Pandemic: The Spanish Influenza and Benjamin Wolfe
The US Center for Disease Control describes the Spanish Influenza as the most devastating illness in our recent history. It began in 1917 and peaked in 1918 as the sickness spanned continents and reached pandemic status. It is believed that roughly one-third of the world’s population, or about 500 million people, became infected with the virus. Statistics are only estimated, as modern diagnostic tools were not available 100 years ago. The flu was often confused with other respiratory illnesses, yet, in October 1918 it is probable the Spanish Flu killed nearly 195,000 Americans. The virus would ultimately claim almost 675,000 lives in the United States over the course of its run, and perhaps 50 million worldwide. Unlike other flu epidemics, the highest mortality rates were among young adults aged 20–40 years. Due to an overall lack of immunity and no vaccines, the flu spread rapidly before waning. Without antibiotics, many flu victims succumbed to pneumonia or other secondary infections.
In October 1918 the Asheville Citizen noted a shortage of doctors and nurses. The October 13th edition called for volunteer help. “Our people are suffering for lack of attention as never before. More Asheville people are dying of Influenza at home than are dying from all causes on the battle-fields of France.” The October 17th edition explained, “Calls for help sent to the state and federal authorities are invariably answered by saying that it is impossible to find a doctor or trained nurse that can be spared.” Because of the war, most nurses had been relocated to military camps, causing widespread shortages of help for the sick. On October 20th, the Asheville Citizen reported the opening of an emergency hospital inside the old high school, providing 50 additional beds to help accommodate the city’s infected. Over 2,500 people in Asheville had been diagnosed with Influenza to date. By the end of the month, an additional temporary hospital had been established inside the Masonic Temple, which offered care for African American flu sufferers.
Thomas Wolfe’s brother, Benjamin Harrison Wolfe, was born in 1892. Tom and Ben were arguably the closest of all the Wolfe siblings. Tom always remembered that he had received more guidance, care, and attention from his beloved brother than he often did from his parents. A newspaper man, Ben started working as a young boy delivering the Asheville Citizen, and took a position in the paper’s business department after leaving public school. In his last years, he worked in Winston-Salem for both The Sentinel and The Journal. Awaiting news about his draft status for WWI, Ben had come home to Asheville in October 1918.
In Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe describes the telegram he received at the beginning of his junior year at UNC, “Come home at once. Ben has Pneumonia. Mother.” Ben had contracted the Spanish flu at the Old Kentucky Home. Tom took the first available train westward. The chapter about the death of Ben is considered some of Wolfe’s most poignant work. Arriving at the boardinghouse, he looked up to “the bleak front room upstairs with its ugly Victorian bay-window” where “the light in the sickroom burned grayly, bringing to him its grim vision of struggle and naked terror.” Benjamin Harrison Wolfe passed away on October 19th, 1918, only one week shy of his 26th birthday- a victim of the Spanish Influenza.
