In October 1918, with the cadre of nurses depleted by the war, the Red Cross warned that Philadelphia did not have enough to treat the rapidly increasing number of Spanish flu cases. The archbishop of Philadelphia called on nuns to leave their convents and care for the sick and dying across the city. Although the sisters lacked medical training, they dressed in white gowns and gauze masks, and ministered to patients who were a cross section of the city: immigrants from Italy, Ukraine, Poland, and China; blacks and Jews; the poor and the homeless. The mayor said of the sisters: “I have never seen a greater demonstration of real charity or self-sacrifice irrespective of the creed or color of the victims.” Read more about the deadly Spanish flu pandemic a century ago in On the Shore (1917-1925), a tale of conflict between generations in a Lower East Side immigrant family (see NOVELS).
