Military graves, Ross Bay Cemetery, Victoria, March 2014.
A Memorial Grove
There are stories of Spanish Influenza felling whole families.
Stories of caregivers who made the supreme sacrifice caring for influenza patients.
News of overnight death from an Eastern camp where conscripts were being made fit to fight in the brutal last months of the Great War.
Fresh-faced recruits from Saskatchewan and Quebec arrived at Willows Camp with battalions bound for Siberia only to end their days at the Stadacona Park Isolation Hospital.
This was the worst of all pandemics. Estimates of the numbers of people it killed only keeps rising as more is understood about the virus’s symptoms and effects. Yet it has been called “the forgotten epidemic.” Perhaps a military code elevated those who fell in battle as brave or gallant ones and correspondingly demoted death by Spanish Flu. The virulent strain of pneumonia suffocated the victim over perhaps 48 hours by filling the lungs with super-viscous phlegm. It was by all accounts a death horrible to witness, an agony to experience. Perhaps it was seen as a poor subject for commemoration. The Spanish Flu did its work in the shadow of the tumultuous conclusion of the War, so these losses may have fallen on survivors already desensitized to death. Perhaps the collective will put aside public grieving the better to focus on the task of adjusting to peacetime.
Whatever the reasons, these stories have not been told before. This is a way of honouring brief lives and acknowledging a circumstance shared with millions. The memorial and the companion Survivors page are open to additions of local family stories about the Spanish Flu.
Caregivers
Dorothy Pearson Twist, 33, Voluntary Aid Detachment (V.A.D.) nurse overseas, died September 26, 1918 in England
Ellen Ruth Murphy, RN, 21, Nursing Sister, died October 9, 1918 in Agassiz, B.C.
Lizzie Mary Lena Grant, 28, Red Cross worker, died October 20, 1918 in Victoria
Beulah Westwood, 29, school teacher, volunteer nurse, died November 8, 1918 in Victoria
Sister Mary Josephine, RN, 28, Chief Operating Nurse, St. Joseph’s Hospital, died November 9, 1918 in Victoria
Military
Albert Roy Maclachlan, Sapper, 2nd Depot Battalion, B. C. Regiment, died September 29, 1918 in Quebec.
Norman Dixon, Private, 260th Battalion C.E.F. (Siberia), died October 14, 1918 in Victoria
William Allan Blyth, Private, Aero Repair, Royal Air Force, died October 16, 1918 in Toronto
Joseph Hewitt, Private, 260th Battalion C.E.F. (Siberia), died October 17, 1918 in Victoria
William Joseph Keeler, Private, 260th Battalion C.E.F. (Siberia), died October 17, 1918 in Victoria
Alfred Ernest Cordery, Private, 260th Battalion C.E.F. (Siberia), died October 18, 1918 in Victoria
George Fudge, Private, 260th Battalion C.E.F. (Siberia), died October 18, 1918 in Victoria
William Henry McLaughlin, Trumpeter, 5th Regiment Canadian Garrison Artillery, died October 18, 1918 in Esquimalt
Fred Brock Crysler, Private, 260th Battalion C.E.F. (Siberia), died October 19, 1918 in Victoria
Harry Chateauneauff Johnston, Private, 1st Depot Battalion, B.C. Regiment C.E.F., died October 19, 1918 in Vancouver, BC
Archibald Calvert, Private, 260th Battalion C.E.F. (Siberia), died October 20, 1918 in Victoria
Edward Henry Charles Cook, Private, 1st Depot Battalion, B.C. Regiment C.E.F., died October 20, 1918 in Victoria
James Hayes, Private, 260th Battalion C.E.F. (Siberia), died October 20, 1918 in Victoria
Thomas Unsworth Cooke, Private, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry, C.E.F., died October 26, 1918 in Victoria
Malcolm H. Leonard, Leading Stoker, H.M.C.S. Rainbow, Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve, died October 31, 1918 in Esquimalt
John Conlon, Private, 259th Battalion C.E.F. (Siberia), died November 1, 1918 in Victoria
Benjamin Mitchell, Private, 11th Canadian Garrison Regiment, C.E.F., died November 20, 1918 in Esquimalt
George Stanley Sargison, Gunner, 5th British Columbia Garrison Artillery, C.E.F., died November 23, 1918 in Victoria
Frederick Lewis Hollett, Sergeant, 16th Battalion, C.E.F., died January 4, 1919 in Victoria
Clement James William Freeman, Private, 16th Battalion, C.E.F. and Canadian Army Medical Corps, died January 11, 1919 in Vancouver, BC
Albert George Moss, Private, 88th Battalion, C.E.F. and Canadian Army Service Corps, died January 30, 1919 in Victoria
Henry Alfred Hagger, Private, Canadian Forestry Corps, C.E.F., died February 13, 1919 in Vancouver
Hin Yung Chang, 47th Company, Chinese Labour Corps, died November 18, 1919 in Metchosin, BC
John Campbell, Corporal, 18th Battalion, C.E.F., died March 14, 1920 in Esquimalt
Residents
Mabel Mary Brown, 20, immigrated from Ireland, died October 1, 1918 in Victoria of pneumonia possibly related to Spanish flu
Frank Stanfield, 27, theatre manager, died October 6, 1918 in Victoria
Horatio Alfred Treen, 76, Captain, Victoria Rifles (Montreal), veteran of the Fenian campaign, died October 10, 1918 in Victoria
Clarissa Sellick, 54, wife of Alfred Sellick, died October 14, 1918 in Victoria
Elizabeth Fulton, 16, a student from Belfast, Ireland, died October 17, 1918 in Victoria
Arthur Butcher, 31, a letter carrier, died October 19, 1918 in Victoria
Netta Florence Anderson, 20, an elevator operator, died October 20, 1918 in Victoria
Elizabeth Thompson, 19, employee of Victoria Steam Laundry, died November 7, 1918 in Victoria
Agnes Ann Lorimer, 33, a housekeeper, died November 23, 1918 in Victoria
William Lorimer, 73, father of Agnes, died on November 24, 1918 in Victoria
Rose Emeline Smith, 39, wife of Harry Walter Smith, mother of three, died December 25, 1918 in Victoria
Ernest Edward Farrington, 31, employee of B.C. Electric Railway Co., died February 21, 1919 in Victoria
Joseph Callow, 34, an elevator operator, died February 24, 1919 in Victoria
Demetrius Konstantine Chungranes, 66, a fish merchant, died February 22, 1919 in Point Grey, BC