How Americans Struggled to Bury the Dead in 1918 Flu Pandemic-- Part 4: Like a Scene Out of the Middle Ages

Those buried in the mass graves were primarily poorer and immigrant residents so there was a class aspect to death and what happened to you.  The more affluent were more likely to secure the rites of passage into the hereafter than the poorer, more recent arrivals.

The scenes on the streets of Philadelphia appeared to be straight out of the plague-infested Middle Ages.  Throughout the day and night, horse-drawn carriages  kept a constant parade through the streets as priests joined the police   in collecting corpses draped in sackcloths and blood-stained  sheets that were left on porches and sidewalks.

The bodies were piled on top of each other in the wagons and limbs were protruding from underneath the sheets.  I couldn't help but think of that scene in the Monty Python movie.

The parents of one small boy who had succumbed to the flu begged the authorities to at least have him the dignity of being buried in a wooden box that had been used  to ship macaroni instead of wrapping him in a sheet and having him taken away in a patrol wagon.