San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
SURVIVORS OF 1918 FLU SPEAK UP
A pep talk from centenarians who lived through it
“With no one left who remembers the influenza of 191819 in San Francisco, the deaths seem abstract now.”
There are very few good mistakes in journalism. But the above sentence, which I typed in a Jan. 7, 2021, San Francisco Chronicle history story about children who died during the socalled Spanish Flu, is one error for which I am very grateful.
It was both a mistake and a beacon, leading to emails from children, grandchildren and one greatgrandchild, confirming that their centenarian relatives who contracted and survived that influenza in Northern California were still alive. And it introduced me to my new phone friends George Dondero, 107, and Dixie Belletto, 105, who are in the process of surviving their second pandemic.
After receiving emails from Dondero’s son and Belletto’s daughter, I set up phone interviews on separate days. Both had stories about getting sick in 1918, and a lot more to say. Not just how the city suffered and endured. But how San Francisco emerged as a place that enchanted young people, provided great opportunity, and grew and changed and celebrated together again. It was the pep talk I needed, and you might need too.
“I think life has to go on,” Belletto said. “There’s always something that you want to live for. Be positive. Do the best you can.”
I’ll tell their stories in the order I heard them, hoping the tales of women’s suffrage, cupolas, halfbuilt bridges and the ultimate case of trespassing might impact you as well.
Dondero, born in 1913, grew up in Cow Hollow. Belletto, born in 1915, spent her early childhood in Stockton, before moving to S.F. in 1925.
Dondero: I was 5 years old. My whole family had it. I had an older brother two years older, and a mother and dad, and they all had a flu. But I didn’t have it that bad. I was waiting on (my brother Harold) in the house. “George, will you do this, will you do that?” I remember that. I also remember going out in the street. As small as I was I had to have a mask, or you would get fined.
Belletto: I remember it, Peter. I had it. I was only maybe 2 or 3 years old. … My mother got it, and my father got it, and nobody could take care of me. I remember my cousin wrapping me up in a blanket, bringing me to her house and putting me in this big room by myself. I remember they couldn’t do much for me, except I was wringing wet. I perspired a lot. And all they do is give me little sips of water.
I lay there and cried because I was taken away from my mother. I couldn’t eat. I remember I just kind of lay there. I wanted to hold something in my hand, so (they) gave me something to hold in my hand and I felt a little better. But I was missing my mother ... I was very, very sick.
Dondero: I also remember the two little friends we had next door, their father died one of those nights. I felt badly about that.
Belletto: The people in back of me had a child my age and that child passed away. I remember my mother brought me to his services later. Children were dying and people were dying. Yes, I remember.
The 1918-1919 influenza killed millions. In San Francisco, it hit hard in October and November 1918, then came back for an equally devastating January 1919. The flu killed thousands in the city and left a reported 1,400 San Francisco children orphaned.
My original intention was to focus on the influenza. But as we spoke, it was clear Dondero and Belletto had more stories to tell.
Belletto: My mother voted the first time women were allowed to vote. That election was in 1920. She took me with her, and I walked with her to the voting booth . ... I was holding onto her hand as she voted, and she was explaining to me why she voted and how she voted and everything. She was telling me that voting was a duty and a privilege. And I’ve never missed a vote. No matter what it is to vote for, I always remember to vote. Because I remember my mother voting for the first time women had a right to vote.
Dondero: I used to sell The Chronicle. I used to sell it at the corner of Gough and Broadway. I’d get on the streetcar and I’d sell it to the same customers going to work, and then I’d jump off the car, run back a block and wait for the next car.
Dondero grew up at 2286 Filbert St. Belletto’s family moved to 394 Fair Oaks St. in the Mission District when she was 9.
Belletto: It had a cupola. Do you know what that is? It’s a round extension to the building on top, and there’s six windows in it all the way around. … It’s still there, and it’s still beautiful. And I remember we had the top floor, and that cupola was my bedroom and I could look all over San Francisco.
