Nellie Coutant gets sick

Unknown article from January 1899,
Crawfordsville District Library (C-53 #2)

One reason Nellie's perfect school record was so unusual was because of how prevalent illness was. This is before the invention of antibiotics, before the understanding of microorganisms. In 1889, the Russian flu pandemic began its five year journey to all the corners of the world. As with all flus, it was worse in winters,  declined in springs, then resurged in falls. Indiana newspapers of the time note an increase of deaths by grip (what they called the flu), but otherwise didn't seem to discourage socialization. The epidemic was more prominently represented in national newspapers, particularly in larger cities and Europe.

In Indiana, people who had the grip were listed in the newspaper. I don't know how these listings were obtained. Voluntarily? Rumor? Were some people's illnesses reported while other's ignored? So, with a grain of salt, here are the newspaper accounts of the grip in Nellie's family.

Nellie is listed as having the grip the winter after graduation, February of 1890, along with May Klein (a friend, neighbor and fellow amateur photographer), and Mattie Thomas (another friend).

The following winter she had the grip four times in one searson (Crawfordsville Daily Journal, April 11, 1891, p. 5).

In January of 1899, Chauncey Coutant returned from a trip early, complaining of grip. When he apparently committed suicide that evening in an apparent "attack of profound melancholia", the newspaper declared his mind "shattered by grip".

Mr. Coutant apparently had two life insurance policies. One (A.O.U.W. Washington Lodge, No 24) paid Mrs. Coutant $2000 within two months of her husband's death. The second denied the $2500 death claim, citing the suicide clause. Mrs. Coutant sued the Travelers' Insurance Company in August of 1899 contesting that her husband would never commit suicide. Oddly, she 'won' and received a settlement out of court. The newspapers concluded, who would know better of a man's mental circumstances than his wife? (see "The Grip Claims a Victim", in the Indianapolis News, 17 January 1899, page 6; "A Tragic Death", in the Crawfordsville Weekly Journal, 20 January 1899, page 3; "Accident or Suicide", in the Crawfordsville Review, 21 January 1899, page 1; "Insurance Paid", in Crawfordsville Weekly Journal, 24 March 1899, page 4; and "A Dispute Over Insurance", in the Indianapolis News, 30 August 1899, page 7.)

This death was written about in multiple articles, likely sensationalized ("His shocking death was a blow to the whole community"). I will speculate more on Chauncey's death in another post.