B4
History
Blue Mountain Eagle
L AST FOOTBALL TEAM
LETTERS
Continued from Page B1
Contributed photo/Grant County Historical Museum
The last Canyon City High School football team, 1920.
Back row, Jim Jones, David Mason, Deldon Carlin,
Claude DeWolf, Jess Duncan and Al Dee Sollinter.
Front row, Eugene Mulcare, Leo Gunther, Sherman
Maple, Bob Officer, Orrin Ward and Lionel Hankins.
DRAFT
Continued from Page B1
hearing, defective teeth,
heart conditions “and two of
them had the itch.”
By mid-April, Sheriff
Howell was directed to round
up “slackers,” deserters or
other delinquents. The Eagle
printed the names of four men
who failed to show up for
their physicals and the names
of 10 men sought by the sher-
iff. Two women from Canyon
City were called to Portland
as witnesses in a case brought
against a man who failed to
register.
As the war dragged on and
complaints were made that
the system was unfair, the
government made changes
to the Class 2 requirements.
The Eagle ran the names of
33 men who were called to
war. Two weeks later, the Ea-
gle reported that Class 1 men
have been exhausted in Grant
County, but reclassification
will add 25 more to the rolls.
“Youngsters will be called
into service in August,” a
front-page headline read in
mid-July. By early August,
Sheriff Howell was gearing
up for a big draft for men up
to 45 years old. War marshals
and assistants were named
for every precinct in Grant
County to assist in registering
the men. The government ex-
pected to call up more than 13
million men across the U.S.
The Eagle reminded its
readers in September that ev-
ery man is supposed to know
how to register for the draft,
but it provided instructions
just in case. Being sick or pre-
occupied with family matters
or ignorant — those were not
excuses. Sheriff Howell noti-
fied all men in Grant County
between 18 and 45 that they
must show up to register Sept.
12. The names of 851 men
were printed in the Oct. 25
Eagle, each assigned a draft
number for the order in which
they would be called.
But the war appeared to
be winding down by early
November, as signals from a
weary Germany made their
way to the Allies. The ar-
mistice was signed Nov. 11,
ending the Great War and the
draft.
shaky at first, but we soon got
used to it... We got off pretty
lucky until the last day they
shelled our battery and killed
two and wounded five... We
sure swore revenge on the Ger-
mans that night and nothing
would have pleased us more
than to have been turned loose on
them, but we get another chance
at them.”
Harper ended the letter with a
note about living conditions.
“We are in winter quarters
now,” he wrote. “It snowed an
inch here last night, and it is
cold.”
A letter from John Low, Can-
yon City, in the Feb. 1 paper de-
scribed his voyage to Europe.
“There is one good thing
about sea sickness: It just lasts
while the storm lasts, and when
the sea is rough a sailor feels like
the devil, and when the sea gets
calm the sailor feels fine again,”
he wrote. “But I have seen the
time when I thought the storm
lasted a mighty long time. A fel-
low thinks he is going to die, but
he won’t.”
Low arrived in Europe just in
time for winter.
“It has been very cold here for
the last two or three weeks,” he
wrote. “Colder than it has been
for several years.”
A letter from Harry Watkins,
Canyon City, in the Feb. 8 paper
came from a hospital. He was the
first soldier from Oregon to be in-
jured in the war. His leg and arm
were shattered when an artillery
shell hit his trench, but he was
upbeat about the situation.
“In spite of the Hun’s
trick, I am feeling first rate
and expect to be out in a few
FLU
Continued from Page B1
four years of the Black Death
Bubonic Plague, which took
place from 1347 to 1351. But
its timing was ironic — the
1918 flu became headline
news just as World War I was
winding down to a general ar-
mistice, and the mutated virus
in the second wave was more
deadly than the first.
Grant County residents
were probably not surprised to
see the headline “Spanish in-
fluenza invades Grant Coun-
ty” in the Oct. 18 Blue Moun-
tain Eagle. Schools across
the county were immediately
closed, public meetings were
canceled and the order for
men called to register for the
war draft was rescinded.
Several cases were re-
ported near Austin and one
in Prairie City, but the public
was urged to remain calm.
days,” he wrote.
He was being optimistic —
Watkins was still in the hospital
months later.
A letter from Alice J. Knight,
Canyon City, appeared Feb. 15.
She was working for the YMCA
in France setting up canteens
where soldiers could buy tobac-
co, soap, dental cream, tooth-
brushes, razors, towels, crackers,
cookies and jam. Some workers
met troops in the trenches.
“Our young men are coming
here in numbers that will bye
and bye amount into the mil-
lions,” she wrote. “They are
young, untried and thrust at
once into a foreign land where
they are among people who
speak another language and
have other customs than ours.”
She was concerned about
lasting effects on the soldiers.
“Temptations are about
them on every side, and away
from the restraints of home,
homesick as they often are, they
need help to keep them straight,
and send them back when this
awful war is over the kind of
men you want them to be,” she
wrote.
H.G. VanBibber, Monument,
described the countryside in a
letter that appeared Feb. 22.
“We are in a farming coun-
try which is very old,” he wrote.
“Instead of fences, everything is
enclosed with hedges and stone
fences.”
The wine industry was
something different, VanBibber
noted.
