Southampton's Dr. George Schenck returned to his practice Thanksgiving week in 1918 after being ill with influenza for nearly a month. A 25-year-old whose parents lived in North Sea died at Roosevelt Hospital in New York City.
In Wainscott, LeRoy King, the father of five children — the youngest a girl born in October — died of the flu and was buried in Cedar Lawn Cemetery. Stanton King, LeRoy King's brother, died four days later, also of influenza.
Each of these was listed in the Thanksgiving issue of The East Hampton Star, which also reported the death of its proprietor's son, 26, also of influenza. Two Amagansett military men, Charles Blanchard Barns and Percy Spicer, died of pneumonia, Barns in New York City and Spicer in France, the paper said.
Dutifully, the paper also noted who had gotten well again. In Springs, R.G. Foster was confined to his house for several days. Ralph Dayton (one of probably a dozen so named here since the 1650s), recently relocated to Pomona, Calif., recovered from influenza and had taken a job at an orange grower.
In Amagansett, Ruth Bennett returned to work at the Conklin Company store, having been out for a few days on account of illness. On the same page, Conklin Co. advised gargling with one teaspoon of salt in a pint of water as a "precaution against influenza."
"Crashing Through Berlin" was screened the preceding Saturday at the Edwards Theatre in East Hampton, the first film shown there since the epidemic had broken out in the spring. Plans for a Thanksgiving dinner and a football game were being finalized for the more than 400 men stationed at the Montauk Naval Air Station. Little could any of them know that the worst of the epidemic still lay ahead.