What has been Ottawa’s worst disaster? The 1998 ice storm? The 1957 Byward Market Fire? The Great Fire of 1900? In terms of human lives lost, its worst disaster by far happened a hundred years ago when it, and most of the world, was hit by the Spanish flu epidemic. Over the five weeks that it lasted in the city, the epidemic claimed over 500 lives and infected between 10,000 and 25,000 people out of a population of about 100,000.
In late September 1918, Ottawa recorded its first case of Spanish influenza, roughly two weeks after the first Canadian cases had been identified in Quebec City. Not recognized as the threat it would become for another week, the epidemic was coming at the worst possible time: Canada had already lost tens of thousands of men at the War and the ranks of its health care professionals still in the country were severely stretched because of military service. The unusually virulent strain of influenza which disproportionately affected the most active members of society — young adults rather than the old and the very young — made an already-bad situation worse.
The impacts were devastating. Train schedules were affected because so many employees were sick. Bell Telephone published ads in the newspapers asking subscribers to limit their calls because its depleted staff could not cope with the volume. Funeral parlours stopped providing the number of daily burials to newspapers because there were too many to count.
On October 4, Ottawa’s Board of Health banned all forms of public assembly to check the progress of the disease: schools, taverns, concert halls, bowling alleys, billiard parlours and theatres were all ordered closed. A few days later, churches cancelled Sunday services. Businesses were asked to close at 4 p.m. because it was believed that “the vitality of the average person is at its lowest between 4 in the afternoon and 9 at night” (Ottawa Journal, 15 October, 1918). City merchants went along at first but quickly came to oppose this measure which they saw as counter-productive (shops would be more crowded if their hours were shortened). Employees who relied on their daily wages to make ends meet suffered financial hardships as a result of this enforced cut in their workday. These measures were in force – although not always respected — for five weeks, until Armistice Day, by which time the epidemic had clearly subsided and normal life could resume.
Working class neighbourhoods were particularly hard-hit because they were close to railway stations (the main vector for long-distance transmission of the virus), and their inhabitants tended to live in crowded and unsanitary housing. Sandy Hill, where residents were wealthier and living in more salubrious conditions, fared better but no neighbourhood was spared. At the height of the outbreak, 50 people a day were dying from the flu.
As regular hospitals could not cope, the city opened several temporary ones during this period, the first being a former University of Ottawa’s dormitory on Laurier Ave. East at Cumberland, colloquially known as Le poulailler[1]. Seventy years later, a former student still remembered in an interview the emotional toll imposed by the seemingly-endless peeling of the St Joseph and Sacré-Coeur church bells signaling yet another funeral (the churches would eventually stop this practice).
Because of the shortage of medical staff, the City desperately needed volunteer nurses to cater to the sick. The Mayor asked Lillian Freiman to head the relief organization. She recalled later that “the epidemic had assumed gigantic proportions. There was no preparation, no organizational relief. The situation was appalling. I confess I had no idea what to do” (Figler, 1961). Freiman set up relief committees with the help of women’s and religious organizations. An astounding 1,500 volunteers answered the call. They cooked, sewed, distributed food and clothing and helped nurse the sick. 300 volunteer seamstresses worked in the City Council chambers to equip emergency hospitals with bedding, night clothes for the patients, face masks and pneumonia jackets[2] for the caregivers and shrouds for the deceased.
While everyone in the city was affected by the epidemic and the measures taken to combat it (life insurance companies were hit particularly hard), some still managed to prosper. Ads in the Ottawa Journal at the time feature the Branston Violet Ray Ozone Generator “to keep nasal passages, throat and lungs in perfect antiseptic condition” (19 October, 1918). For their part, “Milburn’s heart and nerve pills … [promise to] stimulate and strengthen the weak heart, [and] bring back the shattered nervous system to a perfect condition” (13 October 1918). As the only store that could legally dispense liquor (for medicinal purposes) during this period of temperance, Bate & Co. did a roaring business filling whiskey prescriptions for “patients” with pneumonia.
The Oblate fathers running the Juniorat du Sacré-Coeur, whose building still stands at 100 Laurier Ave. E. at the corner of Cumberland St. (it now houses the visual arts department of the University) kept a diary (the “Codex Historicus”) of their activities that remains today a remarkable eye-witness account of how the crisis affected a Sandy Hill institution. The school recorded its first case of the flu on October 2 and by October 6 had had to convert its library into an improvised infirmary to receive the overflow of patients. Even a hundred years later, the excerpts below convey the anxiety the priests felt as the crisis unfolded.
| 7 octobre | La liste des malades s’allonge constamment. |
| 8 octobre | L’état de la plupart nécessite une surveillance de tous les instants et des soins très divers. … Fréquents et abondants saignements de nez chez bon nombre, sauts considérables de la température, partant du normal et quelque fois d’en dessous pour s’élever en quelques heures à 103, 104 et même 105 degrés. Deux cas s’aggravent respectivement de dysenterie et de pleurésie sèche. On imagine facilement les soins dont se complique la tâche de infirmiers. A tout moment il leur faut varier les traitements. Bains d’alcool, pilules administrées à intervalles plus ou moins espacés selon les exigences du patient. Et que sais-je encore. Jour et nuit nous nous relayons auprès des malades. |
| 8 octobre | L’état de la plupart nécessite une surveillance de tous les instants et des soins très divers. … Fréquents et abondants saignements de nez chez bon nombre, sauts considérables de la température, partant du normal et quelque fois d’en dessous pour s’élever en quelques heures à 103, 104 et même 105 degrés. Deux cas s’aggravent respectivement de dysenterie et de pleurésie sèche. On imagine facilement les soins dont se complique la tâche de infirmiers. A tout moment il leur faut varier les traitements. Bains d’alcool, pilules administrées à intervalles plus ou moins espacés selon les exigences du patient. Et que sais-je encore. Jour et nuit nous nous relayons auprès des malades. |
| 9 octobre | Après mure délibération …, le renvoi de nos junioristes valides dans leurs familles est décidé. …Sont libres de rester ceux dont les parents demeurent loin ou dont la région de résidence est déjà envahie par l’épidémie. La plupart nous quittaient vers les trois heures et demie cet après-midi.
