By Jeff Hampton
Note: This story began as a drama piece written in four brief acts for Wilshire Baptist Church’s annual Hanging of the Green service. You can view the entire service, including the dramatization, by going to the link at the end of this story.
Setting: Three weeks before Christmas 1918, Dallas, Texas
Anna Taylor sat at the piano bench, picking out the melody one note at a time and singing softly so that each key she touched and each word she mouthed became joined as one in her memory: “Oh little town of Bethlehem how still we see thee lie . . .”
“Anna,” her mother Margaret called from the next room, “breakfast!”
Margaret stood at the dining room table, pouring orange juice for her family while her husband George scanned the morning newspaper.
“So. . . what’s in the paper this morning?” she asked.
“The Spanish Flu, of course, and the news is getting better. Dr. Carnes from the city went to the public health convention in Chicago. They said we had an enviable record: a death rate of only 286 per 100,000; better than most Southern or Midwestern cities.”
“But how many have died here in Dallas?” Margaret asked.
“Four hundred and fifty-six.”
Margaret shook her head, exasperated by the news and irritated by her daughter’s seeming ignoring of her. “Anna . . . now, please,” she shouted, and then to George, “I don’t think that’s anything to be proud of.”
“Well, it’s not like . . .” George began, but Margaret hushed him when the sound of the piano was replaced by Anna’s feet on the oak floors.
Anna walked into the room, wearing the red cardigan sweater her mother had put out for her as protection from the early December chill.
“Good morning, sweetheart. Ready for some breakfast before school?” Margaret asked, trying to fill her daughter up with enthusiasm as she simultaneously filled her glass with juice.
Anna stood at the table, frowning. “I’m not hungry. I don’t want to go to school today.”
Margaret glanced at George and then at Anna. “Do you feel sick?”
“No.”
“Then what’s wrong?” Margaret asked.
“I’m afraid.”
George folded his paper and looked at her. “Afraid of what?”
“Afraid of getting sick.”
George set the newspaper on the table beside his plate and pulled out the chair for his 10-year-old daughter.
“You’ll be fine. The sickness is ending,” he said, motioning her to sit down. “And you have just another week of school and then you’ll be out for a while.”
Anna poked at the scrambled eggs on her plate with her fork. “But yesterday Millie didn’t come to school. I asked and teacher said she got the flu.”
Margaret dropped into her seat across the table. “Oh, Anna, I’m so sorry to hear that.”
Anna stared at her plate and then looked up at her mother. “When will it end? Is it ever going to be like it was before?”
Margaret reached across the table and patted Anna’s hand.
“We can’t know for sure, sweetheart, but we can know that God is going to take care of everything and everyone.”
“Even Millie?”
“Yes, especially Millie. God doesn’t want anything bad to happen to her, or you, or any other children.”
George looked at the clock. “Eat your breakfast, Anna, and I’ll take you to school.”
After breakfast, as George and Anna drove away with the Model T Ford choking and jerking down Bryan Street, George glanced over at his only child. He knew he had to keep a brave face, but he wasn’t feeling so brave. While the newspaper reports were improving, he knew the crisis was not over. There was talk of a third wave of the flu and there was no predicting whether it would be minor like the first wave or devastating like the second that had Dallas in its deadly grip for much of October.
Back at the house, Margaret cleared the dishes and then sat down and looked at the newspaper. George had given her the bare details of the news article, which recapped what the people of Dallas and across the country and indeed much of the world knew: 1918 was coming to a close as one of the worst years on record and certainly in their lifetimes. The war in Europe, “World War I” as it would come to be known, had ended on November 11 but not before costing some 18 million lives including 117,000 U.S. combatants. And since Spring 1918, the Spanish Flu had taken some 50 million lives worldwide, including 675,000 in the United States. The question that Anna had asked echoed in Margaret’s head: “Is it ever going to be like it was before?”
