June 27, 2020

Oklahoma Freemasonry During the Spanish Flu of 1918

By T.S. Akers 
On March 17, 2020, three days after his first edict, the Grand Master of Masons of the State of Oklahoma suspended all Masonic activity until April 10 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This suspension was soon expanded, with an eventual end date of June 1. This led many Masons to seek out other ways to gather fraternally through applications such as Zoom video conferencing. Guildhall Lodge No. 553 A.F. & A.M. chose to utilize video conferences to share Masonic light, or education, in the months of April and May. It was at the May video meeting that it was asked what Masons were doing in 1918 in response to the Spanish flu pandemic. This author was tasked with preparing a paper on that topic to be delivered at the next meeting, held June 3.

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Ira C. Bryant, District Deputy Grand Master, was born at West Point, Mississippi, October 23rd, 1877, and was educated in that state. He was a member of Maysville Lodge No. 233, A.F. & A.M., Pauls Valley Chapter No. 30, R.A.M.

He received his Scottish Rite Degrees in Guthrie Consistory and his Shrine in India Temple, Oklahoma City.

He enlisted in the officers’ Training Camp at Camp Zachary Taylor, Kentucky, August 26th, 1918, contracted Spanish influenza and died October 7th, 1918. He was buried at Vardeman, Mississippi, October 12.

Maysville Lodge being unable to attend the burial wired the Master of Vardeman Lodge to take charge of the body and bury with ceremonies of the fraternity.[1]

The grave of Bro. Ira C. Bryant at Bethlehem Cemetery in Calhoun County, Mississippi.
(From Find a Grave)

Brother Bryant was not the first Oklahoma Mason to succumb to the Spanish flu and he was far from the last. The fraternal dead reported in the proceedings of the Grand Lodge of the State of Oklahoma for the year 1918 strangely number 1,918.[2] While the cause of death for those men in 1918 is not identified, the same accounting for the year 1917 was only 392.[3] There was of course a war on at this time and the proceedings note that 8,800 Oklahoma Masons were serving in the nation’s military.[4] While there does not appear to be an accounting of Oklahoma’s Masonic dead from the Great War, a total of 726 Oklahomans gave the last full measure.[5] The Spanish flu claimed the lives of 7,500 Oklahomans.[6]

In January of 1918, something strange was afoot in Haskell County, Kansas. A newspaper there, the Santa Fe Monitor, reported “Most everybody over the county is having lagrippe or pneumonia.” Loring Miner, a local physician, believed the situation was severe enough to report an influenza outbreak to the U.S. Public Health Service. At this time, influenza was not classified as a “reportable” disease.[7] Historians have held for some time that the Spanish flu of 1918 began in Kansas. More recent research has pointed to China as the place of origin. The British Commonwealth mobilized around 94,000 Chinese laborers for service behind the lines in France and transported them by rail across Canada to expedite their arrival. In November of 1917, a respiratory illness had begun to spread across northern China. Chinese health officials later identified this malady as being identical to the Spanish flu. A British legation official in Beijing would go on to confirm the illness as influenza in a 1918 report. Of the 25,000 Chinese laborers that had been transported across Canada in 1917, 3,000 ended up in medical quarantine with flu-like symptoms.[8] Regardless of where the Spanish flu began, it had certainly made its way to Kansas. Several men from Haskell County soon found themselves at Camp Funston, in central Kansas, for induction into the U.S. Army. On March 4, 1918, the first case of influenza at Camp Funston was reported. Within two weeks, there were eleven hundred soldiers sick in hospital and thousands more confined to their barracks. Twenty-four of thirty-six of the large induction camps reported influenza outbreaks, sickening tens of thousands.[9] With the war, the virus had an ultimate destination of Europe.

Over the course of fifteen months, the Spanish flu killed between 50 and 100 million people worldwide, though the true death toll will likely never be known. In the early days of the pandemic, there was little concern, as the virus was not particularly deadly, despite its high infection rate. Within the British Grand Fleet 10,313 sailors were admitted to sick bay in May and June of 1918 with influenza, but only four died. Both the Allied and Central powers saw influenza outbreaks in the field in April, but it was dismissed as a “three-day fever.” What was unusual was the way in which the virus afflicted the young and it was showing signs of gaining severity. At one French Army camp, 688 soldiers of 1,018 were hospitalized and 49 died. The virus only gained real attention as it swept through Spain, sickening the king. The Spanish press, which was not being censored owing to the nation’s neutrality, wrote at length on the virus which garnered it the name “the Spanish flu.” By July, the U.S. Army reported the “epidemic is about at an end.” A British medical journal was so bold as to state that the malady had completely disappeared.[10]

