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Dearest Bert,

I have not had any mail from you since your letter of September 21st. I know you are not permitted to tell me where you are (and they do a very nice job, I must say, of making your letters almost unreadable) but I got the feeling from your last letter that you were in training again someplace, and now I don’t know what to think. Please do be careful, wherever you are, and tell your buddy Timothy that my prayers go up for him as well.

Did you get the candy I sent? Clara and I made it one Saturday morning, and then went downtown to the Red Cross center on Fifth Street, where we rolled bandages all day. Bert, I hate to tell you this, but Montgomery Ambrose was killed in France two weeks ago, his mother still doesn’t know where or how, all she got was notification, poor woman. You remember him, he was always doing imitations of Eddie Foy, he was a nice sweet person. Oh Bert, I worry all the time about you. Please, please,
please
be careful.

Things have not been too good here in Eau Fraiche, though we still hope and pray the flu will pass over us quickly, the way it has in some other towns. There were seven new cases in the past two days, Bert. The Board of Health has taken over the row of empty stores on Buffalo Street, where my father used to have the agency, do you remember? (There is talk, by the way, of changing the name of the street to Pershing Street. I think it comes up at the town meeting next Thursday.) Anyway, they are going to use those buildings, which were supposed to be condemned for the new mall and town administration offices, as an emergency hospital until the flu is gone. Dr. Wheeler has been appointed the whole team and the little dog under the wagon, which is pretty good since he’s an eye, ear, nose and throat man, who has had a lot of experience with bronchitis, laryngitis, and the like. The first thing he did was to ask the Town Board to pass an ordinance against expectoration (which is spitting — I didn’t know myself until I looked it up!) with a fine of fifteen dollars if you’re caught doing it.

In addition, Mr. Larsen, the superintendent of schools, has ordered the elementary school and also Juneau High closed until further notice, and nobody will be going to church this Sunday because all the churches have been shut down, too. This “preparedness” may sound silly, Bert (we were “prepared” for the war you’re now lighting, too, and yet you’re thousands of miles away from me today) but the situation could become very serious. In Chicago last week, according to the Record, ninety-two people died of the flu. And at Camp Grant in Rockford, more than ten thousand soldiers are supposed to be sick with it. As you can see, this is not just a tempest in a glass of water.

Please write to me soon. I am forever,

Your Nancy

Bert darling,

What excitement!

We caught a spy!

Last night, Mr. Breier was making his rounds at the rubber plant when he came upon this small man carrying a satchel. Well, he challenged him, and the man ran pell-mell for a cat race. Mr. Breier, who’s got very weak eyes, fired two shots after him and miraculously hit him in the leg. It turns out that the man’s name is Heinrich Schumann, and he was carrying
bombs
in the satchel, Bert, obviously to sabotage the plant! And what’s more, they say he was also carrying
influenza
germs in that bag of his, probably in little bottles or something! Can you beat that!

Actually, and thank God for this, the flu seems to have quieted down here in Eau Fraiche. We have had only two deaths from it, and luckily only three new cases in the entire county. They had put signs up all over the city telling us to keep our bedroom windows
OPEN
(!) now, to prevent influenza, pneumonia and tuberculosis, but I guess the new advice is working because, as I say, we seem to be over the worst part of it. We have been quite fortunate, Bert. The rest of the country is just devastated by this germ or whatever it is, God forgive me for gloating over our own good luck.

Guess what? Your sister came home from Arizona with her husband yesterday, and he’s not half so bad as everyone made him out to be. Actually, he’s sort of handsome (though not as handsome as you) in a dark mysterious way. There’s no doubt he’s an Indian, Bert; in fact, Kate seems quite proud of his Apache background. She had her little boy with her, and he’s a good-looking child with Kate’s good nose and mouth, and his father’s brooding eyes. She is pregnant again, I don’t know whether you knew that or not. We all had a marvelous supper at your house last night. Your father was a little surly toward Oscar at first, but he came around after a few drinks, and they began swapping stories about lumber camps. Oscar used to sell harnesses on the road, so he naturally got to visit a lot of the camps, including those in Eau Fraiche. Your father is in the best of health, by the way. He told me he gained seventeen pounds in the past three months, which I can believe because your mother is such a marvelous cook! Oscar and Kate and their little boy were staying at the United in town, and they dropped me off on their way in. Oscar has a brand-new Reo, so I guess selling tractor parts is very good business these days.

Bert, are you writing to me? I have not received a single letter since yrs of September 21. I love you with all my heart. Do be very careful.

Your Nancy

Dearest Bert,

You may drive out nature with a pitchfork, yet she will come back.

The epidemic is full upon us. Since I wrote you Sunday there have been six hundred cases reported, with thirty deaths in the last twenty-four hours alone. The furniture factory has been closed, and there is talk of shutting down the rubber plant as well, even though everyone knows how important it is to the war effort. A new emergency hospital has been opened at the empty McIver mansion on the peninsula, and Mayor Hutcheson has ordered ten big Army tents set up on the lawn outside. There are seven Eau Fraiche policemen riding horses around town, Bert, to keep people away from the saloons, where the fools have been trying to sneak in through the back doors. Everyone in town must wear a gauze mask over the nose and mouth, and you can be lined fifty dollars if you’re caught without one in public. Everything is closed, my dearest, schools, churches, saloons, theaters, even most of the restaurants. (Claude Rabillon died Sunday night, and the county health officer ordered the Lorraine to shut its doors at once.) Even the library is closed because it’s feared the flu can be spread by the public circulation of books. We do not know what it is, Bert, and we do not know what to do.

