1943-11: (Jeanne Sylvain Writes to Her Siblings About the Influenza — Jeanne Sylvain Writing to Her Siblings That “in Almost Every Family You Have a Few Days…

1943-11: (Jeanne Sylvain Writes to Her Siblings About the Influenza — Jeanne Sylvain Writing to Her Siblings That “in Almost Every Family You Have a Few Days of Fever Accompanied by Aches and a Terrible Depression That Characterizes This Disease — Some Doctors Believed They Recognized Dengue Fever Others Said It’s a Simple Cold — In Any Case the Schools Have Only Been Open in the Morning During the Past Month and This System Will Be Maintained Until January So in the Afternoon the Children Stroll Around and the Parents Are Furious!”): Jeanne Sylvain wrote to her siblings that in almost every family you have a few days of fever accompanied by aches and a terrible depression that characterizes this disease. Some doctors believed they recognized dengue fever, others said it was a simple cold, others said it was a flu that was not Spanish — maybe Dominican. In any case, the schools had only been open in the morning during the past month and this system would be maintained until January, so in the afternoon the children strolled around and the parents were furious — the aside about the flu’s possible Dominican origin was a dark joke in a nation still raw from the 1937 massacre, the virus crossing the same border that Trujillo’s soldiers had made lethal.