Siletz news /, April 01, 2020, Page 9, Image 9

Flu, continued from page 1
Coast cities through the fall and made its
way to Portland in October, it was only a
matter of time before it spread to small
Oregon communities.
Tribal members in Siletz and around
the Americas understand the impact of
epidemic disease, remembered in our
bones and recorded in the too-short lives
on too many headstones.
The elders alive at that time were
survivors of waves of smallpox, malaria,
tuberculosis, older strains of flu and other
diseases that had been decimating Oregon
Tribal communities since the 1700s or
earlier. They had witnessed the worst-case
scenario as few people ever had. So what,
if anything, could a small reservation town
do to blunt the force of such a calamity?
Quite a lot, it turns out.
We happen to know about the mea-
sures we took then because of Dr. Frank
M. Carter. Slim and towering at six-foot-
four, Carter first came to Siletz as agency
physician just out of medical school in
1874. He served on and off in that role
and around Lincoln County until his death
in 1937.
In 1918 he was our doctor and, on
the side, wrote the weekly column about
goings-on in Siletz for the Lincoln County
Leader. For much of the winter of 1918-
1919, the space that usually recorded visi-
tors, weddings, dances, and school plays
gave way to recounting Siletz’s efforts to
keep the deadly new flu at bay.
The disease first arrived with some-
one passing through Siletz from Portland
in mid-December; two families fell ill
and were placed under quarantine. This
held for a few weeks, until a Christmas
dance at the Upper Farm schoolhouse. An
unwitting sick person must have joined
the festivities and cases began spreading
around Siletz.
“The plan from the start,” Carter
explained, “was to isolate and quarantine
the sick, and to prevent the assembling
of crowds.” Schools stayed closed after
the Christmas holidays, churches and the
Siletz Grange cancelled meetings.
Patients had to be forced to stay in bed
for 10-12 days, barred from going out “for
any purpose whatever” to get past the risk
of dangerous complications and to prevent
further outbreaks. Cities all over the world
had disastrous trouble enforcing public
health rules but “knowing the danger of
the disease,” Siletz people “complied will-
ingly with these requirements.”
As Carter put it, the discipline and
drive required to protect everyone meant
that a “good intelligent nurse is indispens-
able.” He found that good nurse in Agnes
Newberry Thompson – an ancestor to
many Tribal members.
Interviewed in the 1940s, she
explained that she and Dr. Carter rapidly
converted the disused school dormitory
on Government Hill into a temporary
hospital to treat and isolate sick patients.
She stayed tirelessly on her feet, calming
fevers and chills, keeping fires stoked and
patients resting, and wrapping patients in
“a big mustard plaster” to sooth their ach-
ing bodies. Rather than confining herself
to her large new ward, she washed up and
rode out on horseback to treat patients
confined to their homes.
By late January when people began
to recover and new infections dropped off,
Agnes and Dr. Carter had seen about 150
cases in and around Siletz, Indians and
whites included. The Leader reports three
deaths from influenza in and around Siletz,
but every patient who fell under Agnes and
Dr. Carter’s direct care survived.
Other Oregon communities give us
cautionary tales from the same pandemic,
where the disease overwhelmed caregivers
or order broke down.
At Chemawa Indian School, the
crowded dormitories and lack of leader-
ship from school administration over-
whelmed the care and skill of their
Courtesy photo from Lincoln County Historical Society
Dr. Frank M. Carter
experienced frontier doctor Mary Canaga
Rowland and her nurse, Coquille Tribal
ancestor Daisy Wasson Codding. They
saw 536 cases and 19 students died.
In Portland, the confusing orders of
four separate health authorities led to three
distinct spikes in the death rate between
November and March.
As February settled in over Siletz, now
through the worst with as little tragedy as
anyone could hope for, people slowly and
cautiously returned to their lives.
When schools reopened on Jan. 21,
many parents kept their children home at
first. Even then, they had to get by without
the high school principal, who caught the
flu visiting family in Seattle and had to
recover there in isolation for several weeks.
On Feb. 2, the Siletz Grange met
to prepare for the new planting season.
On Feb. 8, a stormy Saturday night, a
big crowd gathered at Metcalf Hall to
celebrate a delayed but welcome Feather
Dance.
“The winter has been so mild and
pleasant,” Carter wrote on Feb. 21. “Sick-
ness has been light except the flu, and that
was very mild” compared to the heart-
breaking seasons of sickness he had seen
in his 35 years on the reservation.
Although no one then knew the term
social distancing, the simple practical
measures our community took 101 years
ago seem strikingly contemporary. People
even considered masks. But, Carter said,
almost no one wore them except “Mrs.
Alec Catfish, who says she wants to be in
fashion with outside people.”
If we could get through a deadly
global pandemic with calm, organization
and good humor – armed with only col-
lective resolve, straw beds and mustard
plaster – I know our leaders, our healers
and our community can do the same today.
Take good care.
Be safe. Stay home. Stay well.
Vacancy for Housing Standing Committee
Open Until Filled
Any Tribal member interested in consideration to serve on a Tribal Standing
Committee is encouraged to fill out this form and return to the council office.
Please mail or fax your application to Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians,
Attn: Executive Secretary to Tribal Council, P.O. Box 549, Siletz, OR 97380-0549;
fax: 541-444-8325.
Name: ______________________________________ Roll No: _______________
Address: __________________________________________________________
City: ___________________________ State: _____________ ZIP: ____________
Telephone: Day ( ) __________________ Evening ( ) ______________________
If you have any questions, please call Tami Miner, executive secretary to Tribal
Council, at 800-922-1399, ext. 1203, or 541-444-8203.
April 2020
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Siletz News
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