With devastating speed, the Spanish flu swept through Regina and killed nearly 300 people between Oct. 1, 1918 and Nov. 6, 1918. While 3,000 people, or 10 per cent of the city’s population would fall sick from the disease during that time, there currently exists no memorial in the city to the victims.
Kenton de Jong, a local historian and Regina resident, hopes to change that.
“The idea for a memorial really started when I read The Regina Cemetery Walking Tour – Tour 2 booklet by the Regina Ethnic Pioneers Cemetery Walking Tours,” de Jong said. “There was a small blurb in that book that says between the Chinese section of the cemetery and the Jewish/Beth Jacob’s cemetery, there is Potter’s Field, where many Spanish flu victims were laid to rest in unmarked graves.”
With a love of history and a desire to ensure aspects of the city’s history are not forgotten, de Jong decided to get down to work to have a memorial built to honour those who died from the disease.
“The ultimate goal of the memorial would be to give closure to these people that died, and to help us remember them,” de Jong said. “The flu killed so many people so quickly that they weren’t all given the burials they deserved. Even the ones with headstones had their funeral services cut down to 15 minutes. You can’t say goodbye in 15 minutes.”
With the First World War winding down at the same time, de Jong feels that the Spanish flu is often overlooked in history, both locally and nationally.
“In 1918 copies of The Leader, the first half-dozen pages are all about the war in Europe,” de Jong said. “Only after the Victory Bond ads do we start seeing the daily death toll of the flu throughout the city. A lot of people felt they shouldn’t acknowledge their own sufferings when they had loved ones fighting overseas in trenches.”
With a GoFundMe page that has a $5,000 fundraising goal, de Jong would like a granite or stone memorial constructed. Since many of the names of the dead are lost to history, no names would be placed on the memorial.
Outside of the GoFundMe campaign, de Jong will also host walking tours of the cemetery with donations going towards the cause.
“Beyond that, I am not sure how else I’ll be raising money,” he said. “I feel confident that we can raise this money though, one way or another.”
If the campaign is successful, de Jong hopes to have the monument placed in the Potter’s Field area of the cemetery but that could change down the line.
“Until we have some answers about who is buried there, the exact location is unknown.”
You can learn more about de Jong’s Spanish flu memorial campaign at his blog Kentondejong.com