Whittier was only 31 years old when it was hit by the world-wide pandemic called Spanish influenza. It was called the Spanish flu not because it originated in Spain, but because most of the hard-hit European nations were under war-time censorship, so the news just didn’t get out. Spain, being a neutral country during WWI, widely publicized the outbreak occurring there. About 675,000 Americans would die from the Spanish Flu between 1918 and 1920. The first Whittier death from the Spanish flu occurred at the Whittier State School on September 14, 1918. Cadet Walter Bruhms was a healthy 16 year-old. …
