Excerpt of Interview - The Settle Family during the Spanish Influenza [transcript]

00:00:00:00 - 00:00:04:18 Unknown Interviewer: It was that bad flu epidemic at the beginning of or during.

00:00:04:23 - 00:00:45:15 Eugene Settle: World War II. No one had the flu. Yeah. Yeah, that of 1918 was I was in France. My folks all had one. All except my mother and brother next to me. He was in one war at home. He came home. Did get about nine. He was sure it was him. And then they all got down. Yeah, except my mother.

00:00:45:17 - 00:00:50:18 Unknown Interviewer: Did they still able to take care of themselves? No.

00:00:50:21 - 00:01:14:21 Eugene Settle: My mother. And then we had a neighbor down this way from left. He was immense, this man. He used to be a. He’s an active Methodist minister. And they run the little one wash laundry. Not a lot of miles away from what happened between life and town. And he came. He came up there and got their laundry, took it down in the laundry for mother.

00:01:14:23 - 00:01:36:04 Eugene Settle: And then there was a fellow that couldn’t work at work, was my dad, and worked for my dad one on one, someone on his neighbor. Just a transient. And he’s coming through. He’s coming through that. He’s come through the country and, well, of course he figured, well, I got I got to settle down. I’ll get him. I’ll get a meal to.

00:01:36:07 - 00:01:50:07 Eugene Settle: Do I moved on. He went out there. And my mother wouldn’t let him in at all. She told him to hold on with him.

00:01:50:09 - 00:02:25:04 Eugene Settle: And. Yes, mother, he says, who’s staying here? There’s talk. We only had 4 or 5 horses and 3 or 4 cars out there on the place. And she said the neighbors come, he can take them and bring him up through the door. And, well, he says, you tell, you tell Mr. Saddle, if you don’t give me enough money so I can buy me a what, a moonshine, a whiskey says, I’ll come out here and pay and take care.

00:02:25:06 - 00:02:47:04 Eugene Settle: Take care of the stick, do the chores for you. Well, he says. Yeah. Says you can stay in the house yourself. You can stay in the house. Well, he says, yeah. So I just moved blankets and something to sleep up there. And he. And so she went and talked to dad. What do you know? So dad gave him some money and he went downtown.

00:02:47:05 - 00:02:51:07 Eugene Settle: Oh. Where are you? Got it.

00:02:51:09 - 00:03:02:06 Eugene Settle: But he got him from whiskey, and he stayed out there, stayed up there and made a band of corn.

00:03:02:08 - 00:03:28:21 Eugene Settle: And whatever. Took his cook, his breakfast and meal for him and and give it to him. He take him from the door. From the door he brought. Need him outside. You know. You wouldn’t know him in the house. And then we got to and give him evacuation. And he stayed there for so. Though I think my dad got on, he got on his feet and one of the walls in a way that still got bigger.

00:03:28:21 - 00:03:32:20 Eugene Settle: So.

00:03:32:23 - 00:03:34:20 Unknown Interviewer: How badly we were.

00:03:34:22 - 00:03:59:23 Eugene Settle: And he left. He left. And we never did. You ever did see him again. And folks also wonder I wonder he may went off you know left. He’s going he’s headed down towards Lewis and was warmer made so some water he got over down there and in the jungle younger and got the flu and and maybe never did maybe die.

00:03:59:23 - 00:04:08:03 Eugene Settle: And they really never did. They never see him anymore. And we’re here for the next.

00:04:08:06 - 00:04:13:04 Unknown Interviewer: They must have really appreciated that. He did.

00:04:13:07 - 00:04:34:07 Eugene Settle: Yeah. They worried about that guy. Quite a little bit of one. Really tired. After which one or whatever with him. They were always kind of like they’re far from the far north on the one anywhere. They just because he you just a tramp with and they just and he you made him and he’s headed downstairs north down the lower country.