There are some who say it is carried by dust, there are others who say it is not a disease at all but really a contamination of the air caused by the use of so much poison gas in Europe. Some say it is caused by a bacillus, and others say by a virus. I don’t know what either of those are, Bert. I only know that people are dying, and I am scared out of my wits. It is as if God has sent a scourge to punish His foolish creations who insist on destroying each other and the human race.

Oh my darling, please forgive me. I know you are in constant danger, and I must not trouble you further. Please be careful. I love you.

Your Nancy

P. S. I took some cookies to the Post Office yesterday, but Mr. Aubrey asked whether I was sending foodstuffs to you, and when I said I was, he told me he could not permit it because the contamination might spread further among the troops. Are you well, my dearest? Please, please,
please
write to me, I am frantic with worry.

N.

Dear Bert,

My father was stricken with influenza today. He had been complaining of a headache all day Monday, but he has frequent headaches, you know, and we thought nothing of it. (Actually, I think we were all too frightened to accept it as the possible beginning of something.) But then, oh Bert, he just began to
look
so sick, I’ve never seen him look that way in my life. His eyes got red, and his nose was all stuffed up, and he had this terrible backache, and then of course the fever came and we sent for Dr. Henning who could not come until six o’clock tonight. There are only three doctors in town, as you know, and they’ve been making calls to other parts of the county as well. People have been taking turns driving them, and they’ve been sleeping in the automobiles between patients, and working around the clock. Dr. Henning told us on the phone to give Daddy quinine and aspirin, but that didn’t help at all, and when he finally arrived, poor Daddy was burning alive with fever. He had him removed at once to the McIver place down-peninsula, and we will not be allowed to see him until he’s better because the house has been quarantined.

As I write, I can see through my window to the Emerson porch across the street, where funeral services are being conducted for Louise Emerson, who died last night. It is forbidden now to keep the bodies of victims in a closed room where others might become infected.

I am so frightened.

I have to make this short, my darling. Meg is in tears, and I must go to her.

I love you,

Nancy

Oh my darling!

A treasure trove of mail today! Fourteen letters from you, only two of them dated, and the same postmark on each of the envelopes, so that I had to read them all through once, and then sort them out as best I could and read them through a second time in sequence. (One of your letters said you had no idea what day it was. Just keep safe, Bert, and keep writing to me, and I won’t care if they’re all dated September 31st.)

I know you’re in the Meuse-Argonne, even though you’re not permitted to say. The newspapers are full of nothing else. There is talk here that the war will be ending soon, that this offensive will be the one to break the German resistance. I pray day and night that this is so. I have bought a huge map of France, and I have been trying to follow the advance, figuring out loud to myself — Nantillois is where Bert must have been when he wrote this letter, and this one was written in Cierges, and this is where he fell into the stream, Gesnes, trying to be with you, my love, trying to share it with you.

We have not been allowed out of the house since Daddy took sick, but we have been in telephone contact with the emergency hospital. It is so difficult to get through because so many families have sick people there, but we managed to talk to Dr. Henning early this afternoon. He said there has been no change in Daddy’s condition. The fever is still with him, and there is nothing we can do but wait and pray. What cannot be cured must be endured, my dear Bert. When they took him away Wednesday, Meg began screaming and yelling, which didn’t help matters at all. We are very much aware of death in this town, it has become a frequent caller. As they carried Daddy out of the house unconscious, I think all of us felt we might never see him alive again, God forbid. And Meg gave voice to our fears, hitting at the men who were carrying him out on a stretcher, their faces masked, silent in white, while across the street we knew Louise Emerson, thirty-two years old and pregnant, was dead. We gave Meg some hot milk and put her to bed, but I heard her whimpering in her sleep all night long, and the sound was a reminder of what we all had felt when we saw Daddy so helpless that way.

I am absolutely exhausted, my darling. It has been a difficult few days. Thank God I’ve heard from you at last, and know that you are safe and well. I am going to take some aspirin now, and then go upstairs to read your letters through again before I go to bed.

I love you,

Nancy

Dear Bertram,

I am writing this in Nancy’s stead, and with great trepidation. I know you will begin to worry if you do not hear from her as usual, but at the same time I don’t want to add to your burden by bringing you bad news. I must tell you, however, that Nancy has been taken sick with influenza.

It was quite sudden, Bertram. She went to sleep with a headache Friday night, and yesterday morning we had to send her to the hospital as her fever had gone up to a hundred and three degrees. She is still very sick, Bertram, and we are all praying for her recovery. I will write to you daily. I pray God that you are safe.

Yours truly,

Clara

Dear Bertram,

There is no improvement in Nancy’s condition. She is still feverish, and Dr. Henning fears that the influenza may lead to pneumonia. My father is recovering. It is our hope that he will be out of the hospital very shortly. This is his third day without fever, and Dr. Henning says he is no longer in any danger. We hope and pray that Nancy will have the strength to overcome this terrible disease as he did.

God keep you safe, Bertram.

Yours truly,

Clara

Dear Bertram,

Dr. Henning was here just a short time ago, and I’m afraid the news is neither good nor bad. Nancy’s fever went down to a hundred and one yesterday, but is up to a hundred and three again today. Her lungs seem clear, with no symptoms of either bronchitis or pneumonia, but Dr. Henning is afraid the influenza may have caused some other infection which he cannot as yet diagnose. I will of course let you know as soon as there is any further word.

My father came home today. He is still a bit weak, but seems anxious to get back to work.

God keep you safe.

Yours truly,

Clara