vina and her friend in a high school program. This was taken before we had a camera that could take colored pictures. It was a beautiful rose color.
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