…A l’université, les externes cessent de fréquenter les cours … en vertu d’une décision du Bureau de Santé en date du 5 de ce mois. |
| 10 octobre | Nos jeunes patients voient leur nombre s’éclaircir. Six sont déjà en état de relever; par précaution, nous les maintenons au lit. |
| 11 octobre | Plus que huit malades que la fièvre tient au lit. …Parmi les malades quelques-uns nous inspirent encore des craintes.
Les décès continuent d’endeuiller notre paroisse. Il y en a eu un le 9, un autre le 10 et aujourd’hui un troisième. …Les appels aux hôpitaux et à domicile sont nombreux. |
| 13 octobre | Autre décès dans la paroisse. |
| 15 octobre | Le docteur Lambert, revenu malade de son voyage dans l’ouest américain, est dans un état critique. |
| 16 octobre | Tous nos malades … sur pied, a l’exception de deux. |
| 17 octobre | Nouveau décès dans la paroisse. |
| 18 octobre | Plus que deux convalescents à l’infirmerie. Par contre, dans la ville, l’épidémie accentue sa marche. |
| 19 octobre | A l’église, funérailles d’un jeune, mort le 17. Il fréquentait les cours de l’université comme externe.
Autre décès, le dixième en date pour la paroisse depuis la fin de septembre. Le docteur Lambert est à l’agonie. |
| 20 octobre | Le docteur Lambert est décédé de bonne heure ce matin. Le Juniorat perd en lui un ami dévoué, un bienfaiteur insigne.
…La plupart de nos frères du Cap [de la Madeleine] et de St Pierre de Montréal sont atteints de la grippe. |
| 21 octobre | Apprenons aujourd’hui la mort du père Walter Plaisance, OMI, supérieur à Plattsburg. La grippe a causé son décès. Le père était un ancien élève de notre Juniorat.
A l’église, aujourd’hui, funérailles d’un jeune homme et d’une jeune fille. Toujours l’influenza. |
| 22 octobre | L’influenza ne désarme pas vite. …Le père Laflamme, à lui seul, a administré l’extrème-onction à trois malades. |
| 24 octobre | Autre sépulture à l’église. |
| 27 octobre | A l’église aujourd’hui, il n’y a eu que des messes basses. …Dimanche dernier la mesure fut plus radicale : l’église est demeurée fermée jusqu’à midi : tout le monde fut dispensé de l’assistance à la messe. |
| 2 novembre | Confessions nombreuses à l’église. |
| 3 novembre | Dans la ville quelques églises fermées dont la nôtre. La plupart des autres ouvertes pour l’assistance aux messes basses seulement. |
| 7 novembre | Retour de nos junioristes. Quelques-uns manquent au rendez-vous, retenus chez eux par la maladie. |
| 12 novembre | Reprise des classes. |
The crisis was over and life could finally resume its normal course. The Juniorat students even got a reason to celebrate on November 11 when the Armistice put an end to the Great War. But, if the Codex Historicus does not record any fatality among the Juniorat students, 12 out of 101 did not return when classes resumed.
The Convent of our Lady of the Sacred Heart (better known as the Rideau St. Convent) was another Sandy Hill Institution hard hit by the epidemic. As all other schools in Ottawa, the Convent suspended its classes and sent its students home, except for its 80 boarders who stayed at the convent, but in almost complete seclusion.
The Covent’s nuns were enlisted to fight the flu. The chronicles of the Order inform us that: «Plusieurs hôpitaux d’urgence ont été établis … Les maitresses des écoles séparées vont soigner dans ces hôpitaux. Nous avons été demandées pour celui de la rue Laurier, ouvert dans un local appartenant à l’Université des Révérends Pères Oblats. Nos Sœurs y ont passé dix-huit nuits; deux soeurs chaque nuit. …Nous avons aussi envoyé à 1’Hôtel de ville, presque chaque jour, plusieurs gallons de bouillon, de gruau, de la gélatine etc. » (Chroniques, Octobre 1918)
The federal government played no role in health care in those days (it would set up a department of health only in 1919 as a direct response to the epidemic) and the Province of Ontario effectively delegated the main responsibilities for fighting the flu to local authorities. Through an extraordinary civic effort that mobilized thousands, Ottawa pulled through on its own.
[1] “Chicken coop”. This dormitory was built in 12 days in early 1904, immediately after the disastrous fire that destroyed the university’s main building. The building was eventually ceded to St. Joseph church, to serve as a parish hall.
[2] Pneumonia jackets were padded jackets designed to keep the wearer warm as it was believed this would help prevent infection.