BILLINGS — According to some estimates, the 1918 flu killed more people than World War I and II combined.
Now, there’s a film, officially documenting the faith in humanity in Montana, and it's making stops at theaters statewide, including Crow Agency and Missoula in September 2024.
“You could imagine it would have been very traumatic for people. You’d have cases where you would go to a house, and there might be a dead child in the house and the other members are there, and they are too sick to do anything with the body, and then if one or two parents die. You have children orphaned as a result of the pandemic,” says Leif Fredrickson, a historian featured in the documentary.
It’s a film that sucks viewers into the flu that literally turned faces blue before a person died. A dramatic history, one the director says is often brushed over in classrooms.
The documentary is called Blue Death: The 1918 Influenza in Montana.
"We chose six individual stories where Montanans are telling how it affected them and how they tried to help each other survive,” says Dee Garceau, the documentary’s producer and director.
Like the recent COVID-19 pandemic, masks were worn and schools shut down.
“Public officials are asking teachers who are now out of work, well, hey, you're not working, we want you to volunteer as nurses, and the reason for this was that most healthcare workers were overseas serving in World War I," Garceau said.
The film documents the life of a part-Crow woman named Francis, a teacher who dies trying to nurse others back to health.
“As a commenter, I had Reno Charette, who is Crow and Northern Cheyenne, and Reno is a historian. and so she helped create a context for Francis Garriga's story,” says Garceau.
“Epidemics take away the people you love, and they take away history and language and your ceremonies because the important people that knew that information had not had that opportunity to transfer it to the younger person as it should have been done,” says Charette, a historian.
Luckily via the film, family history is being preserved from a time similar to recent years, yet far advanced when it comes to vaccines vs. shots of whiskey and wishing for the best.
All Montanans have the chance to view it either on its statewide tour next in Missoula Sept. 10 at the public library or Sept. 19 in Crow Agency at the Little Big Horn Community College, or online via Montana PBS.
