My g-grandfather, g-grandmother, two of their children and an infant grandchild all died of the flu in 1918 within 5 days of each other. My parents were born in 1918. It was against the odds they survived.
The number of headstones engraved with 1918 is chilling. More people died in the 1918 flu pandemic than were killed in WWI.
Actually the odds for them to survive at that age were not all that bad, the 1918 flu epidemic killed mostly people between the ages of 18 and 42.
The healthiest, most robust people in society; that’s what scared the hell out of the doctors.
1918 flu very nearly killed my grandfather. He was in the army at a stateside post, maybe in Arkansas. The 1918 flu is believed to have begun in western Kansas.