Surviving World War I on Grove Street

If Genevieve Weed hadn't been so sick, she'd have been hysterical. Her daughter, Elizabeth, was screaming deliriously that the sheets were crushing her. Elizabeth had the flu. Genevieve, her sister Mame, and her nephew had it, too, and it was quite possible that they all might die. The black crepe draped on houses up and down Grove Street in New London told a grim story.

The Spanish Flu was a pandemic spread by World War I troop movement, making ports like New London very vulnerable. You could appear healthy one day and die the next. “Breakfast with your family, dinner with your ancestors,” an expression coined in the 14th century about the Black Death, was sadly appropriate in 1918.

Genevieve was heartbroken when her husband died of heart failure just two years after their marriage, but she'd summoned her courage because she couldn't stand cry-babies and people who felt sorry for themselves. Now losing her only child would be too much for even someone with her strength of character to bear.

Fortunately, Mame was a nurse, and although feeling miserable, she crawled from bed to bed trying to help the others. If she dealt with each symptom without thinking too far ahead, maybe they would live.

Elizabeth was 11 when the United States entered World War I. The seriousness of the situation was apparent to her in several ways. The pennies that she could spend for treats down at Mr. Barnett's candy store and toy emporium now had to go into a jar to be accumulated to purchase Savings Bonds. There were fewer of the cakes that her mother was so good at baking, and those that did get baked were flavored with applesauce instead of sugar. Elizabeth was supposed to save tin foil and peach pits. Peach pits, burned to make carbon, were used as part of the filtering mechanism in gas masks. It wasn't clear to Elizabeth exactly what might happen to a soldier if he didn't have a mask, but she knew it was important to do patriotic things, even if you were just a kid.

These inconveniences were interesting and somehow a little exciting, but what was sad was realizing that people you

cared about could get hurt. A day that drove that reality home, a day Elizabeth would never forget, was the day Joe Fleming went to war.

Genevieve and Mame, both widows, supported themselves by renting rooms in their cottage on Grove Street. Their current boarders were newlyweds Joe and Ethyl Fleming. They fit into the household beautifully, just like family. Joe was in the Submarine Service, and no one was surprised when he got the dreaded orders to deploy. Elizabeth and her family went with Ethyl to see him off. They watched with dozens of Navy families as Joe's submarine and several others headed down the Thames River toward their destiny.

Suddenly someone shouted, “Look, that submarine is signaling. Can anyone here read semaphores?” A sailor in the crowd jumped up on one of the pilings, looked toward the submarines and yelled, “Is Mrs. Fleming here?” Ethyl stepped forward, all eyes in the crowd on her. The sailor smiled at her and said, “Mr. Fleming is telling you ‘Goodbye'.”

A year later “goodbye” became “hello” again when Joe came home to Ethyl.

When peace was declared in 1919, New London went wild. Although some people stayed home or attended church services, hundreds of others caroused in a street party that rocked on through the night. It was embarrassing to learn in the middle of the festivities that the armistice had only been a rumor, but this disappointing intelligence didn't stop the party. They'd just have to have another one when peace became official.

In another cause for celebration, Elizabeth's entire family survived the flu. I'm very grateful because, as you've probably guessed, Elizabeth was my mother.