“There are a good many
vineyards here, wine is very
cheap and very plentiful, and
everyone drinks it like it were
water,” he wrote. “You can see
children going after the wine.”
VanBibber had a few re-
quests.
“I wish that you would have
the Eagle sent to me for three
months. Also send me a cake
of Lava soap,” he wrote. “I will
write as much as the censor will
pass.”
A letter that ran March 29
from James B. McGirr, Mt. Ver-
non, came from a hospital where
he had the mumps.
“I have seen lots of country
but haven’t seen anything that
looks as good as the old John
Day valley, and when we get
through here I am coming back
to the old place and there to
stay,” he wrote.
McGirr wasn’t impressed by
what he’d seen.
“France is a hundred years
behind the times compared
with the good old U.S.A.,”
he wrote. “The railroads
are something similar to the
Sumpter Valley, and the street
cars look like a soap box on
four wheels, the people hang
on all sides.”
A letter Harper wrote to
May Valade ran April 12.
“We sure will have some
time when we get back, but I
am afraid that you will have
some job in teaching me to
dance again as I am getting so
stiff in the joints,” he wrote.
Harper said his unit had
been moved.
“We are back up to the front
again, and I guess that we will
stay at the front this time, and I
don’t mind it at all now since I
am used to it,” he wrote.
Weather conditions had de-
teriorated, however.
“We were having lovely
weather here until the other
day, and it has been raining for
the last day or two. It is trying
to snow tonight,” he wrote. “It
is frightfully muddy here now,
and it makes it very bad on us
as our dugouts are full of water
and it is some job bailing them
out.”
A letter from Frank Baier,
Canyon City, appeared May 3.
“France isn’t the country
I thought it was,” he wrote.
“It rains here two thirds of the
time, and the aeroplanes are as
thick and as common as birds.
We can hear it thunder all the
time. You know what kind of
thunder I mean.”
Baier also had a request.
“Can you send me a pair of
overalls,” he wrote. “I can get
the suspenders here but not the
overalls.”
Another letter from Harper
ran May 17.
“We had a gas attack, at
least we got the alarm, and
you should have seen the boys
scramble for their masks,” he
wrote. “They are awful things
to wear, but we have to do it.”
He described his work in the
artillery.
“We are supposed to fire
three a minute, and it sure
makes us jump to do it,” he
wrote.
He noted that the Germans
were shelling a small town
about a mile away.
“They have sure got that
one torn to pieces,” he wrote.
“We sent them over a bunch
of gas not very long ago for a
change. I’ll bet they didn’t rel-
ish the change.”
The Eagle continued to run
letters through September and
October, but there were signs
the Germans were ready to
surrender. “Peace is at hand,”
a headline announced Nov. 8,
three days before the armistice
was signed.
The war was over. It was a
complete surrender, and the Al-
lies’ terms were met.
“There is no reason at all
for any alarm, and it is not
likely that the epidemic will
get any foothold in the county,
and the steps that have been
taken are merely a wise pre-
caution,” the Eagle said.
The next week’s headline
announced Grant County’s
first fatality. Five hundred ill-
nesses were reported in Bak-
er County, a number of cases
were known in Prairie City and
Canyon City, and the hotel had
been closed in John Day. The
Eagle described the symptoms
and continued to urge calm.
“Just take good care of
yourself and do not take ex-
posures unnecessarily,” the
paper said.
Oddly, a “mass meeting”
scheduled for nominating
candidates for the upcoming
Canyon City election was
promoted on the front page.
One week later, the Eagle re-
ported that John A. Muldrick,
29, Canyon City, had died af-
ter being sick for one week.
It didn’t get any better.
On Nov. 8, the Eagle report-
ed that seven people had died
over the past week and the flu
“now holds Grant County in
its death grip.”
Local doctors estimated
500 county residents were ill,
but no solid figures existed.
The flu had spread to every
city and even the far corners
of the county — entire fami-
lies were afflicted at Suplee.
But doctors also reported see-
ing fewer new cases.
“The next week will great-
ly clear up the situation, and
probably normal conditions
reached rapidly after that,” the
Eagle reported.
But three deaths were re-
ported over the following
week — two in Canyon City
and one at Pleasant Hill.
Twenty-five people were ill in
Prairie City.
“Is it Black Plague?” an
Eagle headline asked one
week later. Experts claimed
major pandemics followed
wars, but the scope of this
illness was enormous. Five
times as many people died
in six weeks in the U.S. than
died in the war. Out of 135 re-
ported cases in Canyon City,
12 had contracted pneumonia
and six had died.
As the year wound down,
the U.S. Health Service
warned that the Spanish influ-
enza was “expected to lurk for
months.” The Surgeon Gen-
eral compared the situation
to how firemen dealt with a
fire — they didn’t walk away
when it appeared to be out,
they kept pouring water on
the charred remains to prevent
a flareup.
By Dec. 20, officials esti-
mated the county experienced
1,000 flu cases. Three percent
of them succumbed to the ill-
ness. The Eagle ran the names
of the 32 who had died since
Oct. 24.
On December 12th, 1960 the former hospital in Prairie
City began operations as the Blue Mountain Nursing
Home (Blue Mountain Care Center) with 26 beds.
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