When Winter Came: A Country Doctor’s Journey to Fight the Flue Pandemic of 1918

Join us at 6:00 PM on March 4th at the Titonka Library for a book talk led by author Beth Sartor Obermeyer. She will be sharing stories from her recently published book from Mayo Clinic Press, When Winter Came: A Country Doctor’s Journey to Fight the Flue Pandemic of 1918.Obermeyer’s grandfather, Dr. Pierre Sartor, had a lengthy medical career in Titonka and provided much needed medical care in this part of Iowa, especially during the Pandemic of 1918 when the flu killed an estimated 675,000 Americans.
A pioneer is the geographic as well as the medical sense, Dr. Sartor left his flourishing urban practice and settled his young family in rural Iowa. He had barely settled into the community of Titonka, when, as he wrote in his journal, the flu “spread like wildfire on wild prairie land.” Obermeyer frames Dr. Sartor’s work during this time in person terms: “Influenza ravaged the world, but for Grandpa it was a battle to save his neighbors and friends in Titonka, IA.”
If you would like to read a few pages from the book, please visit the Titonka Public Library website.