"The Loss of the Mrs."

The 1918 Spanish Flu was a pandemic that affected the whole world but especially impacted our family!

Headlines from 1918

Officially the Spanish Flu began January of 1918 and lasted until December of 1920. 

Our story starts two years before the Spanish Flu officially began. 

Just to recap: 
Mary Stratton (AKA Nana Bradley) is 16 years old in 1916. She is living with her widowed grandmother Ellen Brown in Providence, RI. Mary's mother Mabel is in Canada with her second husband David Kingston and with Mary's two brothers Edwin and Samuel.
On September 5, 1916 Ellen Brown dies of double pneumonia. Mary is just 16 years old so she goes to live with her Aunt Grace who is her mother's sister. Grace is married to Lawrence Napoleon Gorman and they have  three young boys; Harold, Lawrence and Raymond. The family is living in Providence, probably on Oak Street.

The Spanish flu hits our family two years later. The first to die was Mabel's  sister Daisy Brown. (2) She died in February of 1918 of Broncho-Pneumonia. Contributing cause : LA Grippe (Flu). A month later in March, Lawrence Napoleon Gorman (Grace's husband) also dies from the Spanish flu.

In March of 1918 Mabel was still living in Enniskillen, New Brunswick. From what I can piece together Mabel left Canada in late March after learning of the deaths in her family. Sometime during her travels she contracted the deadly flu and died on 4 April 1918 on 291 Oak Street Providence, RI. The informant was her sister Grace Gorman. Mabel was 41 years old and had been married to David Kingston for 12 short years. Mabel is buried in the family burial plot in East Thompson cemetery where her parents Darling and Ellen Brown and her grandmother Eliza Sprague Cruff Joslin Lord are buried.

I do not know why Mabel is listed as Stratton instead of Kingston on her headstone. Was it a mistake related to general chaos from so many deaths due to the Flu epidemic ? Or did members of her family not agree with her marriage to David Kingston? As in all things Mabel there will be questions left unanswered!

As you can see from the family group sheet, Mabel's brother George Darling Brown died the next January also from the flu. The Spanish Flu Epidemic of 1918 claimed 4 members of this family!

One of the saddest pieces of information I found was from a Canadian Border Crossing Record. In June of 1918, two months after Mabel had died, David Kingston crossed the Canadian border. He reported his purpose as being, "Loss of Mrs." This just hit me. So much sadness!

Gravestone of Mabel Brown Stratton Kingston 
 East Thompson Cemetery, Thompson, Ct

Gravestone of Darling and Ellen Brown
 East Thompson Cemetery, Thompson, Ct.

(1) Grace Brown married Lawrence Napoleon Gorman in 1905 and had at least three children Harold, Lawrence and Raymond.

(2) Daisy Brown married William James Brown in 1909. Unknown descendants.

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/journal-plague-year-180965222/

https://medium.com/@bobpritchett/on-living-through-a-pandemic-5c6ea0d2ec06