How America Struggled to Bury Bodies in 1918 Flu Pandemic-- Part 2: Shortages of Gravediggers and Coffins

Cemeteries struggled to keep up with the mounting death toll.  With gravediggers absent from work -- either because they had gotten the flu or were afraid they would--  grieving families were sometimes forced to  excavate graves for their loved ones.

In New Brunswick, New Jersey, 15 workhouse inmates were handed spades and shovels under the watchful eyes of guards.  In Baltimore, city employees were called into  emergency duty as gravediggers while soldiers from Fort Meade were pressed into service to bury a three-week backlog of 175 bodies at Mt. Auburn Cemetery.

Casket companies, already hard-pressed to supply coffins for  the thousands of U.S. Doughboys killed overseas, could not keep up with this increased demand.  Facing a desperate shortage in the nation's capital, District of Columbia Commissioner Louis Brown hijacked two train cars filled with 270 coffins bound for Pittsburgh and rerouted it to the city hospital under armed guard.