Flu Time—Memories of a child.

I had a little bird,
Its name was Enza.
I opened the window,
And in-flu-enza.


In October of 1918 200,000 people died in the United States from the Spanish Flu. Thirty-seven year old David Baltimore, a son of the Woolen Mills village died October 25, 1918.
How do we tell the story of a neighborhood? Through maps and legends, the reading of tea leaves, received mythology. Imperfectly. Through the memories of a child.


I was born in Richmond. My father was a conductor on the railroad, a yard conductor, in Richmond. I would think that the date would have been around 1916 when he developed an illness, I was born in 1914. He developed an illness, had a leaking valve in his heart and it killed him. He died when I was four and I came to live with my Uncle Cel in that brick house across the street here (1606 Woolen Mills Road),

See my father was brought here, from Richmond before he died. I think he lived here maybe eight to nine months, I don’t know how exactly how long, before he died.

I vaguely remember him because I was just a little over four years old when he died. But I remember once he was sitting on the porch, I have a picture of him sitting on that porch over there, and there was a snake in the yard, and I was getting close to the snake and he cautioned me about it.
I can remember that
.- Roy Baltimore

Bettie Frances (Baltimore) Harlow stands with nephew Roy. Bettie was a weaver at the mill, paid by output, seven cents per yard of cloth produced. Her husband, Marcellus Carter Harlow, worked in the mill’s wet-finishing department. The Harlows were Aunt Bettie and Uncle Cel to young Roy