The Alaska daily empire., 1918-11-02
Gastineau Gossip (An Intercepted Letter)


 person aboard from Juneau and ev- eryone is mourning him. They are still bringing in the bodies-they have recovered hundred and eighty of them-and they are all being cared for here.
 They say that most of the Alaska boys who had Spanish influenza at Camp Dodge have recovered, for which we are all thankful. Somebody reported the first of the week that Malcom Wilson had died of the disease and everyone was nightly relieved when MT. Goldstein received wire from Fred Hamburg that proved the rumor false. May Mug ford received letter from her brother Tom, in the last mail in which he said that he had just re- covered from pretty severe attack of influenza. Maurice Casey was pretty i'll too, I hear. It is good to hear that they are all getting well though. Our loss has been heavy as it is, and caused many sad hearts in Alaska.
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 Do you know that the men from Juneau who went to France with the Masonic Ambulance Corps are on the firing line?
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 Tom Banbury is on his way to France I am glad, for "Unk" has been anxious to get over there ever since the beginning of the war. He has been in the quaratermaster's de- partment aboard the transport Dix ever since he received his commits sion as Captain.
 Speaking of commissions, Jim Momb is a Second Lieutenant now He received his commission last Sep tember and is stationed at Camp Humphreys. He says: "I saw H. P. Crowther yesterday. He said Met calf was here too Guy Johnson, who enlisted the same as the rest of us under 31, came here last week to start his work. Crowther said that Vic Dupuy and Wettrick were due any day from Juneau" - and again he says: 'I never worked so hard for anything in my life as l did for that commission. I never dreamed of arising at 5:15 as a steady diet before, but I have learned that it can be done. Also, I never thought that person could, work in the sun when the thermometer reg istered IF degrees in the shade, but that is just exactly what we did at Camp Lee. It was absolutely the hottest day I0 ever experienced, know" Poor Jim.
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 This is what girl who has re gently married naval aviator and gone from the West to Pensacola. where Cert Sugden was for so long has to say of the place. There are about 1000 naval aviators here at the station, but very few have their wives because the climate is hurricanes and the darndest thunder storms you ever saw and cockFoach- es about three inches long and mos. quitoes and red ants. We're all lashed down now for the Fall hurri cane-it's expected tonight-all the furniture is tied down and I have packed all my clothes in trunks so if the house goes they won't be lost. Everybody has gone to town except me. Capt. Ashton, the Eng fish ace who is instructing here has his orderly stationed in the hall to look after me until it blows. They have taken all the planes down and packed them in boxes out at the sta tion and lashed all the observation balloons down." That sounds like a heck of a place in which to live.
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 I saw a note received from Earle Jameson in the last mail in which he said that he was still alive and we'll and we might see him in Juneau in the summer of 1919. That sounds promising, does it not?
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 Juneau is quarantined on account of the flu" and in time, it seems to prevent it's spread There are less than a dozen cases here. I guess I had better knock wood
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 We were all glad when Mir. Faulk ner got a telegram the other day saying that Mrs. Faulkner. who had the influenza, has passed the danger noint and will soon be all we'll again.