Shortly after classes began in the fall term of 1918, Byron Jenvey, a professor of agriculture economics at the Ontario Agricultural College (OAC), went to his doctor’s office after feeling ill.

The doctor did some tests, took Jenvey’s temperature, prescribed him a box of aspirin and a bottle of Seagram’s V.O. Whiskey, and sent him home. He was ordered to “take two aspirins in a dessert-spoonful of whiskey, three times daily.”

Professor Jenvey had contracted a mild form of influenza, vernacularly known in 1918 as ‘the Spanish Flu.’ Jenvey would recover, but thousands of other Canadians, and millions of others around the world, would not.

The Spanish Flu swept across the world in several waves between 1918 and 1920, killing approximately 55,000 Canadians and at least 50 million people worldwide. Of those Canadians who succumbed to this deadly flu, at least 15 were students or faculty members at the OAC and Macdonald Institute, two of the three colleges that in 1964 would join to form the University of Guelph.

Since COVID-19 was officially declared a pandemic on March 11, we have heard it said that these are “unprecedented times.” The closure of schools, theatres, churches, and workplaces, as well as the cancellation or postponement of sporting events and other large gatherings, including spring convocation at the University of Guelph, and the widespread sense of panic and fear the world is experiencing right now may seem entirely novel. But it’s not. Only a century ago, students, faculty, and community members in Guelph and around the world were facing similar situations. And now, as we grapple with our current pandemic, we are left to wonder, what can we learn from their story?

The First Wave: October 1918 – February 1919
“It soon became evident that Macdonald Hall must be its own hospital, as one after another the students showed symptoms of the malady and were ordered to stay in bed.” – OAC Review, November 1918

“One morning in September of 1918, I left my Elgin County farm home, and was driven to the village station where, in a state of mild excitement, I boarded “Old Granny,” the local train, and set out for Guelph to attend the Ontario Agricultural College… On the campus there was a fine flurry of excitement: students were passing in and out of the Administration Building, while others formed noisy clusters on the roadway and sidewalks or called to their friends from the open windows of the residence. I made my way through this scene of frenetic activity, and lined up with other freshmen to pay my fees and be assigned to a room in residence… I was not surprised, when I had found my room, to discover another freshman in the process of moving in. His name was McLaughlin… [We] light-heartedly tossed for choice of beds and helped each other carry our trunks from the basement where the draymen had left them.”

[1. Moreton Lodge at the OAC, ca. 1900-1925. Albertype Company/Library and Archives Canada/PA-031872.]

This is how 17-year-old Harold B. Disbrowe described his first day at the OAC in September of 1918. Later that first day, after enduring their first dining hall meal and exploring the campus together, Disbrowe and McLaughlin “made the acquaintance” of their other freshmen residence neighbours and settled in for the night.
“It was late when we retired, and being exhausted from all the excitement and activity, [we] soon fell asleep,” Disbrowe wrote. “It was sometime after midnight when all hell broke loose: the door crashed open; we were doused with icy water; and our beds were overturned — all in the space of a few seconds.”

Despite the unwelcome pranks, dreadful initiation rituals, and strict dining hall etiquettes, Disbrowe, McLaughlin, and their freshmen cohorts were having the time of their lives.

It was the first time many of them were living away from home, and they were studying what they wanted to study, playing the sports they wanted to play, joining the clubs they wanted to join, and dating who they wanted to date. Students were understandably eager and animated. Life seemed happy and normal.

The fall of 1918 was an exciting time for the world too. Women in Canada had just been granted the right to vote in federal elections, the Boston Red Sox beat the Chicago Cubs in the World Series after scoring a total of only nine runs, and the Allied forces were hastily defeating the German Army on the Western Front, finally making tangible the hope of an armistice after four long years of war.

All the while, in those first few weeks of September, an invisible enemy was mounting an attack in Canada and around the world. Guelph and the College on the Hill would not be spared. It would take Disbrowe, McLaughlin, and most Canadians by complete surprise.

On Oct. 2, 1918, the students and staff at the OAC received news that one of their peers, Geoffrey Howard Scott, had died.
The 20-year-old Ottawa-native had left Guelph in June of 1918 to serve with the Canadian Engineers, but he wasn’t killed in battle. He was training in St. Johns, Quebec and was admitted to Montreal General Hospital on Sept. 28 after appearing “very ill and delirious.” Bacterial pneumonia had ensued as a result of the Spanish Flu. He died five days later.

