In Flew Enza

Excerpt from journal of Orland William Carver Jr. Portland, Oregon, 1976.

Two doctors consult on the porch of a small wood frame house in the Smelter Hill district of Joplin, Missouri. Inside, four young people lie on pallets on the floor of the main room. A fifth child watches from the doorway of a back room. He is thin and pale and doesn't look particularly well himself.

The little house is usually cold, having no insulation to speak of, but the children's mother has tacked blankets over the windows and added extra wood to the fireplace. As a result, the main room is absolutely sweltering. Even so, some of the children shiver on their pallets.

It is 10:30 on Wednesday morning, November 27, 1918. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving day. The Joplin Herald calls for increasing cloudiness today, with a chance of rain tomorrow.

During the last few days these doctors have tried every remedy they can think of, from a special white powder to a contraption called a pulmotor, a portable ventilator housed in a large wooden suitcase. It looks like the grandfather of a modern day sleep apnea machine.

None of their remedies have helped, and now they've escaped to the porch for some fresh air while they discuss what to do next. "Let's try the white powder," murmurs the older doctor. The powder is in his doctor's bag. He plans to mix it with water. The younger doctor will use an eye dropper to dribble this mixture into Susie's mouth.

Susie is not really a child anymore. She is 20, but in Annie's mind, Susie is still her baby girl. Annie hovers, waiting to bring whatever the doctors need. As the doctors shake their heads and talk quietly out on the porch, she begins to pace and wring her hands, silent tears running down her face.

The powder doesn't help. At 11 Susie takes her last breath. Six hours later Clarence dies as well. A neighbor lady comes over to try to comfort the children's mother while they wait for Susie and Clarence to be taken to the morgue, but at this particular point in time, Annie Carver is inconsolable.

Annie's husband Orland is unreliable at best, so the family has become accustomed to sporadic stretches of hunger and homelessness, but the last few months have been rough, even for them. In July they packed up the wagon, hitched up the mules, and started the 220 mile journey from Enid, Oklahoma to Joplin, Missouri.

On the way young Ashton came down with typhoid fever. They were only 20 miles away from Joplin, but Ashton was too sick to travel, and the family was almost out of food. They stopped and asked for help. Kind local residents put them up in an empty house and called a doctor. They stayed for at least two weeks while Ashton recuperated.

Baxter Springs News (Baxter Springs, Kansas) · 30 Aug 1918, Fri · Page 2

Baxter Springs News (Baxter Springs, Kansas) 06 Sep 1918

Baxter Springs News (Baxter Springs, Kansas) - 13 Sep 1918

In mid-September they finally made it to Joplin, rented this house, and got settled. Susie got a position as a telephone operator. Clarence and Orland found work as well. But then, Orland announced that he was leaving. “Mother, children, the government has called me to work in the shipyards in Virginia, to help with the war effort.”

The family was shocked but not totally surprised. Orland had a habit of leaving like this, for days or weeks at a time. None of the kids knew where he went or what he did while he was gone, but they assumed he was working elsewhere or looking for work.

Somewhere during all of this hubbub, daughter Sina Belle complained of illness and took to her bed. A visiting nurse examined her and said that she had tuberculosis. The nurse helped Annie make arrangements to send Sina to the nearby Jasper County Tuberculosis hospital in Webb City.

On November 11 news spread quickly that the war was over. An armistice had been signed with Germany. The older kids stayed out late celebrating. Annie thought this was appropriate under the circumstances. Nearly everybody was out celebrating.

A few days later Susie came home with a cough, Clarence woke up with a fever, and Robby and Willie complained of headaches. They all had the Spanish flu, that super-sized worldwide pandemic that killed so many people in 1918.

During the weeks before they got sick, Annie spent countless hours helping sick neighbors. Now the neighbors helped her, bringing soup on Thanksgiving day and watching after the younger kids while she went alone to the burial.

For those of you who are counting, that's six kids having three scary diseases all within the span of about 90 days. In later years, Annie was to wonder if the kids caught the flu on Armistice day, out in the cold with all the other flu-ridden celebrants. It's hard to know. At the rate this strain was spreading, they could have caught it anywhere.

When my father (Willie) wrote this story down, he called it “The Valley of the Shadow”. He remembered things an 8-year-old would remember. Instead of influenza, the school kids called it “hen flew endways”. They also had a little jump rope chant: “I had a little bird, its name was Enza. I opened the window, and in flew Enza.”

