SEATTLE – This isn’t the first time public Masses have been suspended in Western Washington because of a health crisis — Masses were canceled for several weeks during the worldwide influenza pandemic of 1918–19.
On the first Saturday of October 1918, not long after the first cases of influenza were reported in the area, Seattle’s mayor and health commissioner ordered the suspension of all indoor public gatherings — including church services. The next day, some local Catholic churches, including St. James Cathedral, held Masses outdoors.
At the cathedral, “Non-Catholics Gather to Witness Unique and Edifying Spectacle,” reads a headline from the October 11, 1918, edition of The Catholic Northwest Progress, which was the official newspaper of the then-Diocese of Seattle.
Outside the cathedral, “seats had been arranged to accommodate all, lights were strung from tree to tree, and the superb Cathedral choir filled the air with sacred music to the accompaniment of an organ,” the paper reported.
“While bared heads bowed in the falling rain at the tinkling sanctus bell, the non-Catholic spectators looked on and wondered. It was beyond their comprehension,” the paper added.
But six days later, Bishop Edward J. O’Dea announced that no services, indoor or outdoor, would be held at any Catholic churches of Seattle “until further notice.”
It was mid-November before the faithful could attend Sunday Masses again.
“Hundreds of Catholics who never missed Mass on Sunday since they were first able to walk, had the original and unpleasant experience of being absent from the Holy Sacrifice on the past five Sundays,” The Progress reported when churches reopened in November 1918.
“Nevertheless bishops, priests and people everywhere in the Northwest unhesitatingly co-operated with all measures of the public health authorities,” the article said. It noted that the death toll in the Northwest was light in comparison to other areas of the country, where some people saw church closures as drastic and unnecessary and some prelates protested.
Even after the ban on gatherings was lifted, Seattle residents were required to wear protective masks for weeks.
In all, more than 1,400 people in Seattle died from influenza from September 1918 to February 1919, according to a digital encyclopedia of the nationwide epidemic compiled by the University of Michigan.
Three Irish priests succumb to influenza
During the epidemic, three young Irish priests — ordained in Ireland for the Diocese of Seattle — died of influenza. The first to die, on October 14, 1918, was 33-year-old Father Ailbe Heelan, pastor of St. Anthony Parish in Renton.
“His death came as a shock to the whole diocese and his loss is keenly felt by Bishop [Edward J.] O’Dea, the priests of the diocese and the parishioners of the two parishes [including St. Patrick, Tacoma] to which Father Heelan devoted years of self-sacrificing labor,” The Progress reported in its October 18, 1918, issue.
Not long after, influenza claimed Father Daniel Kelly, 33, of St. Joseph Parish in Wenatchee, which was part of the Diocese of Seattle until 1951.
Father Heelan and Father Kelly were classmates at St. Patrick’s College in Thurles, Ireland, were ordained at the same time and came to Seattle together. “They died within the same week from Spanish influenza contracted while administering to the sick and dying of their parishes,” The Progress reported.
A third priest who had attended the same seminary, 28-year-old Father Thomas J. Deere, died of influenza in January 1919. After arriving in the Diocese of Seattle, he became the first appointed chaplain of St. Joseph Hospital in Bellingham. Father Deere later served as an assistant at St. Anne Parish in Seattle, then was assigned to St. Anthony in Renton to fill the vacancy left by Father Heelan’s death.
Priests more susceptible to influenza
From that fall and into the new year, The Progress reported nearly a dozen priests in Seattle, Aberdeen, Everett and the now-defunct town of Orillia (near Kent) fell ill with influenza but recovered.
Priests, the paper noted, were said to be more frequent victims of the flu because they were exposed to it more often by the nature of their ministry.
“Answering sick calls night and day, a heavy tax has been placed upon their strength and left them more susceptible to the disease,” The Progress wrote. “In hearing confessions and administering to the sick, they are often obliged to perform their work without availing of antiseptic masks and other precautions commonly used by physicians and nurses.”
(By contrast, during this year’s COVID-19 outbreak, priests are wearing protective gear as they minister to the sick and dying. So far, four priests in the Archdiocese of Seattle have been under 14-day quarantine, but none have tested positive for the virus; in the Diocese of Yakima, however, two priests are recovering from the coronavirus.)
Quarantine lifted, but masks required
On November 12, 1918 — the day after the armistice ending World War I was signed — Seattle’s influenza quarantine order was lifted. Public gatherings were allowed once again and Catholic schools and churches opened. But the city’s health officer ordered everyone to wear gauze masks in places of public assembly.
Despite the lifting of the quarantine, the threat of influenza continued.
There were other deaths of clergy and religious, including Jesuit Father John Neander in Spokane and Providence Sister Mary Dympna, who served at St. Elizabeth Hospital in Yakima. Sister Mary “had offered her services in caring for the plague-stricken, and herself fell a victim to the disease,” The Progress reported. “In the capacity of pharmacist she did everything in her power to relieve their sufferings.”
In Tacoma, Father Peter F. Hylebos, who was named the first pastor of St. Leo Parish in 1880, died of influenza-type pneumonia, according to his death certificate. A native of Belgium, Father Hylebos arrived in Washington Territory in 1870. At St. Leo’s, mourners filled the church for their pastor’s funeral Mass and overflowed onto the sidewalk, a presence that showed “how much you loved him,” Bishop O’Dea said in his homily. Father Hylebos was buried at Calvary Cemetery in Tacoma.
During the months of the pandemic, the back pages of The Progress contained the funeral notices of many laypeople who died of influenza. Calvary Cemetery in Seattle usually averaged 34 burials each month, but that jumped to 85 per month starting in October 1918, Calvary’s superintendent, Martin Murphy, said in an email. Burials didn’t return to pre-influenza levels until February 1919, he noted.
As for the three Irish priests, Fathers Heelan, Kelly and Deere — who died after tending to the spiritual needs of the sick and dying — their sacrifice can be remembered by visiting their graves at Calvary Cemetery, where a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus watches over them.
Digital copies of The Catholic Northwest Progress from December 1900 to March 1957 are available for browsing and searching at the Washington Secretary of State’s Washington Digital Newspapers site.