Armistice Day, November 11, 1918

Many of Globeville’s immigrants came to America during the 1890s to escape the political unrest, constant territorial wars and changing borders in Europe. Young men wished to avoid conscription -  a six-year term in the military of the empire that had absorbed and erased your nation. But war eventually caught up with Globeville, exploding during the summer of 1914 following the assassination of Austria’s Archduke Franz Ferdinand. By August 1914, all Europe had chosen sides and mobilized their forces, hoping to settle old scores and regain territory lost in recent conflicts. The United States wanted to remain neutral and so did Globeville. But by 1917, Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare had destroyed Allied, neutral and civilian ships, cost innocent lives and changed public opinion. When Congress declared war on Germany on April 6, 1917, the announcement was met with enthusiasm, patriotism and romantic notions. For some Globevillians, the war offered an opportunity to prove that they were loyal citizens. Others sought adventure or wanted to fight for their adopted country. By the time the Armistice was reached, the world and the Globeville neighborhood would be forever changed. 
On November 11,1918, Poles in Globeville felt enormous pride in the restoration of their homeland. Their country had ceased to exist for more than a century after Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia carved it into three sectors in 1792.
Yugoslavia, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, was created in 1918.
The Russian Revolution in March 1917 meant Russia was out of the war and helped the allies. But it meant Holy Transfiguration lost contact with Orthodox Church officials, credentials and records. The church had been funded by Czar Nicholas II and lost its financial backing.
After the Revolution, German Russians were caught in a new conflict - regarded with suspicion by Bolsheviks, by Germans and the Allies. Their lands were seized by the new collectives and many were imprisoned in Siberia.
Although America had been triumphant, attitudes had changed and Americans turned inward. There were severe restrictions on immigration after the war, and citizens of Globeville found it difficult to bring family members to this country. Many lost touch with relatives and friends. The war also fostered suspicion of anyone who might be a Communist, Socialist, or anarchist. A Red Scare in the 1920s questioned the loyalty of Globeville’s people. By the end of the Great War, seeds were already planted for the next war.

Armistice Day Parade, 1918 Denver Public Library

1918 Spanish Influenza

In 1918, the nation was at war and people were on the move. So too was a mysterious and lethal illness that first appeared in the spring in Fort Funston, Kansas and then traveled with soldiers going to Europe. There the virus mutated into a more deadly form before returning to the United States in the late summer of 1918, carried by men returning from the battlefields. 
At first the virus targeted military camps on the East Coast, but rapidly spread to civilians and to inland cities and rural areas. By the time influenza was reported in Denver in September, it had already killed over 1000 people in Boston and 100 in Chicago.
Denver's manager of health, Dr. William H. Sharpley, hoped to avoid a panic and gave newspapers rules for combating the disease..."breathe deeply when the air is pure" and to remember the three C's: "clean mouth, clean heart and clean clothes." As the epidemic progressed, Denver's Board of Health ordered all schools, churches, and theaters to close and indoor gatherings banned. Dairys and grocers stopped delivering to homes. 
In Globeville, it seemed that every family had at least one member who was ill. Steve Machuga remembered two of the men who were boarding in their home. “John Stashenko and John Pastor both worked at the Globe Smelter and shared a room at our house. Stasienko got the flu in the morning and died that night and Pastor died the next week.” Records from St. Joseph Polish Church show a burial nearly every day, and sometimes two or three a day from September 1918 to the spring of 1919. Parishioner Tony Mandich lamented that he had served as a pallbearer eighteen times in four months. 
Gradually, the occurrences of the flu subsided. Like the rest of the nation, Globeville lost fewer of its citizens in the World War than to the Spanish Influenza.* 


* Globeville's two casualties in World War I were John Wysowatcky and Martin Clement. Numbers of people lost to the flu have not been compiled, but could be surmised from church burial records. 
Statistics on the epidemic are not entirely reliable, but it is estimated that between September 1918 and June 1919, the lethal virus known as "Spanish Influenza" and its complications, particularly pneumonia, killed nearly 1,500 Denverites.


**The 1918 influenza outbreak: An unforgettable legacy by By Stephen J. Leonard, The Denver Post, May 5, 2009


Photo of Joseph Chintala's headstone, one of many graves at Riverside Cemetery with a story to tell. Photo by Mary Lou Egan