The influenza pandemic overwhelmed the world’s population in 1918, 1919, and into 1920, during which as many as 500 million were infected and an estimated 50 to 100 million lost their lives. Unlike seasonsal flu that disproportionately kills infants, children, and middle-aged and elderly adults, owing to their weaker immune systems, this variant of the virus triggered an overzealous immune response in young adults that ravaged their bodies and caused rapid progressive respiratory failure.
Two brothers-in-law, unbeknownst to each other, succumbed to influenza on the same day, Tuesday, October 1, 1918. After a double funeral that was officiated by Reverends Charles H. Elder, William D. Thatcher, and J. Wesley Wainwright, they were borne to their graves by the same pallbearers and interred on the same day, Saturday, October 5.
Twenty-four-year-old Leonard Leroy Ford (1893-1918) was employed as a chauffeur by the F.S. Katzenbach and Company, hardware merchants.