What we know about the Spanish flu today is, that it came in three waves. The Spanish flu, which has been identified as an H1N1 strain, was different from the standard influenza in that it infected the upper respiratory tract, and then settled into the lungs with viral or bacterial pneumonia. It managed to kill so many young people because their immune systems attacked the disease with such force that it killed them.[11] The second wave began as early as August in Switzerland where a U.S. Navy intelligence officer in a report marked “Secret and Confidential” indicated the Spanish flu had become an epidemic. In the United States, it was again an army camp that would see the first influenza cases. Camp Devens near Boston housed 45,000 soldiers with a camp hospital capable of accommodating 1,200. On September 7, 1918, a soldier at Camp Devens was diagnosed with meningitis. The next day, twelve more men from the same company were afflicted and physicians soon changed the diagnosis to influenza. At the peak, 1,543 soldiers were reported sick in a single day at Camp Devens.[12] In total, the Spanish flu would kill 675,000 Americans, of which 43,000 were servicemen. Most of these deaths occurred in the second, or main wave, which came in the autumn. A subsequent wave was seen in early 1919.[13]

As previously noted, reporting of the Spanish flu in American papers was being censored. The Sedition Act had it made in punishable by twenty years in prison to publish any “disloyal, profane, scurrilous, or abusive language about the form of government of the United States.” Posters urged the reporting of anyone “who spreads pessimistic stories.” During a four-day period in October, the hospital at Camp Pike in Arkansas admitted 8,000 soldiers. Just seven miles away in Little Rock, a headline in the Gazette read: “Spanish influenza is plain la grippe – same old fever and chills.” For Philadelphia, downplaying the threat of the Spanish flu proved disastrous. A naval vessel had brought the virus to that city from Boston in early September.[14] The city then moved forward with a Liberty Loan parade on September 28 and 200,000 spectators crammed the streets for the event. Within three days, every hospital in Philadelphia was at capacity. By October 12, 4,500 people had died.[15] It had become clear that dense populations, as had been seen in the army camps, accelerated the spread of the virus. The nation would soon see the closing of schools, theatres, bars, and other gathering places. Mothers were even warned to confine their children to their own yards.[16] It is important to note that factories and industry remained operational owing to war production.[17]

The first case of Spanish flu in Oklahoma City was reported on September 29, 1918.[18] By October 4, the number had grown to 1,249 cases across twenty-four counties.[19] To compound the issue, twenty nurses, half of the staff, at University Hospital had contracted influenza. The city commissioners of Oklahoma City made the decision on October 9 to close all schools, theatres, churches, and ban all public meetings.[20] The day before, P.D. Walker, mayor of McAlester, had issued a similar proclamation closing schools, churches, and public buildings. That city even saw the establishment of an emergency hospital in the manse of its First Presbyterian Church. There were 291 flu deaths in Pittsburg County alone that October.[21] In Oklahoma City, with people falling ill and dying in their homes, the police were turned into ambulance drivers, delivering the most serious cases to whatever hospitals were available.[22]

An American Red Cross Canteen Service team at Oklahoma City in November of 1918.
(From the Library of Congress)

Convincing Oklahomans, and Americans at large, that Spanish flu was serious proved to be a challenge. One Oklahoma City newspaper reported "There has been some slight difficulty in holding the public in leash. A few institutions have violated the closing order..." Officials in Oklahoma went on to say “…the greatest obstacles in dealing promptly and effectively with the epidemic was the slowness of the general public in realizing the extreme seriousness of the situation.” Even the penalty for spitting on the sidewalk was increased to jailtime. While the quarantine and closures in Oklahoma only lasted a month, other densely packed cities were not so fortunate.[23] In January of 1919, two thousand San Franciscans turned up for a public meeting of the Anti-Mask League. The group passed resolutions declaring the city’s mask requirement “contrary to the desires of a majority of the people.”[24]

One will note, the bans on gathering in Oklahoma targeted public occasions. The Masonic Fraternity is a private institution and arguably not under the purview of such measures. However, the leadership of the Fraternity at the time seems to have been comprised of wise men. On October 10, 1918, Grand Master Joseph W. Morris issued the following circular:

To all Constituent Lodges A.F. & A.M. of the Grand Lodge A.F. & A.M. of the State of Oklahoma.

Brethren: Owing to the prevalence of the contagion known as the Spanish Influenza, and to aid the Health Authorities of the state in checking the spread of this disease, it is my order as your Grand Master that you cease all Masonic gatherings and suspend all lodge meetings, except in great emergency, until the State Health Officers by order permit general gatherings throughout the State of Oklahoma.

