North Carolina Doctors Who Died Serving in WW I and the Flu Pandemic Honored, 1919

On April 6, 1919, the Medical Society of the State of North Carolina honored doctors who had been killed in World War I or died while treating North Carolina patients during the flu pandemic. The flu was more deadly than the war. Seven North Carolina physicians died in WW I. Seventeen were killed by influenza during the pandemic in 1918 and early 1919. The following were honored April 6, 1919, at when Medical Society’s statewide meeting in Pinehurst:

Doctors who were killed or died in service:

Alamance: P.R. Brown of Swepsonville

Chatham: Percy Howard of Morrisville

Lenoir: S.J. Hawes of Dover

Mecklenburg: J.W. Squires and M.C. Houser, both of Charlotte

New Hanover: Tate Moore of Wilmington

Wake: John E. Ray of Raleigh

Doctors who died of influenza or influenza-pneumonia:

Avery: Dr. J.R. Sutton, Elk Park

Buncombe: A. J. Terrell, Black Mountain

Carteret: C.A. Sutton, Beaufort

Dare: E.W. Jones, Hatteras

Granville: Dr. Hester, Oxford

Mecklenburg: G.H. Sadelson, Charlotte

Montgomery: V.L. Andrews, Mt. Gilead

Moore: John H. Matthews, Vass

New Hanover: B.J. Willingham and Arnold Stovall, both of Wilmington

Northampton: E.W. Lassiter, Rich Square

Robeson: W. Forest Stephens, Fairmont, and Dr. Exum, Maxton

Warren, Willis Alston, Littleton

Wayne, B.W. Cox, Goldsboro

Wilson: J.S. Harrison, Elm City, and T.H. Wilson, Lucama

Our Heroic Dead

By Dr. H.H. Dodson, Greensboro

Heroes? Yes. Dead? No. Such men do not die.

We do not come to mourn them but to honor them and glory in their deeds. We rejoice that they were our friends and comrades.

It has been said that we sometimes so stand in the presence of the Infinite that through a thin veil we almost seem to hear the music beyond. We almost hear their voices. They are not dead, these heroes; they have gone down behind the horizon, but their souls live, and they live in our memories and our hearts. We cannot see their faces or touch their hands, but, gazing up into the sky, and through and beyond the stars, there, their kindly eyes are looking down on us to see how we may carry on yet awhile the inheritance they have left us. Not alone those in camp, field, and trench, who amid the roar of cannon and human carnage stood the profound test and made the great sacrifice and have their visible stars there but that other Reserve Corps who in the daily ordeal of civil life stood the test, and justified their stewardship, giving their lives for those around, they are none the less heroes.

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And what further are their rewards? The praises of men, and the plaudits of the world, the spared lives made possible by their sacrifices, the love of friends, and the honor and respect of this society: This! Aye, more! We do not know what, but we do know that “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Have not these done so; for both friend and foe? And had they not also the love of God in their hearts manifested in their lives? I think so, and we read that “eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath the heart of man conceived the things God hath prepared for them that love Him.”

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From Transactions: Medical Society of the State of North Carolina, 1919, published by the Medical Society of the State of N.C. and online at Books.google.com