The Spanish Flu Outbreak of 1918-- Part 2: Lots of Similarities 1918 and 2020

My grandparents lived through it, but my parents did not as Dad was born in 1928 and Mom in 1930.

Most cases of the virus made their appearance within three to four days.  Common symptoms included fever, cough, sneezing, headache, body ache and bloodshot eyes. However, many cases developed into bacterial pneumonia, meningitis and severe ear infection that struck suddenly and spread to the brain.

One day a person could feel perfectly fine and the next could be severely ill.  Many deaths were actually attributed to the secondary infections that could not be fought with weakened immune systems.  (Sounds a bit familiar.)

With limited antibiotics and no vaccines, United States hospitals and morgues filled up quickly and to overflowing.

--Cooter

Dad's Autobiography-- Part 3

Also, during that third year of school, I became a charter member of the College Kiwanis Club, Charter member of the College Inter-religious Council and Chairman of the College Point System.

Increased responsibility at the Ford Company and the tightening requirements of upper class curriculum curbed my extra-curricular activities during my senior year.

Because of additional responsibility assumed at work, I had to make a corresponding reduction in scholastic load as a senior. This resulted in my having to attend school an extra semester.

Graduation came February 26, 1952.

March 1, 1952, I went to work with the Hood Motor Company (Studebaker Agency) at Goldsboro as combination salesman, parts man and shop foreman (the latter job including body shop supervision).

During my first year I sold 41 new and used automobiles, the selling being done, for the most part, at night after regular duties at the company were ended for the day.

Throughout my work with automobile companies I have been in contact with insurance adjusters. Their work has interested me for several years.

While in Goldsboro, I became acquainted with J.L. Brown. local representative of Motors Insurance Corporation. Through discussions with him I became convinced that a greater future for me lay in that field and that MIC offered the greatest opportunities for a man withn the interest and ambition to get ahead.

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Well. that's it. I sure enjoyed doing this and getting to know my dad at a point in his life when he was a young married man with two sons and trying to make a better life for all.

I'd have to say tht this was probably written as part of a job application or resume for a job in the insurance industry.

Dad's Autobiography-- Part 2

Convincd that herein lay a great future, I plunged into operation of the parts department with enthusiasm. In a few months I was vested with the responsibility. of the entire parts department alone, handling a business with inventory in excess of $20,000. Modesty must not restrain me from stating here that by carrying home all available literature on parts and department operations, I taught myself that part of the automobile business. I have little doubt that I was at that time the youngest parts department manager in our part of the state, being at the time an
11th grade student at Mount Olive High School.

Of the 14 boys who graduated who graduated from my high school class the following year, I was fourth high in scholastic standings.

In September, 1947, I enrolled as a freshman at East carolina Teachers College in Greenville, N.C., and began my studies toward a degree in economics.

My first year at the school was uneventful. To help with my expenses, I worked in the dining room.

The next year, my activities increased. Afternoons I worked in the parts department of the John Flannagen Buggy Company (Ford Company) for $35 a week---a salary which drew the envy of practically the entire campus and convinced me that the days spent shoving the push broom around the garage at Mount Olive and the nights spent studying the parts department literature surely had not been without benefits.

During that second year I was elected president of the College YMCA, a member of the student government, and staff member of the college yearbook.

Though older heads wagged sadly and commented loudly on the impulsiveness of youth, during my third year of college I calculated my weekly earnings, figured on the maturity of a building and loan investment of 10 years earlier, and proposed to marry the girl who had been my sweetheart since high school.

(Three and one-half years and two children, both boys, later, I still am convinced that for once, at least, the old folks were wrong.)

To be continued...

Dad's Autobiography

Mom came across a three page typed story in my dad's belongings while going through some of his stuff after his death. Unfortunately, there is no date on it and we don't know exactly why he wrote it, but it is definitely interesting.

Here it is:

"I was born February 29, 1929, in the Pickle Capital of the South, Mount Olive, N.C., the second son and third child of N.K. and Eva Stith Hatch.

I was named Donald Louis Hatch after an ancestor.

A rural mail carrier, my father was a man of modest but reasonably adequate financial means.

My early childhood probably was not unlike the childhood of any other youngster born in a neighborhood where playmates were plentiful and where stray dogs and cats always found a welcome.

Family life in the Hatch household, however, probably offered something more than was found in many homes. Three children born only 15 months apart and parents who maintained understanding, but strict moral discipline lent itself to family ties which possibly were stronger than found in many homes.

A man not blessed with the privilege of a college education, my father began, as far back as any of the children can remember, stressing the importance and advantages of higher learning.

That probably more than anything else prompted my decision to seek employment as an ambitious eight-year-old at the local Ford agency. I figured that by working Tuesdays and Saturdays as the Ford Company errand boy I might, by the time I was ready for college, have enough money for that higher education my father always taught was so necessary.

Probably, even today, it would be difficult to convince him that a degree is not a ticket to utopia, but merely a good starting point for a march into the future.

As an elementary student, I no doubt was considered no more than average. What I gained in history and geography, I probably lost in deportment. I was very interested in Scouts and attained the rank of Life Scout.

I was, however, somewhat of a politician as a grammar school student, being twice elected as captain of the school safety patrol which was to me at that time second only to the Presidency of the United States----a position I had no doubt that someday I would fill at the insistance of my fellow countrymen.

Meanwhile, work at the Ford Agency continued. By the time I was in high school I was graduated from the push broom to the parts counter. (Though I was certain at the time that promotion came only through recognition of my ability, I must admit that the drafting of most of the company's regular help probably had some bearing on the subject.)

To be continued.