Many survived. Here were some #famoussurvivors of the #1918flupandemic.
Much is known and publicized about the number of deaths in the 1918 flu pandemic. According to the NationalArchives.gov “The influenza epidemic that swept the world in 1918 killed an estimated 50 million people…Within months, it had killed more people than any other illness in recorded history.”
Many survived. Here are some famous survivors of the 1918 flu pandemic.
Winston Churchill’s wife, Clementine contracted the virus in 1919 along with Isabelle, their nanny and their child, Marigold. Clementine and Marigold survived while Isabelle did not. Clementine went on to contribute her efforts to many civic organizations and was said to be an asset to her husband, especially during the Second World War.
In order to find survivors within Swedish royalty, I first had to search through deaths. I found that 4 of 5 of the then royal family of Sweden survived the 1918 flu. They were King Gustav V, Queen Victoria, Prince Gustav VI and Prince Wilhelm. (Prince Erik, the youngest of the royal Princes was the 1 of 5 who succumbed to the flu.)
The pandemic forced movie theaters to close and Hollywood came to a halt in 1918. Two great actresses of the American silent film era contracted the flu and recovered. Lillian Gish had to take a 3 month leave from acting in 1918 due to the flu. Mary Pickford, “America’s Sweetheart” became ill with the flu while working in Los Angeles. She did recover and returned to acting.
The great American artist Georgia O’Keefe was working as a teacher in Texas when she contracted the flu in 1918 when she was 30 years old. She was fortunate to be able to recover in a private Manhattan residence, after which she went back to painting and did so well into her 80’s.
In 1918 when Franklin Delano Roosevelt was Assistant Secretary of the Navy, he traveled to France for diplomatic talks. He was returning on the USS Leviathan when he fell ill with the flu causing double pneumonia. This he survived only to contract polio in 1921. Polio paralyzed him from the waist down. He went on to serve as 32nd President of the United States from 1933 to 1945 when he died.
America’s 28th President, Thomas Woodrow Wilson came down with the flu in the spring of 1919 when he attended the Versailles Peace Conferences in France. The Press reported that he merely had a cold. Later in 1919 the President suffered a stroke, also not reported to the public. He recovered from both the flu and his stroke. He died in 1924, 3 years after his two-term presidency ended. It’s worth noting that President Wilson was the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1919 for his work toward “bringing a design for a fundamental law of humanity into present-day international politics.” (Quoted in a letter from the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament, in reference to President Wilson’s Fourteen Points program.)
Lastly, our world would not be the same if Walter Elias Disney had not survived the 1918 Flu Pandemic. In September of 1918 while in Chicago training for the Red Cross Ambulance Corps, he contracted the flu. He was 17 years old. He recovered and rejoined the Red Cross in France in December of that same year. The war had ended a month earlier, but Disney assisted in the occupation efforts. Later, he became the pioneer of the American animation industry, a voice actor and film producer. Theme parks and resorts in Japan, France, China, Hong Kong, California and Florida all bear the name Disney. It is said of Walt Disney that he wanted to live forever and in a sense, he has done just that.
