Evangeline Charity Moran Mooney - Part 3.

(Part 1 is here, and Part 2 is here.)

The 1918 influenza ...

• There were two waves of influenza in 1918, and a third in early 1919. The first wave, which began in March and peaked in July, was comparatively mild, with relatively few deaths and quick recoveries. People called it the "3-day fever", an illness that passed much the same as seasonal flus usually did.


• The second wave arrived in the fall and peaked in October and November. This round was devastating, killing as many as one in five of those infected.





Cleveland Plain Dealer headlines, October & November 1918.

• The second wave's mortality rate was shocking on its own. The shock was multiplied both by the pattern of deaths and by the suddenness and severity of the disease. In the normal course of a flu infection, death is usually the result of other, opportunistic, infections, most commonly pneumonia. Those most at risk are those with weaker immune systems — the very young and the elderly.


• In 1918, the pattern was reversed: those most likely to die were healthy young adults aged 20 to 40. And the pneumonia that infected them was especially virulent, killing many within a matter of days as their lungs filled with fluid and they suffocated.


• Fears were aggravated by widespread ignorance. Concerned about keeping up morale during wartime, public officials at first minimized the epidemic with false assurances that this was nothing more than a normal flu season. As one historian has said, this was not a good idea.

People knew this was not the same old thing, though. They knew because the numbers were staggering—in San Antonio, 53 percent of the population got sick with influenza. They knew because victims could die within hours of the first symptoms—horrific symptoms, not just aches and cyanosis but also a foamy blood coughed up from the lungs, and bleeding from the nose, ears and even eyes. And people knew because towns and cities ran out of coffins.

People could believe nothing they were being told, so they feared everything, particularly the unknown. How long would it last? How many would it kill? Who would it kill? With the truth buried, morale collapsed. Society itself began to disintegrate.

In most disasters, people come together, help each other, as we saw recently with Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. But in 1918, without leadership, without the truth, trust evaporated. And people looked after only themselves.

- from: John M. Barry, How the Horrific 1918 Flu Spread Across America, Smithsonian, November 2017.

• In Cleveland, as elsewhere, fear led to isolation: afraid of infection, people frequently shunned those who were sick, leaving them to fend for themselves. "In one house," the Plain Dealer reported, Red Cross workers found "a girl of twelve ... trying to care for two women afflicted with the disease and ten small children." At another house, "the father wept as he opened the door.... He said: 'My wife's sister came several days ago. She looked into the house and ran away.'"

December ...

• At the end of November, the flu arrived at Warren Road. Evangeline and the children all caught it. So did the Mooneys' neighbor and tenant Mary Moore. Mrs. Moore had been in ill health during much of the fall, and Evangeline had been taking care of her throughout. She continued to to do so even as the flu infected her — "always the happiest when helping others," as the Bolivar Breeze said. On December 5, Mrs. Moore died from influenza-related pneumonia.


• Angie held on longer. She was first seen by a doctor on December 1, and she lived for another two weeks. Her sister Philomena McCarthy (Aunt Phil) came to Cleveland from Bolivar to help. By the second week, the children had begun to recover. But Angie's condition worsened. In response to an urgent telegram from Aunt Phil, Grandma Moran and Aunt Phil's husband, Dennis McCarthy, arrived in Lakewood on December 14. On Sunday, December 15, at about 9:00 p.m., Angie died from pneumonia.

Evangeline Moran Mooney in 1918
(possibly the last surviving photo).

Afterward ...

• The Morans chartered a special interurban railway car to bring Angie's body to Bolivar for burial in the cemetery where her father and brother were buried.


• As recalled years later by Angie's daughter Eileen O'Malley, the children were still bed-ridden when their mother died, but by Tuesday, when the body was to be removed, they had recovered sufficiently to be out of bed, running around the house and playing. Mike McDevitt asked them if they wanted to see their mother one last time before she was taken away. Bill accepted the offer, but Eileen and Dorothy were too young to understand what was happening, and so they declined.


• The funeral and burial took place on Wednesday, December 18, young Bill's 8th birthday and the day after Evangeline's 34th. The children remained in Cleveland.


• The burial with the Morans in Bolivar (rather than with the Mooneys at St. Patrick's) appears to have been a source of tension (one of many) between Capt. Bill and Grandma Moran. According to family tradition, he declined to pay for a headstone for the grave in Bolivar, and no stone was placed until years later when her son Bill bought one following his graduation from college.


• Over the months after Angie died, Capt. Bill tried to find a relative or housekeeper who could stay with the children once the shipping season began in April, since he would then be on the Lakes for extended periods. He was determined to keep the kids together, but no single Mooney household could accommodate all four. In April, then, he agreed to send the children to live with Grandma Moran in Bolivar. Bill, Eileen, and Dorothy went first. Tom remained behind for a while: the daughter of a nurse who had cared for Evangeline had recently had a child, and she nursed Tom as well for several months before he joined his brother and sisters in Bolivar.

Dorothy, Eileen, Bill, and Tom in Bolivar
with their dog, possibly named Bubbles, about 1925.

Your turn ...

As was said at the beginning of Part 1, this is "some" of Evangeline Moran Mooney's story. Another part, of course, is the kids pictured above and what happened to them, and then what happened to the kids' kids, and so on. As to Evangeline in particular, there is undoubtedly more to add. If you know a story or a fact, or have thoughts or speculations about Angie or her life and legacy, please share in the comments. And corrections are always welcome.

An update ...

For an update to this post, with a new Evangeline picture, go here.