Within a week of Scott’s death, the flu had reached Guelph. Another week later and half of the student body, which numbered about 300 in total, was ill. Those with serious symptoms were removed to one of Guelph’s hospitals, but the majority were cared for on campus.

The whole of ‘Upper Hunt’ in Moreton Lodge (the building that predated Johnston Hall) as well as a few rooms in Macdonald Hall were converted into hospital rooms. Doctors and nurses from town came to assess the ill.

As the situation progressed, OAC President George Christie Creelman cancelled lectures for a week, and healthy students were either sent home or quarantined in residence. Due to a desperate shortage, a few Mac girls were allowed to volunteer as nurses and cooks in the city’s hospitals. Campus chapel services were discontinued, and student-run concerts, plays, dances, and athletic events were cancelled or postponed.

No students or faculty members died at the OAC, and within a few weeks, life seemed to be getting back to normal. Students and faculty returned to campus, classes resumed, and campus and community events recommenced without precaution.

“The Sophomore Dance to have been held Hallowe’en night took place at Macdonald Hall, Friday evening, November 15th, and was all the more enjoyed for the postponement,” the OAC Review reported. “The Fates were for us in this delay. Not only was the flu a thing of the past, but the war’s end came with such a grateful relief that we could well afford to make merry. And merry it was! Who cannot recall the good time spent and store away forever and ever the joy of it all.”

Unfortunately, the good times did not last long.

The flu returned with a vengeance, and it struck particularly hard during the week of Dec. 9, which happened to coincide with the Ontario Provincial Winter Fair held annually in Guelph since 1889. As with other years, the Winter Fair Building (today the Guelph Farmers’ Market) was bustling with activity as exhibitions and competitions took place. Given the nature of the event, many students and faculty of the OAC were in attendance.

A handful of people began showing symptoms at the beginning of the week. On Dec. 11, as the situation worsened, President Creelman once again cancelled classes and sent students home early for the holiday break. As a result, exams were postponed, much to the assent of students.

The boys of the OAC apparently followed the announcement of the early closure with “a loud applause.” The extra week of vacation was “hailed with joy” by the Mac girls too, but they at least recognized that their exams, which would have to be written in the New Year, cast a shadow over their “dreams of Christmas presents, dances, skating parties, afternoon teas, and friends and brothers home from the war.” Within a week of the news, all ovations and exclamations of delight for an extended vacation were silenced.

One of those showing symptoms after the Winter Fair was Roy Lindley Vining, dairy specialist and lecturer in animal husbandry at the OAC. A native of Thorndale, Ontario, Vining had attended the OAC as a student from 1909 to 1914. Known for his oratory skills, he had won numerous contests and was heavily involved with the College’s Union Literary Society and the Students’ Council. For one year upon graduation, he worked as a district representative for the Department of Agriculture before enlisting in the Canadian Expeditionary Force.

Raising to the rank of Lieutenant, Vining was severely wounded at Passchendaele in November 1917. After being invalided home, he accepted an appointment to the faculty of the OAC in October 1918, a post he would hold for only two months. On Dec. 19, a week after he caught the flu at the Winter Fair, Vining died at the Guelph General Hospital. He was 31. It soon became all too apparent that the Spanish Flu was anything but ‘a thing of the past.’

A few days after Vining died, another young faculty member began feeling symptoms. Originally from Peterborough, Walter Herbert Scott was an affable physics professor at the OAC. Scott, or “Scottie” as he was known around campus, had attended the College as part of the Class of 1916.

According to his yearbook, he was said to have had an easy-going disposition and a “spirit of adventure.” Scott did well in school and was quite involved, having served on the Students’ Council and YMCA executive. But he was also “never so burdened with his studies” that he could not “find time to plan mischief and methods to escape subsequent punishment.”

Notwithstanding his juvenile side, Scott was a master at “the art of making friends and being one.” Indeed, it was his geniality that cost him his life.

In December of 1918, when his students began to show symptoms of the flu, Scott volunteered his time to care for them. He caught the virus and died two weeks later on Jan. 8, 1919, leaving behind his wife of a year and a half, Lila, and his seven-month-old daughter, Margaret.

The Spanish Flu had so far only been fatal to faculty members at the OAC, but this changed on Feb. 14, 1919. The final victim of the first wave of the flu at the OAC was a student — 18-year-old Harold “Lindsay” McLaughlin, the beloved roommate of Harold Disbrowe.

