As the nation and the world deal with the continuing fall out from the spread of COVID-19, the viral disease caused by the coronavirus that spread from China in late 2019, some local families are recalling stories passed down from past generations about family members afflicted by the so-called Spanish flu a century ago.

Newspaper records from that time are scant, primarily because the United States was in the midst of World War One, and information about the spread of the flu, that killed at least 50 million worldwide, was suppressed.

That’s what Joyce Williams of Mineola found out when she tried to find more information about the stories she heard.

“I have looked through the old Mineola newspapers and found very little about the flu in Mineola,” she said.

She said she is not able to corroborate the deaths were Spanish flu, as their were no death certificates, but relying on stories that have been passed down.

She spoke to several family members who all related similar stories.

“My grandmother told us her father and brother died of Spanish flu two days apart,” Williams said. “All other cousins and my aunt confirm the story.”

Some of the deaths occurred in 1916, before the flu had become widespread. But another was in 1918 as the pandemic was raging.

“My grandmother’s father, (my great-grandfather) William Hoke Mooring, (who lived at Redland) died Jan. 9, 1916,” Williams said. “This was at the beginning of the Spanish flu epidemic in the United States. My grandmother was Mable (Mooring) Alexander. She and my grandfather (Earl Alexander) owned Alexander’s Grocery on South Pacific St. from 1958-84.

“William Mooring’s son, (my grandmother’s brother) Charley Mooring died two days later on Jan. 11, 1916.

“William Mooring’s wife (my great-grandmother) died two years later at the height of the flu epidemic on Oct. 20, 1918.”

One relation lost three family members in just two days.

“Another account relayed to me by an older relative about my grandmother’s sister, Myrtle (Mooring) Gilbreath,” Williams said. “Her husband, George Gilbreath. also died on Jan. 11, 1916.  So my great aunt, Myrtle Gilbreath, lost her father, her brother and her husband in a span of two days.”

Robert Henry Wisener is a name well-known in Mineola aviation history. His son, Robert Jr., was the person primarily responsible for the establishment of the Wisener Field airport just on the west edge of Mineola.

Wisener Senior became a victim of the Spanish flu in 1919 and never got to see the full development of the airfield, which still operates today after 103 years.

The Wiseners arrived in the area from Tennessee and initially settled in Terrell before retruning to Mineola.

Robert H. Wisener had a farm on land that now houses the airfield.

According to Lupita Wisener, his granddaughter-in-law, Wisener had not been feeling well, and his wife had encouraged him to stay home as there had been stories of residents becoming ill and dying.

He rode horseback into town to get hardware supplies for building gates for a corral at the farm.

When he returned he said he wanted to rest, and when family members checked on him later, he was comatose and was dead by the time a doctor could arrive.

Mr. Wisener died March 21, 1919 and is buried at the Sand Springs Cemetery. He was 52.

Mrs. Wisener noted there was some urgency to have him buried quickly.