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General => The Common Room => Topic started by: Blue70 on Friday 06 July 18 22:08 BST (UK)
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I recently discovered one of my grandmother's siblings died in October 1918 aged 10 years of Spanish Flu. One hundred years on this year. Anyone else lose any family in this way?
Blue
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Hi Blue,
Yes, my grandfather, he suffered for 12 days, leaving three young children. Many years later I was born the day after his anniversary.
Cheers
KHP
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My Great Uncle survived WW1 only to die of flu on his way home in 1919 🏡
Carol
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My Grandfathers sister died 9 December just before she was due to get married. She was buried in her wedding dress.
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My Dad's sister died of this in Sydney NSW. She was 2 years of age
JM
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Apparently is was also called "Flu Pandemic", it affected 500 million people all over the world and possible deaths were recorded between 50 million and 100 million, it was the worst disaster,
If you Google it you will find more information
My husband lost family members and I had a cousin who died, he survived the war but died due Spanish flu, he died in a military hospital and is listed on CWGC
Louisa Maud
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My father's uncle, who served as a driver with the Army Service Corps from January 1915, died of the flu at Etaples in December 1918. He had been home on leave when the Armistice was signed, returning to France on 17 November. 16 days later he was dead.
It's said that the flu killed more people than all the fighting in the Great War.
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This is a good video on the 1918 influenza pandemic in the United States. [To skip the ads, start at 2:12]:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9bzuQygEoAw
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Only one of my direct line died of it. My great grandfather died of bronchitis following flu on 15th October 1919.
Gadget
Added - just checked, he was 74.
added- 2. his son was a POW but survived and died in 1954.
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I don't think anyone in my family died of the Spanish flu, but as it happens, I have just finished reading a book about it - Pale Rider, by Laura Spinney. A very interesting read.
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My grandmothers first husband died in Oct 1918 in France 2 years earlier they had lost twins .
to go all way through war and then to die at the end of the war so sad.
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About 10yrs ago now, we visited many of the WW1 Battle Sites and Memorials. It was striking how many of the gravestones gave dates after the cessation of hostilities. This was of course due to fatalities from the Spanish Flu.
Romilly.
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About 10yrs ago now, we visited many of the WW1 Battle Sites and Memorials. It was striking how many of the gravestones gave dates after the cessation of hostilities. This was of course due to fatalities from the Spanish Flu.
Romilly.
They were more likely men who died as a result of wounds and injuries received during the war but died after the end of hostilities, they were still counted as War deaths.
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Heartbreaking stories of how so many survived the horrors of WW1 only to lose their lives to Spanish Flu.
I don't have anyone in my family as far as I know who died as a result of the flu but a distant cousin died in 1919 of wounds received in 1916. He was in Alderhey Military Hospital for almost 3 years and never made it home to Scotland.
Dorrie
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I just remembered another relative, not a blood relative, related through marriage, my aunt's uncle. He was in the American Army he also died in October 1918. He looks a bit like my cousin:-
http://www.merseysiderollofhonour.co.uk/get3.php?cwgc=cox
Blue
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Husbands great grandmother in September 1918 aged 41
His grandmother was only 4, her father had died in 1915, she and her siblings were brought up in an orphanage
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My Great Grandmother died from 'flu in 1918, her death certicate was on Ancestry included in Great Grandfather's war records, the cost was deducted from his Army pay!
rayard.
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I have just finished reading a book about it - Pale Rider, by Laura Spinney. A very interesting read.
I second that.