Articles on the subject say that the Spanish flu of 1918 was unique, in that it was particularly hard on the young and the strong. In this case, it took the family's only sources of income. Fortunately Annie was able to find work to tide the family over until Orland returned.

Susan Viola Carver and Clarence Dean Carver are both buried in Fairview cemetery, presumably in pauper's graves.

Aunt Susie, Uncle Clarence, rest in peace.

Joplin News Herald 28 Nov 1918 Page 1

Joplin Globe 28 Nov 1918 Page 4

Notes: 
1) Despite the information in these articles and on their death certificates, Susie and Clarence would have been 20 and 18, respectively. 

2) I found a newspaper article dated Nov 2, 1918, that says both Orland and Clarence were called to Hopewell, Virginia to the munitions plant there. However, Clarence must not have gone.

Joplin News Herald 2 Nov 1918 Page 5

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Hay is for Horses

Related Link: Hook 'em and Pull em - video

¬July, 1967

Nancy, David, Daddy, Gramps July 1967

"See there, girl. Jets!" Gramps points upward. Three fighter jets fly over the back field, really close together, like geese heading south for winter. But it's not winter. It's the middle of July. The sun is shining. The sky is blue. There are no clouds.

"That there is Air National Guard, hundred forty-second fighter group." He takes a handkerchief from his pocket and blows his nose. "Oscar would like a jet like that."

He is talking about my Uncle Ozzie, his older boy, who died under mysterious circumstances a long time ago, before I was born. I don't know what mysterious circumstances are, but I heard my cousin say it, and now I like to say it again, because it has big words that sound important.

Gramps had two boys, and both of them were pilots. Uncle Ozzie joined the Air force, and Uncle Jimmy is in the Navy. Several of Gramps' girls don’t even know how to drive a car, but both his boys can fly planes.

Uncle Jimmy comes to visit when he is on leave, and I don't like that, because he tickles me. Sometimes Uncle Ozzie used to visit by buzzing the house. That’s what my aunt told me. Buzzing means flying your plane really low to the ground and near to the house so that all of your family looks up and says, “Oh, my goodness.” Everybody misses Uncle Ozzie, but I don’t know if I miss him, because I don’t know if he would tickle me.

Uncle Ozzie in his plane.

We are harvesting bales of hay. Last winter Gramps announced that this year we would plant oats out in the back field. We all live with Gramps at his house. After my step Grandma died, Gramps asked us to move in and cook for him and do his laundry and pay the taxes, because taxes cost a lot of money. He has a barn and a tractor and lots of things you can hook up to the back of the tractor, like a plow and a disc, and also this thing that looks like a giant rake called a cultivator.

Last spring, way before first grade let out for the summer, he got out a special piece of equipment for the tractor. It was called a seeder, and this made sense because you put oat seeds in a trough on the back. Then as the tractor drove along, these little arm things went round and round and pushed the seeds out the bottom, where they fell to the ground. I know because I got to ride on the standing board that was mounted across the back of the seeder. My job was to make sure the seeds didn't get clogged up and that the arms kept pushing the seeds out, just so. Mommy wasn't sure I should ride back there, but Gramps said, "Nonsense. The girl is safe. I'll drive slow."

Now the hay is all grown up, and the baler came this week to cut and bale it all, and that was really good. I watched from the yard. There is one man who drives around from house to house, and on the first day he will cut and rake your hay, and then after that, probably the next day I think, he will come back to bale it. He comes with his baler machine, and it sucks up the hay, and it squishes it into a rectangle, and it automatically ties it up with string that’s hidden inside the baler somewhere. Then it spits the hay bale out the other end.

You have to hope it does not rain after the man cuts it and before he bales it. I heard Daddy say so. He said, “I sure hope it does not rain and ruin that hay.”

And then Mommy said, “Oh, Bill, don’t worry. The forecast is for sun.” And she was right.

Today Daddy helped Gramps pull the sled out and hook it up to the tractor. The sled is a special kind of trailer that doesn’t have any wheels. It is flat and made of boards. We grab hold of the bales of hay with this special hook attached to a wooden handle and pull them over to the sled and stack them on it. Gramps, Daddy, and I are doing the grabbing.

Daddy and Gramps lifting the hay bales.

After we get all the nearby bales, Gramps drives the tractor to the next section of the field, and we grab some more. I am too small to stack the bales onto the sled, but I can grab and drag. When the sled is full, with bales stacked on top of bales, we drive to the barn and unload.