The Worshipful Master of each body will see that his brethren are duly notified and I suggest that the substance of this order be furnished your home or County paper for publication.[25]

The effects of the virus were felt across Masonry in Oklahoma. Jabez H. Mann, Grand High Priest of Royal Arch Masons, took office in April of 1918 and noted in his 1919 address that he made few official visits to the constituent Chapters, three to be exact and all after February, owing to the Spanish flu.[26] Interestingly, the Triennial of the General Grand Council of Royal and Select Masters, the Cryptic Rite, proceeded as scheduled in September of 1918 at Baltimore, Maryland. Oklahoma’s Deputy Grand Master Sydnor H. Lester was in attendance.[27] In the realm of Templary, Grand Commander Charles S. Highsmith had postponed inspections of the constituent Commanderies owing to the war and suspended them altogether once influenza took hold.[28]

Grand Master Joseph W. Morris
(From the Grand Lodge of the State of Oklahoma)

The suspension of Masonic activity in Oklahoma not only prevented degree work, it also prevented the election of officers for the coming year of 1919. The Grand Lodge of the State of Oklahoma was slated to meet in February, which caused Grand Master Morris to seek the opinion of his constituent lodges on such an assembly. In a letter dated January 20, 1919, Morris stated:

The advisability of assembling the Grand Lodge in February, necessitating the congregating of hundreds of our best citizenship for a period of ten days with the realization of its possible and probable result, has been a subject of very grave and important concern in the mind of your Grand Master...[29]

While bans on gatherings had been lifted across Oklahoma, Freemasons chose to be cautious about returning to their activities, and rightfully so. In his letter, Morris directed the Lodges to immediately convene in Special Communication to vote on whether to postpone the convening of the Grand Lodge for sixty to ninety days. On February 12, it was announced that ninety-five percent of the Lodges were in favor of such a postponement and the Grand Lodge was not convened until April 29.[30]

The third wave of influenza in early 1919 even reached President Woodrow Wilson. Weakened by a 103-degree fever, intense coughing fits, and diarrhea, he began to suffer from severe confusion during the Versailles Peace Conference. It was later found that many influenza patients also had cognitive or psychological symptoms.[31] It is also believed that the Spanish flu either potentiated or lowered one’s resistance to encephalitis lethargica, a disease which attacks the brain and renders its victims catatonic. Encephalitis lethargica became most virulent in late 1918 and abruptly vanished around 1927. The influenza strain of 1918 ceased human circulation sometime before 1933, further linking the two maladies.[32] The lessons of the potential lasting effects of the Spanish flu on an individual have not been entirely forgotten. The U.S. military is currently disqualifying anyone for service who was hospitalized due to COVID-19, owing to the lack of information on the effects of the new virus.[33] It is worth noting that the pathology of COVID-19 is quite similar to that of the Spanish flu of 1918.[34]

The Spanish flu itself did not simply vanish in 1919. Infections continued, but the virus lost its lethality. Exposure to the virus in the first or second wave helped individuals develop an immune response in the third wave and the strain simply became seasonal influenza.[35] As previously noted, the virus ceased human circulation in the late Twenties or early Thirties; but it became widespread in American swine herds after its 1918 appearance.[36] The H1N1 flu strain, of which the 1918 strain was, is of course more commonly known as the Swine flu, and the year 2009 saw a pandemic of this very strain. As has been illustrated, close quarters enhanced the spread of the Spanish flu and without effective drugs for treating it or a vaccine, temporary bans on public gatherings were essential. Studies have shown that such preventative measures in 1918 were successful in lowering the number of influenza cases. Today, we call this social distancing to flatten the curve, the curve being the number of COVID-19 infections over a span of time.[37] Oklahoma’s Masonic leaders made the right decisions to protect their membership in 1918. It appears that Oklahoma’s Masonic leaders are again taking appropriate measures to protect their membership with the cancelling of all Masonic activity for a period of time, a prohibition on such fraternal activities that bring men into close contact, and mandating the wear of face coverings to prevent the spread of the virus. There are lessons to be learned from 1918 and for some, those lessons are not lost.


