“The focus of the Novato Historical Guild has naturally been on the past. Due to COVID-19 we have pivoted to recording the present for the future,” says NHG Board President Kathryn Hansen.
As a result, the Guild has embarked on a campaign which invites Novato citizens and businesses to share their stories of how today’s pandemic has impacted their lives and livelihoods.
Meanwhile, Guild board member Mike Read had already amassed a 1,000-page archive of Novato-related newspaper articles going back to 1850. A search of that database revealed eight stories written about Novato citizens who were stricken by the “Spanish Flu”.
The articles appeared in the “Novato Banner”, “Petaluma Argus” and the “Petaluma Daily” from October-December of 1918. “I was surprised to see there were that many stories”, said Mike Read.
“There was also an article in the October 28, 1918 edition of Petaluma Argus which reported that ‘there were 110 arrests in San Francisco Sunday for failure to wear the flu masks,’” Read added.
For the Covid-19 project, Novato residents are invited to share what they did, what they changed, what was difficult, what was funny. Photographs are welcomed. Submissions can be emailed to info@novatohistory.org. They will be archived, exhibited and made available for research, according to Susan Magnone, Novato History Museum manager.
A recap of the eight stories complied by Mike Read will appear in the Novato Advance in the May 27 edition.
(For more information about the Guild’s Covid-19 project, contact Barry Smail, Gandalf.smail@gmail.com. For more information about the Guild’s Spanish Flu research project, contact Mike Read, MRead1834@aol.com.)
Leave a Reply