Excerpt of Interview - World War I, the Red Cross, and Moscow during the Influenza Outbreak [transcript]

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:21:13 Unknown Interviewer: I was going to ask you about what you remember World War One. And, I was thinking particularly of that, of that flu epidemic, but also about the, the effect of war. One in, in Moscow.

00:00:21:15 - 00:00:28:15 Lillian Woodworth Otness: Well, I was pretty small, I see. I would have been.

00:00:28:17 - 00:00:33:19 Lillian Woodworth Otness: of,

00:00:33:22 - 00:01:08:03 Lillian Woodworth Otness: Well, under under ten, I remember I learned to knit because my mother and all her friends were knitting. And I had learned in it, too, that as I wanted to do and I belong to the junior Red cross, and I used to go do things like cut up girls for for dressings or something like that. And. The, the Red cross had was really quite organized locally, and there was a lot there were a lot of women involved in it.

00:01:08:05 - 00:01:18:08 Lillian Woodworth Otness: And I can remember. Excuse me.

00:01:18:10 - 00:01:19:02 Unknown Interviewer: Involved.

00:01:19:02 - 00:01:54:05 Lillian Woodworth Otness: It really was quite active. And, for instance, they used to have, they used to work in the old post office up upstairs. They had, they had some, quarters there. I don’t remember very much about that, but I know my mother used to go. One day a week, I think. And, She, people would knit, women would knit socks.

00:01:54:05 - 00:02:21:01 Lillian Woodworth Otness: And some women never could learn to turn the heels of socks or to, finish off the toes. And so sometimes my mother would go there and spend the whole afternoon turning heels and finishing off toes so that after you, after you got the heel turn, then it was plain knitting again and was easier. And,

00:02:21:04 - 00:02:51:08 Lillian Woodworth Otness: My mother’s cousin. Was was John Llewellyn, and his mother in law was and was a white haired old lady that I remember, Mrs. Smith, what’s her name? And she could knit a sock in one day, a whole sock, and finish it in one day. She was the best knitter in town.

00:02:51:10 - 00:02:54:25 Unknown Interviewer: And these socks went to the sick. men?

00:02:54:27 - 00:03:13:16 Lillian Woodworth Otness: No, they went to to soldiers. Anybody. Servicemen, anybody that needed them. And they, the Red cross got the yarn in and distributed it. And, and people knit up the, the socks or the sweaters or whatever, and then the Red cross. So I thought, well, what about the.

00:03:13:18 - 00:03:18:15 Unknown Interviewer: Severity of this flu as you and, as you’ve been told about it?

00:03:18:16 - 00:03:56:17 Lillian Woodworth Otness: Well, it must have been a very, very odd form because, a great many people were sick and, and, and people died. People I knew of died. The superintendent of schools died. And, there was, what they call the CTC was something at the university. It was, oh, student some kind of training. Anyhow, it was,

00:03:56:19 - 00:04:30:16 Lillian Woodworth Otness: Well, it was sort of like ROTC, except that they had training here and then went right into, into service, and I, I have heard that. What they were when they lined, lined up to get flu shots and so on, some of them would, would be attacked by flu just while they were waiting. And we just, just fall air and the line just passed completely out.

00:04:30:18 - 00:05:00:13 Lillian Woodworth Otness: Dropping like flies was the way it was told here in town. And apparently there there were were just keeling over with it and the, the Mr. Lewis house, which is now an apartment house on Adams and sixth and seventh and Adams. That was taken over as, as an auxiliary hospital. And and people used to go there.

00:05:00:13 - 00:05:13:07 Lillian Woodworth Otness: My dad went there and volunteered and helped nurse, help nurse flu patients and,

00:05:13:10 - 00:05:36:18 Lillian Woodworth Otness: The that the town activities were closed up, the movies were closed, the schools were closed. no public meetings were permitted for very long. I don’t know, I suppose, oh, I suppose six weeks or a couple of months would be. That’s maybe the the limit of it.

00:05:36:20 - 00:05:56:12 Unknown Interviewer: Was this were the servicemen, the nurse who hit the strongest I’ve heard associated with them the flu and particularly, wondering if whether it was it is hard against the town itself as it gets the servicemen.

00:05:56:14 - 00:06:13:00 Lillian Woodworth Otness: I don’t know, I don’t know, but I think the town was badly hit. And I think that, I think that few families escaped having somebody sick and and there were a number of deaths. Oh.

00:06:13:03 - 00:06:21:23 Unknown Interviewer: Do you have any idea of what the course of it was? if somebody got the flu as a matter of weeks and weeks of sickness or.

00:06:21:25 - 00:06:57:17 Lillian Woodworth Otness: Oh, I don’t think so. I think it went into pneumonia with the people that died and that they died fairly. I don’t think they be, Terribly long time. That’s an a mine that I’ve told you about that lived in Lewiston. He was living alone. And somebody, notified my dad that she was sick and, with the flu and needed, needed,

00:06:57:20 - 00:07:24:00 Lillian Woodworth Otness: Needed help. And he went down there and stayed. oh, I suppose maybe ten days or so. And, he was credited family tradition. Has it had saved her life because it had gone into uremic poisoning with her, and he just pitched right in and stayed with her day and night and and took care of her and brought her through it.

00:07:24:02 - 00:07:52:14 Lillian Woodworth Otness: But, everybody said she would have died if if father hadn’t gone down there and looked at her because the doctors were just were just so overworked and all the medical facilities were so overtaxed that people did just die for, for lack of attention. And by the time dad heard about it and got down there, she was,

00:07:52:16 - 00:08:27:12 Lillian Woodworth Otness: She was, just not able to do anything for herself. And I can remember when he brought her, when he came back, he brought her up here, and she was the weakest, most washed out thing. He. But I could see that as as, as young as I was. And she was. Oh, I suppose she stayed with us for probably 2 or 3 weeks, maybe a month or so before she got her strength back.

00:08:27:15 - 00:08:50:12 Lillian Woodworth Otness: It apparently was very debilitating for people that, And of course, they had no back. No, remedies for pneumonia at that time. And, and this was just, just something, Very, very.

00:08:50:14 - 00:08:57:02 Unknown Interviewer: Face masks on their gauze masks.

00:08:57:05 - 00:09:07:09 Lillian Woodworth Otness: it seemed to me I remember people wearing face masks and.

00:09:07:12 - 00:09:11:18 Lillian Woodworth Otness: but,

00:09:11:20 - 00:09:46:00 Lillian Woodworth Otness: It was, as I remember, it was a time of great gloom. is, all the news was bad, and, and there was great head shaking and and, everybody was upset about it at the time. it really, it really brought things to a standstill in the town. There just there just weren’t enough doctors to go around and not enough the doctors could do for it.