[1]  Proceedings of the M.: W.: Grand Lodge A.F. & A.M. of the State of Oklahoma: Eleventh Annual Communication (Guthrie, 1919), 16-17.
[2]  State of Oklahoma: Eleventh Annual Communication, 80.
[3]  Proceedings of the M.: W.: Grand Lodge A.F. & A.M. of the State of Oklahoma: Tenth Annual Communication (Guthrie, 1918), 216.
[4]  State of Oklahoma: Eleventh Annual Communication, 25.
[5]  Matt Patterson, "More than 85,000 Oklahomans marched off to WWI," The Oklahoman, last modified April 6, 2017, https://oklahoman.com/article/5544410/more-than-85000-oklahomans-marched-off-to-wwi.
[6]  Mike Cathey, "CATHEY: Looking back at the Influenza of 1918 in Oklahoma," McAlester News-Capital, last modified April 19, 2020, https://www.mcalesternews.com/news/local_news/cathey-looking-back-at-the-influenza-of-1918-in-oklahoma/article_82e50cf9-265b-5d81-949e-512f302abd7d.html.
[7]  John M. Barry, "How the Horrific 1918 Flu Spread Across America," Smithsonian Magazine, last modified November 2017, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journal-plague-year-180965222/.
[8]  Dan Vergano, "1918 Flu Pandemic That Killed 50 Million Originated in China, Historians Say," National Geographic, last modified January 24, 2014, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2014/1/140123-spanish-flu-1918-china-origins-pandemic-science-health/.
[9]  Barry.
[10]  Ibid.
[11]  Ashley Halsey III, "The flu can kill tens of millions of people. In 1918, that’s exactly what it did," The Washington Post, last modified January 27, 2018, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/retropolis/wp/2018/01/27/the-flu-can-kill-tens-of-millions-of-people-in-1918-thats-exactly-what-it-did/.
[12]  Barry.
[13]  Jeffery K. Taubenberger, "The Origin and Virulence of the 1918 “Spanish” Influenza Virus," Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 150, no. 1 (2006): 86-112, www.jstor.org/stable/4598974.
[14]  Barry.
[15]  David Mack and Amber Jamieson, "What Is Social Distancing? How Staying Away From Others Can Help Stop The Coronavirus Spread," BuzzFeed.News, last modified March 11, 2020, https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/davidmack/social-distancing-coronavirus.I
[16]  Halsey.
[17]  "The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History," (panel discussion, New Orleans Book Festival at Tulane University, April 30, 2020), https://youtu.be/sycJAEKg7MU.
[18]  "Oklahoma City in the 1918 Flu Pandemic," shanehampton.com, last modified March 19, 2020, http://shanehampton.com/okc1918/.
[19]  Cathey.
[20]  “Oklahoma City in the 1918 Flu Pandemic.”
[21]  Cathey.
[22]  “Oklahoma City in the 1918 Flu Pandemic.”
[23]  Ibid.
[24]  Nancy Bristow, "Loosening Public-Health Restrictions Too Early Can Cost Lives. Just Look What Happened During the 1918 Flu Pandemic," Time, last modified May 1, 2020, https://time.com/5830265/1918-flu-reopening-coronavirus.
[25]  State of Oklahoma: Eleventh Annual Communication, 27.
[26]  Proceedings of the Grand Royal Arch Chapter of Oklahoma: Thirtieth Annual Convocation (Muskogee, 1919), 12.
[27]  Proceedings of the M.: Ill.: Grand Council of Royal and Select Masters of Oklahoma: Twenty-Fifth Annual Assembly (Muskogee, 1919), 4.
[28]  Proceedings of the Grand Commandery of Knights Templar of Oklahoma: Twenty-Fourth Annual Conclave (Muskogee, 1919), 15.
[29]  State of Oklahoma: Eleventh Annual Communication, 28.
[30]  Ibid., 28-31.
[31]  Barry.
[32]  Sherman McCall, et al, “The relationship between encephalitis lethargica and influenza: a critical analysis,” Journal of Neurovirology 14, no. 3 (2008): 177-85, doi:10.1080/13550280801995445.
[33]  Corey Dickstein, "Contracting coronavirus won't disqualify you from serving in the military, but a hospital stay for it might," Stars and Stripes, last modified May 8, 2020, https://www.stripes.com/news/us/contracting-coronavirus-won-t-disqualify-you-from-serving-in-the-military-but-a-hospital-stay-for-it-might-1.628995.
[34]   "The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History," (panel discussion).
[35]  Ibid.
[36]  Taubenberger.
[37]  Nina Strochlic and Riley D. Champine, "How some cities ‘flattened the curve’ during the 1918 flu pandemic," National Geographic, last modified March 27, 2020, https://www.nationalgeographic.com/history/2020/03/how-cities-flattened-curve-1918-spanish-flu-pandemic-coronavirus/.