When another pandemic hit Ripon

In the final weeks of 1918, the deadly Spanish flu pandemic hit Wisconsin and the world. The disease supposedly was called that because the Spanish press was not censored and first alerted the world to the crisis.

The influenza reached Wisconsin in September, just six weeks before World War I ended on Nov. 11. In the last five days of the month, the number of new cases reported by health officials in Wisconsin rose from 6 to 97. One week later, officials reported 256 new cases. The peak came on Oct. 22 with 588 new cases.

An estimated 50 million people around the world died, more than four times the number of those who died fighting on the western front and more than those killed in World War I, the Korean War and the Vietnam War combined.

The influenza spread and struck down victims extremely rapidly. Some collapsed with no warning, and many died within hours. About 20% developed a devastating form of pneumonia. Particularly hard-hit were seemingly healthy younger adults between the ages of 25 and 40.

Wisconsin’s State Board of Health ordered communities “to immediately close all schools, theaters, other places of amusement and public gathering for an indefinite period of time.” Individuals were asked to socially isolate, creating a sense of “forced retirement into oneself.” Political campaigns were severely curtailed with public rallies, stump speeches and parades banned. They were replaced with mail campaigns and newspaper coverage.

This order was followed in Ripon for several weeks, schools were closed and the football season was cut short.

Because of these measures, Wisconsin fared relatively lightly compared to other states. About 103,000 Wisconsin residents were sickened and 8,459 died. In Fond du Lac County, where Ripon College is located, the death toll was 115.

Sad news came of Ripon College alumni. On Oct. 10, a front-page story in the Ripon Weekly Press noted the death of Dr. Ward DeBoth of Green Bay after he had contracted the disease caring for patients. He did college preparatory work at Ripon in 1905 and was a football star. His sister,

The death of Frances Emily Stuart, a graduate of the music department at Ripon in 1912, was noted Oct. 24. She had been head of the music departments at Colby College in Maine and Whitman College in Walla Walla, Washington. She had died Oct. 1 of pneumonia following influenza at the family home in Maine.

“The Stuart family have been sorely afflicted the past month,” the newspaper reported, “Miss Stuart, her father and a sister, all passing away within 24 hours of one another. A few days later, the sister’s small son also succumbed to the disease. It was only a short time previous that they had had official notification of the death of the lad’s father in France.”

The epidemic finally trailed off in December, and the State Board of Health declared it would “forever be remembered as the most disastrous calamity that has ever been visited upon the people of Wisconsin or any of the other states.”