Members of our community have earlier family members who experienced something similar to, and in many ways worse than, our current pandemic. In 1918-1919 the “Spanish Flu” killed many millions worldwide. Here are a few artifacts from that era, preserved by our museum board secretary, Jill Keeney. The letter is from her grandfather, Bill Siemens.

Jill writes this about these artifacts:

Dr. W. J. Siemens (William John) is my mother’s father.  He was born in Wright Co. SD in 1888, eldest of 7.  The family moved to Iowa but he was the only one to not choose to farm, or stay in the area, besides his youngest sister who moved to NY and became a nurse.  I believe he met Grandma, Gertrude Connell, when working at the Des Moines hospital in Iowa.  She was born in Brooklyn, IA in 1894 and had been in nursing school, where she was called by her last name which then morphed to ‘Connie.’ (That is why Grandpa refers to her both as Gertrude, aka Gertie, which was her Iowa name, and then Conny in the letter.)

They married May 29th of 1918 and Grandpa was serving in the Army during WW I, based at the Army Hospital at Camp Grant in Rockford, Ill.  I only know this now from his letter. I’ve attached the letter as I transcribed it.  . . . . I also have a picture of a family (don’t know who) from 1918 and an ad for the product grandpa mentions.