I am getting very hot, and it feels like we have been working forever. We are going to go back to get more bales, but Mommy says first go get a drink out of the hose and get your handkerchief wet to keep you cool. I go to find the hose. The water is cold and good and from our well, which tastes lots better than the water in the fountain at school.

I am wearing my farmer girl clothes. Some of our people used to be farmers. I know that because we studied about occupations in school. So I asked Daddy about our people and their occupations, because the teacher said to.

Daddy said, “Occupations? That’s a big word for a first grader.”

And I said, “That’s why I’m in school, to learn big words!” And he couldn’t argue with that.

I asked Daddy if any of my grandparents or great grandparents were firemen or anything exciting. He looked at Mommy and they both shook their heads. Mommy and Daddy are teachers, and Gramps is a carpenter. We are all kind of boring, except for Uncle Ozzie and Uncle Jim.

Daddy said, “My grandfather was a blacksmith. The rest of the family were farmers.” Then he looked at Mommy. “Your great-grandfather was a police officer, wasn’t he, dear?”

Mommy nodded. Then I heard her say, really soft like she was talking to herself, “A police officer, and a drinker.”

I looked in the library at school for books about farmers or blacksmiths or drunk policemen, and I found a book called, “Farmer Boy.” In chapter one they slaughter a pig. That means kill it and cut it up. We won’t do that, but I could still pretend to be a farmer girl today. I’m not sure exactly what a farmer girl would wear. I asked Mommy, but she said just play it by ear. That means, imagine what to wear and then find something like that in your dresser.

On the bottom I have blue jeans. It is my first pair of blue jeans, and I wear them almost every day. On the top I have a short sleeved shirt. This morning on my head I had a straw hat, but I took that off because my head got hot, plus the straw poked me. And also I have this handkerchief. It was  around my neck, but it keeps falling off. I get it wet with the hose and then wring it out so it isn’t all drippy.

Gramps driving tractor. Nancy riding sled full of hay bales.

We are going back out to the field. I am riding on the sled. I am singing to myself a new song that my friend Cheryl taught me. She lives across the street. I’m trying to remember all the words, but I can only remember part of the chorus. It goes kind of like, “La-la lah lah lah, now I’m a believer.”

The singers of this song are four boys on TV who are called Monkees, and they are very funny. I tried to watch them last week, but Daddy said, “Oh dear, is that Rock and Roll?” And I shrugged my shoulders because I didn’t know, and he said, “Rock and Roll is filthy. The origins of the phrase have to do with sexual ---“

And Mommy stopped him and said, “Oh, Bill, she doesn’t even know what that is!” And then I thought maybe I could still watch TV, but then she said to me, “Nancy, change channels. That’s junkie music.” So I had to switch to the Gomer Pyle show, because that’s all that was on, even though Daddy doesn’t really like that show either. Mr. Pyle says “Golly” a lot, and that is a substitute swear word. But Mommy lets me watch it, because Mr. Pyle also has a pretty singing voice.

Mommy and Daddy know a lot about the origins of words because of being teachers. I think if I’m going to learn the Monkees song, I’ll have to do it by listening to my clock radio at night before I go to sleep. I will turn it down very soft and keep it up close to my ear.

The tractor stops, and I climb off to drag in more bales. We fill up the sled and then Daddy says, “Look, this is the last bale!” I am excited, because I have been working and working and I am tired. I think I worked just as hard as Farmer Boy when his family cut up the pig.

We drive back to the barn and unload the hay. Gramps picks up the last bale and puts it on the stack in the barn. Then he reaches into his back pocket, pulls out his billfold, and takes out a dollar bill. “Come here, girl, and get your pay.”

I am flabbergasted. I don’t know the origins of that word, but I heard it on TV, and I really like it. Flabbergasted. The most money I ever got before was a quarter for washing the car. I look at Mommy, and she nods her head, and I take the dollar and say, “Thank you.”

I push the hair out of my face. I’m dirty and thirsty and so tired that my legs and arms might stop working, and also I feel really good, way down inside my bones. I am seven, going on eight, and I just earned a dollar.

David and Mommy.