By mid-February, it seemed that the flu had passed for good. There were no other deaths, and the health of any ill students and faculty soon improved. But the events of the last two weeks of 1918 and the first month and a half of 1919 had radically altered the aether of campus. The College had lost three of its own, all at the prime of their lives.

The invisible enemy had made itself visible.

“There isn’t quite the usual stir on the [College] Heights this year,” the OAC Review understatedly reported early in 1919, adding that “the pranks are rather uncommon.” The campus wasn’t its normal bustling self. It felt empty. The hearts of students and professors were heavy. And, perhaps most telling of all, sophomores stopped pranking the freshmen.

The Second Wave: January – February 1920
“At first it was rumored and then it became only too true: the “Flu” was with us again.” – OAC Review, January 1920

On Saturday, Jan. 24, 1920, an article appeared in The Guelph Evening Mercury (hereafter The Mercury) with the headline: “Flu Not Bad at Montreal.” The report stated that although there were five cases of suspected influenza in Montreal, the city’s Board of Health felt there was “no ground for believing that the disease [would] become an epidemic in the city.” This statement came despite warnings in the preceding days of large outbreaks of the flu in Chicago, New York City, and Havana, Cuba.

On the same page of The Mercury, another brief notice appeared: “Short Course Student Dies of Pneumonia.” Murray Fallowdown, a 17-year-old short course student at the OAC, who had only just begun his studies that same month, had fallen ill on Tuesday, Jan. 20 with pneumonia.

Fallowdown, who was originally from Sutherland County, Ontario, died two days later at the Guelph General Hospital. No link was made between his death and the influenza crisis in Chicago, New York City, Havana, or Montreal.

On Tuesday, Jan. 27, four days after Fallowdown died, his friend and fellow OAC student and Sutherland County native George James Tocher, 18, also succumbed to pneumonia.

Doctors soon realized that the pneumonia was only a contributory cause of death. Influenza was back. Almost a full year after Lindsay McLaughlin lost his life to the Spanish Flu, it had claimed another two victims, and it wasn’t planning on stopping there.

The OAC and Macdonald Institute began to prepare themselves.

“The drawing room was quickly commandeered and in a few hours was completely transformed into a hospital,” the OAC Review reported about Macdonald Hall. “When more cases were discovered, the library was used as a ward, and in this way, the “fluites” were effectively isolated from the other girls.”

Despite these implementations, Macdonald Institute and the OAC remained open in 1920. Unlike 1918, lectures continued, exams were written, and sports teams continued to compete. The Mercury confirmed on Jan. 27 that the OAC’s annual Conversat, a popular social event, would “carry on” as usual so as to “not disappoint the great student body and their friends.” Despite the deaths of Fallowdown and Tocher, the school believed there was “no occasion” for cancelling the event or closing the school.

Three days later, on Friday, Jan. 30, Macdonald Institute lost its first and only student to the pandemic. Kate Morton Sinclair, originally from Belleville, Ontario, was in her second year of studies.

She was described as “a talented young lady whose kindly disposition, friendly ways, and helpful manner endeared her to a host of friends.”

The 20-year-old started showing symptoms of the flu on Monday, Jan. 26. Double pneumonia developed by Wednesday, and she was admitted to Guelph General Hospital. Two days later, at five o’clock on Friday afternoon, Sinclair died, leaving behind grieving parents, siblings, and classmates.

The Belleville Daily Intelligencer, Sinclair’s hometown newspaper, reported quite candidly that “medical skill proved unavailing.” Young people kept dying, and it seemed there was nothing that could be done about it.

John “Walter” Rutherford Dawson was the next victim to lose his life to the Spanish Flu. Originally from South Monaghan, Ontario, Dawson was a short course student at the OAC, having only started his studies in early January.

Even from his few days in classes, Dawson’s professors and classmates could tell he possessed “the prospects of being a very promising young farmer.”

Dawson, unfortunately, never got the chance to prove this sentiment correct. He caught the flu and was admitted to Guelph General on Friday, Jan. 23, where his condition grew progressively worse. On Monday, Dawson ‘celebrated’ his 20th birthday lying in a hospital bed. He developed acute pneumonia and died the following Saturday, Jan. 31.

The next two days, Sunday, Feb. 1 and Monday, Feb. 2, were the deadliest days of the epidemic at the OAC. Three students and one professor died in the span of 48 hours.

