In 1939, Lt. Colonel E. Frederick Thode, surgeon, U.S. Army Medical Corps, ret. died. He was a casualty of the 1918 pandemic. At four years into a 20-plus-year career in the military, he had already experienced a major hurricane in Texas City that wiped out the Army’s Division 2 encampment and a posting to the Philippines. A week after the U.S. entered WWI, he was sent back to the U.S., elevated to Captain and then to Major in the same day and began caring for soldiers in training and returnees from Europe. The following year, as the war continued, the 1918 flu epidemic struck. U.S. soldiers were particularly hard hit during the pandemic. An estimated 45,000 perished due to the flu; by comparison, 53,402 combat deaths were recorded among U.S. soldiers in that war.
“Fred” became ill with the flu while caring for the legions of infected soldiers. He “recovered” and returned to tending to other sick soldiers. But during his own illness, he suffered from endocarditis, which left him with a weakened heart. Over the next 20 years, he would be a patient at Walter Reed Army Hospital for a few weeks at a time, receiving treatment for his condition. On the eve of WWII, the Army medically retired him. Shortly thereafter, he died at 51. A few years later, his wife, Kathleen, the grandmother I never knew, unable to go on without him, took her own life.
There are two lessons to take from this part of my family’s history. On Memorial Day, we should also remember those whose early deaths occur after a war has ended. They, too, are casualties. Second and especially now, we should remember that during a pandemic, the death toll is not only immediate; it can continue for years due to health effects we may not yet fully understand. In taking all the suggested measures to protect those around us, we show we’ve learned these lessons of wars and pandemics: that among other consequences, they can take away the grandparents we will never know.
Karen E. O’Neil
Leyden