Johnston County during the 1918 Pandemic By Benjamin Sanderford | Photo courtesy of Johnston County Heritage Center
All was not well in Johnston County in 1918. A new disease was sweeping through the community, one that attacked the respiratory system quickly and with deadly efficiency. They called it “Spanish flu,” but no one really knew where it originated. By the time this influenza pandemic passed, more than 100 Johnstonians would be dead, and the survivors would be faced with the fragility of their society. The first recorded victims of the new influenza virus were soldiers at Camp Funston, Kansas, in March. A month later, some 1,100 had fallen sick and 46 had died. The disease then spread to other Army camps, to Europe and to the rest of the world. The flu symptoms during the early months of the pandemic seemed ordinary — aches, chills, high fever and coughing. However, a second wave spread in the fall. Victims in this phase often died of suffocation as their lungs filled with fluids days or hours after infection. 32 | JOHNSTON NOW
By the first week of October, many authorities, including Johnston’s own County Board of Health, were ordering schools and churches to be shut and all public gathering to be banned. As of Oct. 7, there were 48 known cases in Kenly and nearly 20 in the old Smithfield cotton mill vicinity, which also shut down. On Oct.15, The Smithfield Herald reported that County Quarantine Officer Eva Hood Hooks, whose doctor husband was serving in Europe, had appointed H.B. Marrow, superintendent of Smithfield Graded Schools, as county supervisor of health. Marrow was soon busy issuing guidelines and reports to halt the spread of the flu. In one editorial that appeared in the Herald, dated Oct. 22, he lamented “the absolutely indifferent and careless way in which” some people ignored the recommendations of health experts. In particular, the he noted those who gathered at the drug stores, street corners
H.B. Marrow, far right, Superintendent of Smithfield Graded Schools, poses with other faculty members in this photo. Marrow served as County Supervisor of Health during the pandemic in 1918.
and the homes of sick friends without wearing masks or using handkerchiefs when they sneezed. Then there were the spitters whose “neighbors are sure to get a full supply of their germs.” Faced with this nonchalant behavior, Marrow concluded that “unless these conditions are changed I think it will be expedient that strenuous regulations be enacted and enforced” to ensure that the flu “is completely stamped out.” To that end, he passed along instructions from the State Board of Health. These guidelines recommended, among other things, that “all persons with coughs and colds should be warned to remain at home in bed” and that people “should avoid congregating unnecessarily.” The neighboring articles illustrated the wisdom of Marrow’s advice. The Herald reported that there had been a total of two deaths thus far in the Four Oaks area, six in and around Kenly and nearly 12 in the Clayton vicinity. Despite assuring readers
