1918: The year of death
More than 80 die in Gallup during flu epidemic

Copyright © 2008
Gallup Independent
By Bill Donovan
Staff writer

GALLUP — It was a time when all people in Gallup talked about was death.

The time was the fall 1918 and Gallup, as well as the Navajo Reservation suffered as much as the rest of the country as a new strain of flu swept across the nation.
It was the kind of story Stephen King would write about 70 years later — a world where disease would sharply reduce the population, leaving survivors to pick up the shreds of civilization.

Just how bad was it? One account from the Centers for Disease Control had this to say:

The effect of the influenza epidemic was so severe that the average life span in the United States was reduced by 10 years. The mortality rate was 2.5 percent — meaning that 1 person out of every 40 who caught the disease died.

“The death rate for 15- to 34-year-olds of influenza and pneumonia were 20 times higher in 1918 than in previous years,” the report said. “One anecdote shared of 1918 was of four women playing bridge together late into the night. A day later three of the four were dead of the flu.”

An estimated 675,000 Americans died of the flu in 1918 and 1919, more than 10 times the number who had died in World War I. About half of the servicemen who died in the war in Europe died of the flu and not war injuries.

In Gallup, more than 80 people died, with hundreds more reported to have died on the Navajo Reservation.

On Oct. 10, the Gallup Independent reported that 20 people had died so far of the flu, and all businesses were ordered to be closed. School was called off, and the city’s schoolhouse was converted into a hospital with doctors issuing an urgent plea for volunteer nurses.

While people stayed at home as much as possible, a couple of hundred brave souls ventured out to the railroad depot where Douglas Fairbanks, one of the most popular movie stars, did a stopover on Oct. 9 en route to Washington asking Gallupians to buy bonds to help pay for the war.

That the last time for weeks that some Gallupians would go where there was a crowd as city officials ordered businesses and other places of public assembly, including moving picture theaters, churches and dance halls, to shut down.

“It is believed,” said an article in the Carbon City News on Dec. 10, “that there are 600 cases in the city.”

A week later, the two newspapers printed the obituaries of another 45 people. Among the latest victims:

• Joe Morello, described as “one of the best known residents and for years proprietor of the Palace Saloon on Railroad Avenue.”
• Dr. C. J. Laffin, one of the most skilled surgeons in the West.
• Felix Fabro, salesman for a local dry goods store and son of Mr. and Mrs. T. A. Fabro, one of the original settlers of Gallup.
• John Grolino, another original settler who owned a trading post six miles west of Gallup.

A week later, the papers reported the death of Mrs. Roman Hubbell, “wife of the well-known Indian trader and the Republican candidate for assessor.”

“Word has reached this city,” the Carbon City News reported on Nov. 2, “that the influenza has struck Crown Point (sic) and three persons died there Thursday night.”

The paper also reported that “the Navajoes (sic) on the reservation are gathering together to pray to the great spirit to spare them from the ravages of the influenza.”

Rumors were apparently circulating on the reservation about the number of people who were dying in Gallup that there was a run on Gallup pawn shops because “many Indians were thinking that maybe all the pale faces were dying in Gallup so they came in to redeem their pawn.”

When people thought it couldn’t get worse, both Gallup papers reported the case of a Fort Defiance man named Chris Chillie Jaunika who did the unthinkable on Oct. 19.

The flu had killed 41 residents of the small Navajo community and Juanika, “crazed no doubt by the fear of himself and his family becoming ill and dying of the flu” decided to take some steps to make sure that didn’t happen.

He took an axe and killed his wife and five children, chopping them into little pieces. He then committed suicide by hanging himself.

By mid-November, the worst was over and stores began reopening and kids started back to school. The papers began reporting in December that dances were once again being held, although attendance was down, in part because some people were still afraid of crowds and some were still in mourning for loved ones who died.

While the flu would continue to kill here and there in Gallup and on the reservation for the next few months, the deaths were sporadic and only received minor attention in the local press, which was spending a lot of time in early 1919