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Cultural Musings on Chatham-Kent
Pocket knife tells more than the story of war
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
It's not particularly attractive nor is it the kind of thing that you'd want to have in your pocket even though it's called a "pocket" knife. It is rather large, heavy with a black outer coating that always seemed to have a slightly musty tobacco smell to it probably because my grandfather stored it in his drawer along with his pipe tobacco. It was the only thing that he had left from his World War 1 infantry days and a few years before he died he gave it to me.Over the years, I have lost and found this knife over a dozen times but every time I find it after losing it, a number of things told to me by my grandfather drift through my mind. Oddly enough, very few of these thoughts are about the war but rather about another killer , even more deadly, that stalked the world just as the First World War was coming to a close.
I remember asking my grandfather about his role in the Great War and upon finding out that he only had to go to training camp in London, Ontario and then was excused due to "farm leave", I commented upon the fact that was lucky he did not have to face death in Europe. He nodded his head slowly, a grim look came upon his face and his normally pleasant face turned ashen as he looked me and said, "Well I may not have been at Vimy Ridge but that doesn't mean that I didn't look death in the face on more than one occasion".
It was then that for the first time in my young life that I heard about the virus that has been described as "the worst infectious pandemic in history". It was called the Spanish flu or sometimes "The Purple Death" because of the colour of the victims as their oxygen was slowly cut off.
It is believed that this deadly virus was an unique mutation that evolved in American pigs and was spread around the world by U.S. troops mobilized for Word War 1. The disease spread quickly and without stop due to the fact that it was a "new" disease, meaning that it had not been seen in the 70-80 years preceding the outbreak and as a result there was little protective natural immunity.
My grandfather, living in the Windsor/ Essex area as a teenager, first came into contact with the killer on October 12th, 1918 when the Border Cities Star announced that the city had its first death. It was a nineteen year old store clerk by the name of Irene Graham who had moved to Windsor from neighbouring Sandwich two days before.
By the time November 11th arrived, our area was celebrating not only the end of the war but the fact that "The Purple Death" was slowly abating. It was during this horrible month that my grandfather recounted to me that he would do his own farm chores and then move on to other farms in the neighbourhood and do the chores for families who had their daughters and sons suffering with the flu or had experienced the loss of a loved one to the deadly virus that stalked only the young (young people in their teenage years to their early thirties). Living in that time, within one's own home and neighbourhood, must have been as frightening as being on the front lines in any foreign faraway land during heavy shelling.
By the 23rd of November, a total of 126 people had died in six weeks in the Windsor area. Other areas in Canada did much worse. Out of every 100,000 people, 326 died in London, 327 out of every 100,000 died in Toronto, while the rate in Montreal was 489, 644 in Kingston and 744 per hundred thousand in Winnipeg. In Philadelphia alone, over 12,000 people died.
Overall, some 50,00 Canadians died in the winter of 1918-19 and a full one-third of the world's population had been infected and 20 million to 40 million people were killed. That's more than the First World War (9.2 killed), Second World War (15.9 million), Bubonic Plague (20-25 million) or AIDS (12 million). The Spanish Flu of 1918-19 killed more people than any other disease, war or famine in history.
A devastating war with the loss of loved ones thousands of miles away was just drawing to a close and, then, just when you think the worst is over, to have a silent killer stalk you in your very home, must have been the ultimate in horror.
It is also the reason why whenever I look at my grandfather's old black pocket knife, as I try and do each year as November 11th draws near, I reflect upon the horrors my grandfather must have experienced living through World War 1 and those that he personally faced in the deadly winter of 1918-19 on the home front. I also take a few quiet moments to silently thank God that I have never had to experience such pain, suffering and fear in MY life.
We should all be so lucky to have such reminders that put life into a clear perspective for us once in awhile. It tends to make oneís everyday problems, trials and tribulations seem so absolutely trivial.
Jim and Lisa Gilbert are local, national and international award winning educators and historians.