* * * * *
Two weeks before Christmas, Thelma and Irene, young nurses at the Texas Baptist Memorial Sanitarium on Gaston Avenue, were taking a break after a busy morning on the children’s ward.
“I can’t wait for this year to be over,” said Thelma. “With the war, the usual smallpox, malaria and typhoid flair-ups, and the Spanish Flu on top of it all, 1919 has to be better than this.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure,” said Irene. “All those soldiers will start coming home soon with their injuries and illnesses, including the flu. I just don’t have much hope.”
Thelma patted Irene on the back. “They say the Spanish Flu is mostly over now. New cases have been declining since Halloween. Christmas is already looking better. Speaking of which, do you have any special plans with your family?”
“Not yet,” said Irene. “The last we heard from my brother, he was stuck in France with his company. They managed a Thanksgiving dinner after the armistice, but we’ve heard nothing since.”
Suddenly Louise, the charge nurse, was standing in the doorway, glaring at them.
“Excuse me, ladies, I need you on the ward. A new case just came in,” she said and passed the chart to Thelma before turning to leave.
“Oh mercy, what is it now?” Irene asked.
Thelma answered as she reviewed the chart. “A little girl. Her name is Mildred Jackson. They call her Millie. Just ten years old. Looks like the Spanish Flu.”
“Oh dear, is it another one from the orphanage?” Irene asked. “I heard that almost two hundred of the children got sick . . . their live-in nurses too.”
Thelma looked back at the chart. “No, this girl lives on Ross Avenue. It looks like they tried to care for her at home but they couldn’t break the fever, so they brought her in. This flu doesn’t pick and choose, and neither can we. Especially not with Doc Barnes down with it too.”
“Oh please, God, won’t it ever stop? Why the little ones? And so close to Christmas?” Irene lamented.
“There’ll be time for prayers later,” Thelma said. “Right now, we need to get her settled in.”
Just then Louise called from the hallway. “Now, Ladies!”
“OK, we’re coming,” they said, tying their masks as they left the room.
Thelma and Irene walked down the middle of the ward with its sixteen beds half empty now after a month when they were full and every vacancy was filled as quickly as they could change the linens. At the back of the room, they found their newest patient lying in bed with her legs drawn up to her chest and the blanket pulled up under her nose. The metal bed frame rattled as she shivered.
“Hello, Millie, I’m Thelma, and this is Irene. We’re going to be looking after you. How are you feeling today?”
“I’mm . . . sso . . . ccold.”
Thelma put the back of her hand against Millie’s forehead. “It’s just the fever, dear, but we’re going to help you get over that, okay?”
Irene watched as Millie’s brown eyes moved from one bed to the next.
“Last week all those beds were full with boys and girls like you, but they got well and went home,” Irene said.
“All of them?” Millie asked.
Irene shot a glance at Thelma, who nodded.
“Yes, Millie, and you will too. Now get some rest because that’s the best thing for you. We’ll be checking on you regularly but just call out if you need anything.”
Thelma hung the chart at the foot of the bed, and then she and Irene checked on the seven other children still in their care. As Irene passed an empty bed, she could see the face of the little boy who had been there just two days earlier but didn’t get to go home. She didn’t like to lie, but she knew Millie would fare better with rest and a hopeful attitude — at least that’s what the latest science prescribed. And she knew Millie’s parents would need all the optimism they could muster when they were allowed in for brief visits.
Later that day, at their home after leaving Millie in the care of the nurses at the sanitarium, Elizabeth and Joseph Jackson tried to carry on as normally as they could while their son Johnny sat on the floor, building a cabin with Lincoln Logs from the previous Christmas. Joseph sat in his favorite chair, stuffing his pipe with tobacco while studying the back cover of The Magnificent Ambersons, the new book he had just bought. Elizabeth stretched a length of fresh garland across the fireplace mantle but couldn’t coax it into place, and the harder she tried the more recalcitrant it became until it fell to the ground and she sank down into a chair.
