This Universal Disease reached our Home
[This article was written on June 26, 2020 — it was originally also published in English in the older version of Letonia Brasil, but I decided it would be useful for Latvia’s situation now.]
A week ago we completed 100 days of quarantine in Brazil. Our country is the second-largest Covid-19 hub in the world, accounting for 55,000 deaths [now 170,000]. Latvian communities in Brazil needed to cancel their events for public health reasons: For the first time in 70 years, there will not be a Latvian Congress in summer, the traditional Līgo party in Nova Odessa was canceled, as well as the Latvian meetings in Curitiba.
Although alarming, 2020 is not the first time that the Latvians in Brazil faced a global pandemic. 102 years ago, the dreaded Spanish Flu plagued Brazilian cities and piled up corpses on the street — threatening the newborn Latvian colonies in Brazil.
Thanks to the collection of the Letters of Rio Novo (Which are part of the Latvian National Archive today) we can get a sense of what the colonists thought of that pandemic in numerous letters exchanged between friends and relatives. In this article, we will only highlight the parts concerning the Spanish Flu, but the complete letters can be accessed by clicking on their respective headings (place and date).
As we discussed in previous articles, the first immigrants from Latvia landed in Brazil in 1890, creating the colony of Rio Novo. In the following decades, several of these Latvians spread throughout the south and southeast of Brazil, building cities like Ijuí, Urubici, and Nova Odessa.
The epidemic was brought to Brazil by English sailors in Rio de Janeiro in September 1918. Negligent officials and an ignorant population made a fertile ground for the disease that was to come. It didn’t take long for the disease to reach exorbitant figures. In Rio de Janeiro, 600 thousand fell ill, 66% of the city.
In the first year of the Spanish flu pandemic, some Latvian students from the colony of Rio Novo studied in the Brazilian capital. The first mention of the disease was in a letter written by Pastor Karlis Leimanis to his friend Reinalds Puriņš, who at the time was studying at the Theological Seminary of Southern Brazil, based in Rio de Janeiro.
The rumors here, coming from Rio, are to frighten the world. What’s the reality there? Has the “Hespanhola” reached the Seminar? Is it still working? We closed the [Colony] School without reasons of bigger force, because here it does not inspire fear, but the people are alarmed and act the worst.
- Karlis Leimanis, in October 1918.
Reinalds Puriņš, born in the colony in 1897, had attended the same school and church that Leimanis was a pastor. Almost like a mentor, they were both great friends and discussed the issues of the colony. Reynaldo had left Rio Novo the previous year, 1917, to study theology.
The next mention of the infamous disease was made by his sister, Olga Purim, in a letter:
(…) It had been a long time since we had heard from you, and that is why we did not know where you had been on vacation. The letter of 18 November was lost, as well as that of 7 October. (…) The letters are probably lost, as several ships were not allowed to enter the port of Laguna because of many passengers with the “disease”. So, no wonder that so many letters were lost.
We are all healthy. None of us got this disease. Here in Rio Novo some caught the flu and in Orleans some have already died, but none of us. Some are so afraid that they won’t leave their property to avoid getting the disease, but I often go to Orleans and I didn’t get anything.
Weeks ago the Griķis were sick, but nothing serious. Old Somers is very sick, but not with the flu. So Lucija sent Dad to make a coffin. Dad was there in the Griķis all day and we were worried about the possibility that he got the disease, but nothing.
(…) [Jurgis Karklis] said that in Porto Alegre people die like flies and that vehicles walk around the streets picking up corpses — more than a thousand a day, which makes it impossible to bury everyone. In São Paulo and Rio it is also the same; he was saved because he carried a glass of creolin close to his nose at all times. But he is a tale-teller, very pompous. (…)
- Olga Purim, in December 1918.
The colony’s relative geographic isolation — close to the coastal Brazilian mountain range — delayed the arrival of the disease for a few months. While entire Brazilian cities were devastated, the settlers only knew about the news from travelers. The first infections among Latvians started on Christmas 1918.
(…) This time I have nothing good to write to you. We would be doing well if it weren’t for this epidemic, this universal disease, which reached our home. You may have already forgotten about this disease, but it is only now that it has come this far.
This epidemic has been in Orleans for a long time and here in Rio Novo, too, but here at home it started with a headache and tiredness, limpness in the body. As the day was very hot, I thought it was because of that. The other day I had nothing more, just a little cough, and so my illness gave way with a good sleep. Lucija had to lie down on Old Year’s Day [The last day of the year]. Arturs and Mamma after the New Year. We are hardly bedridden, but only with a lot of cough. But with Papus [“daddy”, Janis Puriņš], who always held on while the others were sick, started on Sunday and he went to bed anyway — and it’s longer than us all together. Today he looks a little better.
Here it seems that there was no home where no one was ill. Now the Klaviņš and Leimans are sick. Here in the colonies it is not so strong, but there in Orleans several Brazilians have already died due to this disease; also many, after having a hard time, came to recover.
In Orleans, two “hospitals” were improvised: one at the cinema and the other at Jurks Jakboson’s house. Some Latvians who went to visit these places said that in a place like this it is very likely that the sick will only get worse and will hardly be able to heal, as there is no ventilation at all: the windows are kept completely closed and due to that fact it gets hotter inside than a sauna.
(…) [About Christmas festivities] Visitors were not as many as the other years; one explanation is that due to the flu epidemic, several people have avoided gatherings, (…)
- Olga Purim, in January 1918
Fortunately, Olga’s family survived the epidemic. However, the disease took some of the older settlers. It is not entirely known how many Latvians died from the Spanish flu in 1918, but reports seem to indicate that colonies were not hit as hard as cities.
(…) Now, thank God, we are well, everyone is healthy and we can all work again. As I already wrote in another letter, that “Spanish” [Spanish flu] settled in at home, but now he’s gone and not all of us were very affected. The one who stayed in bed the most was Paps who stayed a whole week.
[Postcard dated with the Orleans stamp: 12 February 1919]
Old Somer died on December 20 at the Griķis’ house and the funeral was the next day. In recent times he was so bad that he didn’t recognize anyone and couldn’t move.
Jurgis Karklis, as I already wrote, is at home, but now he doesn’t hear the great “pompe” telling those great things, nor does he talk about leaving. (…)
- Olga Purim, in February 1919.
And then, by the end of the 1920s, the arduous part of the pandemic gave way. Without hospitals or governmental aid, the Latvians survived the Spanish Flu. The Colony withstood this test of resilience and continued to be the home of the many, many immigrants who had made Brazil their land. However, this was not the Latvians’ last encounter with the disease, since it was still endemic in the following decade:
Cheers!! Yesterday I came back from Vitória, where I spent a whole month traveling, I am now leaving behind 9 more leagues on horseback [almost 60 kilometers], I will be home on Saturday to start classes on Monday.
The weather is very cold and rainy and the people are sick with the Spanish flu. (…)
- Carlos Leiman, July 1921
It remains for us — those who live through confusing times today — to learn from our ancestors. No matter how desperate or worrying the present becomes, we can always look back at the past and see how different, but how similar, our lives are. In the future, it will be our turn to tell our stories to new generations — the Covid-19 pandemic will also be marked in history as one of the many challenges in the history of Latvians. So, it is up to us to learn and preserve these stories to be told in the future.
Cover image: Field hospital set up at Club Athletico Paulistano in 1918 / Reproduction
Author: Andreis Purim.
Thanks to Alice and Arvido Purim.