Influenza in Alaska: Hearings Before the Committee on Appropriations, United States Senate, 65th Congress, Third Session on S.J. Resolution 199, A Joint Resolution for Relief in Alaska By United States Congress. Senate. Committee on Appropriations
http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC06258712&id=5JRLJryArpcC&q= congress+1919+alaska&dq=congress+1919+alaska&num=100&pgis=1
Influenza in Alaska and Porto Rico: Hearings Before Subcommittee of House Committee on… By United States, Congress, Committee on Appropriations, House, United States Congress. House. Committee on Appropriations
http://books.google.com/books?vid=OCLC45724840&id=RC8p0LnIcCsC&dq= congress+1919+alaska&num=100
This is the same as the first reference, but includes additional materials on Puerto Rico. The copy is not as good as the first version.
When I can get it done, I will showcase some excerpts. The testimony is interesting because Alaska had two waves of the influenza (like everyone else); the worse year was 1919; the bickering between the state (Territory) and the Feds (Congress) over who would pay or “be responsible” for Native peoples. The argument over who does or does not pay taxes was hard to follow without knowing the background. I found the answer as to why the Bureau of Education ran the schools and Native affairs instead of the Bureau of Indian Affairs. The number of deaths and orphaned children was pretty appalling, and this was prior to the pandemic hitting the Kuskokwim.
However, looking at the funding, the readiness, the transportation, and the self-education about disease aspects — we are not in much better shape now than then. Except we know now that influenza is an infectious disease.
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from today’s interview with DON WRIGHT
“My mother, Myrtle Rose, from Boise, Idaho, came with her sister as missionary nurses in 1918, walking, riding horses, resting in villages, following the rail bed from Seward to Nenana, where she met my dad, who was then at the mission.
RIVERBOAT PREACHER
When the Spanish flu hit, only she and another nurse never got sick. Seventy-five percent of the village died. Dad got sick, but Mother pulled him and many others through. She finished her two-year tour, went home and then met Dad in Seattle, where they married in 1922. They returned to Nenana, where Dad was ordained an Episcopal deacon.”
http://www.adn.com/life/story/8757606p-8659114c.html