I lived on roller skates when I was little. I used to skate down those streets with the steps. (My mother) worked downtown on Mission Street. She’d come home from work, and I’d be there with my knees skinned up all the time because I’d fall down these steps right next to the house we lived in. Dondero: San Francisco was a wonderful city then, a wonderful place to grow up. I did a lot of sailing . ... I went to Galileo High School. Right near Ghirardelli. From the athletic field you could smell the chocolate.
Find someone in their 90s or 100s, and have them tell you about San Francisco. The stories are gold. Here’s Dondero talking about when developers started building in the Marina after the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition, with real estate interests throwing parties for the neighborhood.
Dondero: They would give a gate prize to bring people down. I remember going down and running in the races for kids. One year they gave away a lot, when they were just developing. When it was just lines on paper. … A friend of my dad’s was an electrician, he had a little store on Union Street. And he won the prize. Some time later he was over the house and my dad said, “What happened to that lot?” He said, “I knew there was a catch to it. You had to pay $50 for the closing costs. I told them they can have it.” And that lot is right across from the Palace of Fine Arts. Those are milliondollar lots!
I point out that most houses there are worth several million dollars now.
Dondero: And he didn’t want it! (Laughs)
Belletto’s father got sick in San Francisco in the 1920s, and her mother had to work. After she graduated from high school, Belletto also took work downtown in the Art Deco 140 New Montgomery St. building.
Belletto: I got a job at Pacific Bell at 140 Montgomery St. I worked on the ninth floor there for many years. The telephone company had 22 floors on it, and the cafeteria was on the 22nd floor. You’d go up and have lunch up there and you could look all over. My desk was right near the window, and I actually saw them build the Bay Bridge.
I saw the catwalk. I saw the men on the catwalk. The telephone company was pretty close. I saw the construction when I looked out the window.
Dondero told a story about climbing the Golden Gate Bridge in 1935, before it was open. The full story and photos are at www.sfchronicle.com
Dondero: They had a guard there on the San Francisco side. But I waited for him to get out of the way, and climbed a rope and got on the catwalk. And the catwalk went to the top of the tower. They were making a cable one strand at a time all the way from Marin.
I went up on top and there was a little office there, for I guess the foreman or someone else. I lifted up the receiver, and the operator said, “Number please!” So I called my mother. … I told her something about the tower and she came back and said, “It’s still there, what am I supposed to see?” And I said, “I’m on top!”
The pair talked about life’s joys and challenges in the decades after the Spanish flu. Dondero was a skier, rock climber and sailor, held a patent for a ski lift tow rope and went back to work in his 60s to join his son John, making firefighter and military goggle prototypes that are still in use. Belletto raised five children in Burlingame and lives in Lodi. She began losing her eyesight in her late 90s, but learned to adapt and still lives in her home.
Belletto: I went to school to learn how to cope with blindness. They taught me how to cook, how to cross streets and everything.
Dondero: (My wife and I) were sailing up by Sacramento. We had been up to Sun Valley (in Idaho) one summer. And she said to me out of the blue, “Do you think you’d ever want to live in Sun Valley?” And I said, “You know what, I wouldn’t mind living there.” … (My son John) and I built a wonderful log house together. Two stories. It was beautiful. We lived there for quite a few years.
Dondero lives in Seattle now near family. Belletto recently lost one of her sons. I finished by asking both what they would say to people who are frustrated with the pandemic and having a hard time seeing better days ahead. Belletto and Dondero both received their first COVID-19 vaccine the week I called.
Belletto: My boy, cancer finally got him. But what you have to do is just go on. And thank god for what you have. Dondero: I’ve really had a wonderful life.
Think there’s no life after the pandemic? Dondero has two children, six grandchildren and 11 great-grandchildren. Belletto has five children, 12 grandchildren and 21 great-grandchildren.
Belletto: The next day is another day. The next day is a better day. We’ll get over this pandemic. Whatever it is, we will conquer it, we’ll do it. We have to. We have to, Peter. We have no choice.