Recommended Reading

    My mother sometimes talked about the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918.  She was 18 and the flu hit young people very hard...(it had to do with the vigor of their immune system).  Her sister, Ella, died and her brother, Oscar, came home from Alberta, Canada where he was farming, got sick and almost died.  Their brother, John, was in a military camp in the south and he, too. got sick.  WW I had a major impact on the spread of the Flu.  As many as 100,000 million people worldwide may have died.
   The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History by John M. Barry tells not only the story of the flu but also the history of the rise of modern medicine.  Germ theory had recently been developed and clinicians were beginning to understand viruses.  His explanation of the nature of viruses is very helpful.  The flu may have been one of the factors leading to WW II because President Wilson came down with the flu during the peace negotiations after WW I.  Too sick to hold out for a balanced peace accord Britain and France imposed draconian peace terms which left Germany vulnerable to the rise of Hitler. I think it is a very important book.
    Quite a different book is The Checkered Years: A Bonanza Farm Diary 1884-88.  Mary Dodge Woodward moved from Wisconsin with her adult sons to keep house while they managed the 1500 acre farm.  A very literate woman she kept this diary which often records what she and her sons were reading.  It provides very interesting insights into what was a very harsh life.