Page 12 - Bulletin 23- 2020

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the number of those who should have been born between October 1918 and June 1919. For
instance, the latter loss explains why in 1925 the new cohort of children entering primary

school in that year was smaller than in previous years: quite simply, their numbers had been

thinned by the non-birth of the usual number of children six years earlier, in 1919.

Moreover, the death of a parent, a spouse or a child had emotional, psychological, social and
material consequences for individuals well beyond just the demographic. The death of a

breadwinner could produce a serious financial effect on the rest of the family, of the sort

which prompted one flu widow to appeal movingly to the readers of a religious magazine:
“My dear spouse died of flu, leaving me in poverty and debt, with five children. Pray for

acceptance and strength for me. I intend to go to the [diamond] diggings to see if I can make
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a living there. I will give a tithe to the Lord. Ask Him for delivery and help for me.”

For the hundreds of thousands of children orphaned by the epidemic, 1918 would have been

at least as traumatic a year and a watershed in their lives. “I was taken in [by relatives] as

their child”, recalled one flu orphan in 1965. “My [four] brothers and sisters were scattered.
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We never got together again.” In most African, Indian and Coloured families such incorpor-
ation into extended families was the norm, but among whites it seems to have been far less
common. Consequently, ever anxious about the future of white Afrikaners, the Dutch

Reformed Church raised over £120,000 for orphanages to accommodate “its” flu orphans.

Other denominations, as well as several bodies of state employees like the police and railway
staff, followed suit, some using their funds to build orphanages, others to contribute to the

upkeep of flu orphans and widows in their own homes. By 1926 sixteen new orphanages had
been erected and a number of existing ones enlarged, while the state had agreed to subsidise

the living costs of flu orphans lodged in these institutions. In effect, the Spanish flu epidemic

had transformed the provision for white orphans in South Africa out of all recognition.

Other enduring, personal effects of Black October are not so easily seen by the historian. The
mass grief which must have been felt by many a South African is only hinted at by the

crowds thronging the country’s cemeteries all through 1919, the poignant entries in the “In
Memoriam” columns of the newspapers every succeeding October for decades and the rise of

spiritualism, communing with the dead and of amandiki spirit possession in Zululand. Just

how long the emotional shadow cast by the Spanish flu was is suggested by a poignant