Whiskey in the Morgue

Chester County, Pa., and West Kensington, Philadelphia

My parents: father Walter Bader (1901–1975), mother Irene Rummel Bader (1905–2010).

Walter worked the Chester County morgue during 1918 at the age of 17.

Recollections: They buried babies in barrels, having run out of room.

Wealthy people would have memorial services in a makeshift chapel at the morgue.

Morgue workers were given allotments of whiskey as a flu preventative. Whiskey was in short supply. Doctors would write scripts for it. None of the workers, including Dad, came down with the flu.

Irene Rummel Bader lived in West Kensington, Philadelphia, with her maternal grandmother and two younger orphaned siblings. She was age 13 in 1918.

Recollections: The next-door neighbor was a big German who had the strength to drive a four-horse beer wagon. He was in his late 30s and was dead within a few days.

Their grandmother would not allow herself or her grandchildren to go to any public gatherings. No one got the flu. When November 1918 had the first frost, the flu was gone as mysteriously as it came.

Story contributed by Nancy Thomas, daughter of Walter and Irene Bader