Dad's Story Part 4

Frank and Willis

My brother Frank (full name Franklin Russell) was born in the LDS Hospital at Salt Lake City on March 19, 1920. One thing that happened to us in Salt Lake City, which proved to be providential, occurred during the 1918 influenza epidemic, which killed hundreds of people in the City. Somewhere I had contracted a light case of scarlet fever. I was hardly sick at all but my father got it from me. It hit him like a ton of bricks. He was very sick for about two weeks. During the time that we were sick we were quarantined. No one could leave the house, and no visitors were allowed inside the house. The groceries and milk were delivered to the house and left out on the porch where we would pick them up. The milkman would pour the milk from his containers into our milk bucket, in order to avoid contamination. This quarantine took place at the height of the influenza epidemic, and we feel that it was partly responsible for none of our family contacting the dreaded swine flu that killed so many people.

Another vivid memory I have of our days in Salt Lake City is the memory of getting the Sunday newspaper from the front porch, taking it into bed with Mother and Dad and listening to Dad read the comics to me. I have an indelible memory of the smell of the fresh printer’s ink on the paper. The comics I remember are “The Katsenjamer Kids”, “Happy Hooligan”, “Mutt and Jeff”, and “Felix the Cat”.

The movies had not yet become popular or very well developed when I was very young. But vaudeville shows were at their peak. Salt Lake City had a theater called Pantages. Mother used to take me to these vaudeville shows occasionally. I would laugh so hard at the comedian’s jokes that the audience got more kick out of watching me than they did from the show.

The Pantages Theater in Salt Lake City