My Grandmother Meynel Clowney Cato was attending Winthrop College for Women in 1918 when she became infected with the “Spanish Flu”.
She told me the deceased students were secretly taken out through the back doors to avoid panic in the dorm. Her fever got so high she started hallucinating and thought the walls were covered with Praying Mantises.
She was placed in a tub of “ice water” to lower her temperature and eventually recovered. Whether it was the cold water treatment or a strong constitution I don’t know but I am very glad she survived.
I was raised, and eventually adopted by my Grandmother and I grew up with more knowledge of the old south that most of my peers. I just wish I had asked her more about her life. Like many children I thought the old stories were unimportant. I was very wrong.
The Spanish Flu pandemic came along early in her life, and the Covid-19 pandemic is coming late in my life. It is an interesting symmetry.