Mtn. Review Special Edition Late Summer 2020 | Seite 6

The 1918 Flu Pandemic in MV
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has prompted renewed curiosity in the last major pandemic to sweep across the United States: the flu pandemic of 1918–19. The MVHA
has received a few requests for information on how the 1918 “Spanish Flu” affected the lives of the people of Mountain View. Unfortunately, we have no first-hand accounts,
photos, or records that dive into the details of how Mountain View residents coped with that challenging time. However, what we do have are newsletter clippings. MVHA
past president and History Center librarian Candace Bowers has combed through old editions of the Mountain View Register Leader newspaper for anything related to the
1918 flu. Her discoveries are shared here. Mountain View was a small city with a population of less than 1,800 and these notices and folksy columns offer a glimpse of
rural, small town life back then.
October 11, 1918 November 15, 1918
Just ad during current pandemic, movie theaters were some
of the first businesses to close down in Mountain View during
the 1918 flu. The Glen Moving Picture Theatre was located at
174 Castro Street and was built in 1910 by Fritz Campen. It
was the first building in Mountain View constructed specifically
for the purpose of showing moving pictures.
The big news in this November 1918 column was the end of World War I on November 11, but
news of the flu is sprinkled throughout. A sure sign that Mountain View was still a small town
in 1918: General updates on the health and whereabouts of everyday citizens were newsworthy!
A joke about masks hiding ugly faces is sandwiched between updates on the lives of various
citizens in this column.
A quick search on Ancestry.com confirms that the young man mentioned in the last paragraph,
Leo Mason, was in France fighting in World War I. Maurice VanDamme and Melvin Andreen are
likely other local boys fighting in the war. A copy of Mason’s military registration card is below.
It appears he survived both the war and the flu; the 1930 census shows him living at 407
Loreto Street with his wife and son.
A photo of the Glen Theatre around the time of its grand
opening in June 1910.
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