00:04:34:07 - 00:04:51:18 Eugene Settle: They go down Lewis. Down that way. Much warmer. Well, they can’t camp out. They wanted he didn’t want the field. Nobody went on down there. And maybe after he left in May, got the flu or he may have died, but they never did. We never did hear.

00:04:51:20 - 00:04:53:15 Unknown Interviewer: And he worked for your father and.

00:04:53:15 - 00:04:54:03 Eugene Settle: He many.

00:04:54:03 - 00:04:54:29 Unknown Interviewer: Times before.

00:04:54:29 - 00:05:20:06 Eugene Settle: Though. You just were from that phone. Does that come on that only say where he went from that, that summer well being and he and then they always had their straw late in the fall. But he worked. It was raining and he didn’t ever get home. He went, oh. And then he left there and he see. So he left that and went over on the Yakima couple to take an apple harvest.

00:05:20:06 - 00:05:25:03 Eugene Settle: That’s right.

00:05:25:06 - 00:05:37:05 Eugene Settle: And then and where he’s. Getting it back is one he hadn’t written down for west and north of the valley. Down over warmer.

00:05:37:07 - 00:05:45:01 Eugene Settle: I think it was in November. That’s when he stopped up here to come up the forks and get a meal before he went on.

00:05:45:04 - 00:05:47:01 Unknown Interviewer: How long were they down with that?

00:05:47:04 - 00:05:53:20 Eugene Settle: I don’t remember, they must been down for.

00:05:53:23 - 00:06:22:25 Eugene Settle: A couple of weeks and maybe longer filming some or all of that, but I think, well, I don’t feel like my dad, the ones that had it later. Yeah, some had worse than others. And my brother, my next to me, he had it the worst of any, and they feel sure that he is confident that he was going to make it with my dad in my other very I don’t I don’t think they had it to him.

00:06:22:25 - 00:06:28:07 Eugene Settle: They didn’t have it. They didn’t have to have it.

00:06:28:10 - 00:06:36:28 Eugene Settle: That week or ten days when it went, you know, counting up themselves.

00:06:37:00 - 00:06:37:11 Eugene Settle: With your.

00:06:37:11 - 00:06:39:06 Unknown Interviewer: Mother able to nurse to the.

00:06:39:06 - 00:07:06:13 Eugene Settle: Family. Yeah. He took he took care. He took care of. As I say, this family, the run, the hand laundry down there, they always come up and every day. Yeah, yeah, she getting. Yep. The laundry up for her. So she didn’t have nothing like that to do. And that’s all she had to deal with in them till this guy came along and they were.

00:07:06:14 - 00:07:25:15 Eugene Settle: That was why he, he came up in the morning and finished talking him. And he had set them up, walk it out on or should you go on, milk the cows, bring it back, sitting on the floor for. Yeah. I don’t know how he. Well, this guy came along in this guy, you know, he took care.

00:07:25:18 - 00:07:27:11 Unknown Interviewer: That’s swept through the whole country.

00:07:27:14 - 00:07:36:10 Eugene Settle: Yes. If you did, if you ask people right here in Washington, that epidemic. Did you hear about.

00:07:36:15 - 00:07:46:06 Unknown Interviewer: All the military boys stationed here that got the flu during that time? I heard they got it really bad. And the units.

00:07:46:08 - 00:08:09:25 Eugene Settle: You know, I don’t I don’t have yeah, I know this this serum they had they had a unit here at university. They I know they, some of them I know they were just a couple of kids. I think the used to each together formed up here I was one of the boys died up, you know, during that time years at the university up here get name hide medicine.

00:08:10:02 - 00:08:32:19 Eugene Settle: Who the any country and I think Chevron bastard died appeared you know working with. But I don’t know any other camp I don’t remember, I don’t remember like. Yeah rule no place. I don’t know whether you get mad I don’t I know face you know, I don’t remember on the what I know we didn’t have it in France.

00:08:32:19 - 00:08:43:00 Eugene Settle: I had, I had it in I think it’s the first or second winter at home. After I got home, I had put up very bad.