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Sina Belle (Carver) Carey Death Certificate 1951.08.12 Norfolk Nebraska

Description:
Sina Belle (Carver) Carey Death Certificate
Note: Year of birth should be 1908

Source:
Nebraska Vital Records

Transcription:

Place of Death	County: Madison C-600  City or Town: Norfolk
Length of stay in this place	21 years
Hospital or Institution	Rest Home, 201 No 12th
Usual Residence	State: Neb   County: Madison   Town: Norfolk
Name of Deceased	Sina B, Carey
Date of Death	8/12/51
Sex / Race / Marital	Female / White  Married
Date of Birth	2-24-1808
Age	43
Usual Occupation	Housewife
Birthplace	Cerdigree NEB
Citizen of What Country	USA
Father’s Name	Orland Carver
Maiden Name of Mother	Annie Hubbard
Name of Husband	Clarence Carey
Informant’s Name	William Carver, Lincoln, Neb.
Filed	6/1/1921 Norfolk, Nebr, Talich/Registrar
Date of Death	5-22-1921
I hereby certify that	I attended deceased from May 17 through May 22, 1921 Last saw her alive on May 21, 1921 Death occurred at 6 am
Disease or Condition directly leading to death	Carcinoma of Breast with Lung metastases
Interval between onset and death	June 1950
Major findings of operation	Too late for operation. Laboratory findings carcinoma.
I hereby certify that I attended deceased	From July 19, 1950 to 8-11-1951
That I last saw deceased alive	8-10-1951 at 6:25 am
Signed	EJ Verges MD   Norfolk, Neb 8-12-1951
Burial / Location	8-14-51 / Prospect Hill, Norfolk Neb

Image:

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Ashton Laverne Carver Death Certificate 1934.01.20 Dallas Texas

Description:
Ashton Laverne Carver Death Certificate

Note: Birth date here is provided by an unknown person, presumably his landlady. Per two of his siblings, his birth date should be 11 Feb 1906.

Source:
Texas Vital Records

Transcription:

Place of Death (City, County, State):	Dallas, Dallas, Texas
Street:	Baylor Hospital
Full Name of Deceased:	Ashton Carver
Residence:	Norfolk, Nebraska
Sex / Race / Marital:	Male / White / Single
Date of Birth:	Feb 15, 1905
Age:	28 yrs, 1 month, 4 days
Profession:	Laborer
Date Deceased last worked at this occupation:	4 mos
Total Time in Occupation:	10 yrs
Birthplace:	Nebraska
Informant:	Mary Bullard, 3112 Bowen
Burial / Date:	Dallas Cem / 1-20-34
Undertaker:	Weever Funeral Home, Dallas, Tex. Bert A Stell
File Date / Date of Death:	Jan 20, 1934 / Jan 19, 1934
I hereby Certify That I attended the deceased from:	1/17/1934 - 1/19/1934
I last saw him alive on:	1/19/1934
Time of death:	10:30 am
The principal cause of death:	Bronchopneumonia
Date of onset:	1/17/34
What test confirmed diagnosis?	Clinical & autopsy
Was there an autopsy?	Yes
Was disease or injury in any way related to occupation of deceased?	No

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Ralph Edgar Carver Death Notice and Certificate 1911.04.18 Bristow Nebraska

Description:
Ralph Edgar Carver Death -News Clipping

Source:
Norfolk Weekly News

Transcription:
North Nebraska Deaths. ... Ralph Edgar Carver died at Bristow.

Image:

The Norfolk Weekly News Journal Fri May 26 1911

Description:
Ralph Edgar Carver Death Certificate

Source:
Nebraska Vital Records

Transcription:

Place of Death	County: Boyd, Township: Bristow
Name Full	Ralph Carver
Sex	Male
Color	White
Marital	Single
Date of birth	1901
Age	10 years
Occupation	At School
Birthplace	Antelope County
Name of Father	O.W. Carver
Birthplace of Father	Wisconsin
Maiden Name of Mother	Anis L. Hubbard
Birthplace of Mother	Vermont
Informant	Frank Talich, Bristow
Filed	April 19, 1911
Date of Death	April 18, 1911
I Hereby Certify	That I attended deceased from April 6, 1911 to April 18, 1911. That I last saw him alive on April 18, 1911 and that death occurred, on the date stated above, at 1:20 pm.
Cause of Death	Measles
Contributory (secondary)	Pneumonia
Signed	R.A. Alexander, Bristow Neb
Place of Burial	Bristow
Date of Burial	April 19, 1911
Undertaker	Frank Talich, Bristow, Neb

Image:

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