[Vwoolf] NYTimes: Why Are There Almost No Memorials to the Flu of 1918?

[Ellen Moody]

One of things I've noticed is how little commemoration or memorials there
have been of who has died in this pandemic. During wars we get a plethora
of lists of who died; remember how Cronkite used to have a list of who died
today in Vietnam.  Judy Woodruff on PBS does that.  I saw one ceremony in
Spain and it was broken up by authorities as defying the quarantine.

The only place I have seen this is on PBS: every three or so nights, Judy
Woodruff remembers three or four people. She is careful to include ordinary
non-heroes, non high ranking people; indeed most of her portraits are of
non-famous people.  She has a photo of the person, tells the story of their
occupation, a little of their life (as told by the family) and then family
and friends. The loss is not just to the person dead but to those whom this
person meant a lot to in their lives. I've thought one reason for this
silence is there are no general statistics put out by any central authority
telling the names and a little about the people who died today. No central
sources.

People do not like to talk of sickness, illness and then real deaths from
sickness. Perhaps Susan Sontag deals with this on her book on illness as a
metaphor.

Ellen

On Thu, May 14, 2020 at 6:34 AM Kllevenback via Vwoolf <vwoolf at lists.osu.edu>
wrote:

> My first instinct was to send this to Jane and Elizabeth—but then I
> reconsidered.
>
> Stay safe, be well—
> Karen Levenback
>
> Why Are There Almost No Memorials to the Flu of 1918?
>
> https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/14/business/1918-flu-memorials.html?referringSource=articleShare
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
>
> Sent from my iPad
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