Sunday saw the deaths of two OAC students, both aged 19. They were Roy “Victor” Wood, originally from Brantford, Ontario, and Lorne Victor McGee, originally from near Kemptville, Ontario. Both Wood and McGee were in their second year of studies, set to graduate in 1923, and were hailed by their classmates as being “very well known and popular.”

Both boys started showing symptoms around the same time. McGee was admitted to Guelph General on Monday, Jan. 26, with Wood joining him the following day. Both developed pneumonia after the influenza had weakened their bodies. They died within hours of each other.

Two more deaths occurred on Monday. Douglas Edward Pettypiece of Essex County, Ontario was an OAC short course student in the farm dairy class. He too had only started at the College in early Jan.. He fell ill, was admitted to Guelph General on Saturday, Jan. 31 and died two days later. He was 17.

The other victim was Walter Lawton Iveson, a professor of chemistry and geology at the OAC. Iveson, who was born and raised in Metcalf, Ontario, graduated from McMaster University in 1910. Upon graduation, he worked for the civil service in Ottawa before accepting a position at the OAC in 1914.

For Iveson, college was much more than lectures and textbooks. He was very musically and dramatically inclined, and as such organized and directed many plays, musicals, and concerts while at the OAC. When needed, he even filled roles on stage, including as ‘Professor’ in Pauline and ‘Mordecai’ in Esther.

He was involved in various clubs at the OAC including the Philharmonic Society, the Alpha, and Union literary societies, and the Dramatic Club.

Iveson’s mounting of Dickens’ The Cricket on the Hearth in the winter of 1917 became widely popular on campus and in the community, so much so that it was re-staged at least four times. Iveson was also the leader of OAC’s Chapel Choir, conductor of the Choral Club, and was a member of the beloved College Quartet.

If his musical and dramatic talents weren’t enough, Iveson was also a staunch supporter of OAC athletics. He managed men’s hockey teams, acted as a referee for many sports, reported on-campus athletics in the OAC Review, and served for a time as vice-president of the Athletic Executive.

Given the fact that life on campus and in the community had continued as usual despite the flu, it is probable that Iveson caught the virus at the College, or possibly at the Woolwich Street Baptist Church where he was a prominent member.

Pneumonia set in on Wednesday, Jan. 28, and the doctor was called to his home on Friday, Jan. 30. Three days later, Iveson died, leaving behind his wife Eileen of four years and dozens of devastated students and faculty.

By the evening of Feb. 2, eight people had died in less than a week. Still, President Creelman and the Students’ Council were holding fast to their decision to keep the OAC and Macdonald Institute open. “As the crisis is now past, it was not thought necessary to close down the college,” The Mercury reported President Creelman as saying, “but all precautions will be taken to prevent a further spreading of the disease.”

Tuesday, Feb. 3 was the first in four days that no one associated with the College had died. Unfortunately, the pause was only temporary. Wednesday would see the death of another respected member of the OAC community.

Oscar Wilbur Bennett was originally from the Peterborough area. An only child, Bennett was raised by his grandparents after his mother died of puerperal fever when he was only two months old. Bennett enrolled himself in the OAC in 1912 and earned a Bachelor of the Science of Agriculture (B.S.A.), graduating in 1916. Immediately following his final exams, at the age of 28, he enlisted in the 56th College Battery for overseas service. After being trained as a gunner, he was sent to France as part of the 14th Field Artillery “Howitzer” Brigade in August 1917.

On Aug. 26, 1918, almost exactly one year after he had reached the front, Bennett was badly wounded by an exploding shell. After having his right leg amputated below the knee at a field hospital behind the lines, he was sent to recover at a hospital in England.

In October, while in hospital, he wrote a letter to his college friend Walter Scott — the same Walter Scott, mentioned above, who, in 1919, would die from the Spanish Flu.

“I am quite frisky these days on my one leg and a pair of crutches,” Bennett writes to Scott. “I was out to a picture show a few days ago, but it takes a deuce of a sight more nerve to cross these streets, with all the bustle and noise, than it does to pass through a barrage at the Front… I hope the chaps at present training in Canada will never have to come over here, enough of us have seen the horrors of the war.”

The war ended less than a month later, though Bennett, who was still recovering, wasn’t discharged until June 1919. Upon release from the hospital, he was fitted with a ‘peg and willow-bucket leg’ and sent home to fend for himself. Although a pension program was set up for soldiers following the war, veterans—even those with disabilities—were still mostly responsible for their own reintegration into society.