“I can’t celebrate Christmas like this. Not with Millie in the hospital,” she said.
“Christmas is still two weeks away,” Joseph said, trying to be cheerful. “Most of these flu cases don’t last two weeks. We’ll have Millie home in time to help us finish decorating. Besides,” he lowered his voice, “we still have Johnny here. It’s bad enough that Millie’s in the hospital, but we need to keep the Christmas spirit up for Johnny.”
Elizabeth shook her head and dabbed the corner of her eye with her handkerchief. “I just don’t know if I can even focus right now. Maybe we should wait and have our Christmas after the first of the year. There’s nothing that says it has to be on December 25th.”
Johnny’s hands stopped their play and he looked up at his parents. Joseph looked cautiously at the little boy, knowing that he and Elizabeth had been heard.
“Elizabeth, we can’t stop Christmas from coming. It’s more than just a date on the calendar. It’s the focus of our life – the story of our faith. ‘For unto us a child is born, for unto us a son is given . . .’ and all that. We can turn our backs, but flu or no flu, Christmas is coming just the same.”
“And what if . . .” she started but couldn’t finish.
“What?” Joseph asked.
Elizabeth didn’t answer, but Johnny stood up and spoke for her. “What if . . . Millie can’t come home in time for Christmas . . . or . . . at all?”
Joseph crouched on one knee in front of Johnny, holding him by the shoulders and looking into his worried eyes. “We can’t think that way. We have to trust her to God’s caring. We have to believe that the God who sent his son in the form of a baby has his arms around our little Millie too.”
And so it happened just as Joseph had said. Under the watchful care of Thelma and Irene and the other nurses on the ward, Millie gained strength enough until her parents were allowed to not just wave at her from the ward door but to spend time with her in a private room set aside for family visits. Four days before Christmas, when the Jacksons came to visit, they found Millie dressed and ready to go home.
“See, I got well just in time for Christmas,” she said, smiling but still a bit weary.
“This is wonderful, Millie, but you’re still going to need some rest. We may need to wait a few days before we celebrate,” Elizabeth said, not wanting to let her daughter know that she had been too worried to get everything ready.
“That’s okay, Mother, I’m just glad to be going home.”
* * * * *
Three days before Christmas, at the Taylor house, Margaret was dusting while Anna was back at the piano, poking at her melody with one finger and singing softly, “above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by.” Margaret could tell Anna’s heart wasn’t in it and she knew why – the news hadn’t been good that morning – but she gently drew her daughter out.
“What’s got you down, Anna?”
“I’m sad that Grandma and Grandpa aren’t coming for Christmas,” Anna said.
“They just couldn’t risk it, sweetheart. It’s not safe for them on the train with the flu still in the air.”
“But they’ve come every year as long as I can remember. It won’t be the same without them. And I was hoping to play them the carol I’ve been practicing.”
George had been in the next room but heard the conversation and came in for support.
“It won’t be the same for any of us, but we’ll still have a good celebration. It’ll just be a little smaller this year,” he offered.
Margaret stopped dusting. “Hmm . . . it doesn’t have to be smaller.”
George looked at her with curiosity and caution. “What do you mean, Margaret?”
“Well, I heard at the market this morning that Millie got to go home yesterday. When the doctors say it’s safe, we can have them over for a special celebration with us — after Christmas or even in the new year.”
Anna sat up straight on the piano bench. “Oh, could we really? That would be wonderful! Can I still play my song?”
“Sure you can,” said Margaret, “and maybe you can play it with both hands like Miss Austin has been teaching you.”
“And we all can sing,” George chimed in. “Let’s give it a try.”
With Anna at the keyboard and her parents standing at each shoulder, they sang together:
Yet in thy dark streets shineth,
The everlasting Light,
The hopes and fears of all the years,
Are met in thee tonight.
* * * * *
You can view Wilshire’s Hanging of the Green Service, including the dramatization of this story, at Wilshire’s YouTube Page.