On his discharge papers, Bennett stated that he intended to work as a farmer. It seems he was determined, despite now being an amputee, to use the education he had acquired at the OAC to make a life for himself. Before he got settled in on a farm, however, he received a letter from his alma mater offering him a lecturing job in the poultry department. Bennett, then 32, gladly accepted.

Tragically, Bennett’s employment at the OAC was brief. After catching influenza, he was admitted to Guelph General on Wednesday, Jan. 28 when pneumonia had developed. Though he had survived the battlefields of France, his body was no match for the Spanish Flu. He died one week later on Feb. 4.

Bennett’s death ended the darkest two weeks in the history of the OAC and Macdonald Institute. Seven students and two faculty members had died after contracting the Spanish Flu in a matter of 13 days, bringing the total number of deaths to 15. The youngest was just 17; the oldest was only 32.

The Relevance of History
COVID-19 is unparalleled in our lifetime. Historically though, our current situation is not unprecedented. The rapid spread of illness, the closing of schools, workplaces, and sporting venues, and even the practice of panic buying are nothing new.

The Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918–1920, which caused the death of at least 15 people associated with the OAC and Macdonald Institute, proves that.

As we seek to understand this present crisis, we must raise the question of the contemporary relevance of historical events. Can our understanding of the influenza pandemic of 1918–1920 help us deal with COVID-19 in the present? The answer is both yes and no.

We must be wary of drawing direct lessons from history. As historian Peter Paret reminds us, every age has a unique combination of circumstances and conditions that can never again be replicated. Profound social or technological changes over time, for example, seem to “sever us from history” and may even reduce history’s relevance to “an absurd fiction,” Paret argues.

Nevertheless, history as “the educated memory of what has gone before” can be a very valuable tool. “The present always has a past dimension, which it is better to acknowledge than to ignore or deny,” Paret continues. “And even if we can see the present only in its own surface terms, we still have available to us what may be the greatest value history has to offer: its ability, by clarifying and making sense of the past, to help us think about the present and future.”

So how exactly can the Spanish Flu help us think perceptively about the current crisis? By looking back at history, we see that we must be proactive against epidemics. Viruses may be ‘invisible,’ but they can be extremely fatal and must be taken seriously. We can see how hospitals and medical professionals often get overwhelmed. That the young and healthy are not immune. That measures must be implemented early. That the responsibility to halt the spread is a shared one. That no one is invincible.

The influenza pandemic of 1918–1920 also reminds us that we ought to be thankful. We should be thankful for improved medical research, healthcare practices, and medicine.

In January 1920, Guelph’s Medical Officer of Health offered just two tips for evading the flu: avoid sick people and dancing. “In dancing,” the medical officer wrote in an article for The Mercury, “one would be more apt to come in contact with infection than in any other way. Therefore, anyone going to a dance at present might be accused of actually trying to get the disease.”

The scientific community now has a much better understanding of how viruses act and spread than they did during the influenza pandemic, and this knowledge has led to the improvement of medicine, hygiene practices, and general preventative measures.

We should be thankful for a unified national healthcare system. As Mark Humphries argues in his book The Last Plague: Spanish Influenza and the Politics of Public Health in Canada, the aftermath of the Spanish Flu saw the creation of a federal health department that was (and still is) responsible for coordinating local and national pandemic responses.

We should be thankful for technological advancements that allow for up-to-date news, instant communications, and the ability to continue to learn and work at home — all things they didn’t have in the early twentieth century. Family and friends can now stay connected in live time. Education can move online. Updates can be shared instantly and in a more consistent manner.

Finally, we should be thankful for the relatively quick and stable decision-making of our leaders, and for the fact that our health and safety is a priority for them despite the disruption their decisions might cause us.

In 1918, President Creelman was praised for having the “wisdom and foresight” to close the College early in order to prevent the spread of the flu. And yet, in 1920, when the virus returned, he decided to keep the school open, mostly because he feared that the students and faculty would be irritated if the term was extended into the spring. The OAC and Macdonald Institute remained opened, and nine people died.

Studying and remembering the impact the Spanish Flu had on the University of Guelph can help us appreciate our current situation. The 15 students and faculty who died between 1918 to 1920 were not merely statistics — they were students, children, siblings, parents, roommates, veterans, and teachers. So, too, are the victims of COVID-19.

If 1918–1920 teaches us anything, it’s that we all must be proactive. We all have a part to play. And, through all the uncertainty and irregularity, we ought to stop, remember, and be thankful.