CORONAVIRUS (COVID-19) RESOURCE CENTER Read More
Add To Favorites

Remembering Geoffrey Perrier, Plymouth's first Spanish Flu victim

Wicked Local South/Mariner - 4/6/2020

Apr. 5--Part three in a series looking back at the Spanish Flu.

The photographs are old and faded to a rich patina of browns and yellows. They show a life in Plymouth from more than 100 years ago: a boy standing next to an aging Civil War veteran, a teenager with friends on Court Street and young man neatly dressed in suit and tie, ready to accept the challenges of a new era full of promise, duty and destiny.

For most, it is an anonymous glimpse back into life as it was at the turn of the 20th century and those first two decades that followed. For one person, though, the smiling face looking back at her from the photographs is not nameless: it is her uncle, Geoffrey D. Perrier Jr., the first person in Plymouth to die from the Spanish Flu pandemic in 1918 (see related story).

Ginny Davis only knows about her family member's life cut short from stories told by her mother, Ruth Perrier Emond, who was 6 when her brother died. They are memories tinged with sorrow of a vibrant soul -- her grandparents' only son -- cut down by a silent killer.

"It's sad that I never had the chance to know my uncle," said Davis, who is president of the Plymouth Antiquarian Society, which featured an article about Perrier in its newsletter two years ago. "He seemed like such a wonderful person. My mother always remembered him fondly."

Perrier was born June 18, 1898, in Plymouth. He was the eldest child of Geoffrey Daniel Perrier, a French-speaking immigrant from Nova Scotia, and Mary O'Brien, whose parents had traveled from Ireland to start a new life in America.

Smart and energetic, Perrier was active in local community groups, including the Massasoit Fife and Drum Corps of Plymouth, which was led by his father as drum major. As a child, he often marched with the unit, dressed in uniform and carrying the American flag. There's even a photo of him at about 6 years old, standing next to a Civil War veteran dressed in a Grand Army of the Republic uniform.

In 1916, Perrier answered the call of duty by joining the Standish Guards and traveling to Texas with the Army to chase revolutionary Pancho Villa during the Mexican Border War. Still attending Plymouth High School, he enlisted in Company D of the 5th Massachusetts Regiment, then a state militia unit but later becoming part of the National Guard.

All told, Perrier spent 3 1/2 months on patrol with Gen. John Pershing and the U.S. Expeditionary Force before returning to Plymouth in October. He resumed his studies in high school and graduated on time with his class in 1917.

When the United States entered World War I that same year, Perrier again signed up with the Standish Guards but was rejected on physical tests. He received an honorable discharge and was sent home, where he began working with his uncle, John O'Brien, one of the first electricians in Plymouth. He also planned to attend the Pratt Institute, a recognized school for art and architecture in New York.

Life looked promising for the young man as he prepared to embark on a career and contribute in other ways to progress in his hometown. Those hopes were shattered in dramatic fashion when the Spanish Flu arrived in Plymouth in the late summer of 1918.

The virus spread quickly throughout the community, infecting thousands of local residents. This strain was particularly virulent, attacking the immune system with savagery. Young and healthy people -- those who should have been able to resist the illness -- were most vulnerable and usually succumbed to the pneumonia that followed within a matter of days.

The Perrier family was hit hard by the Spanish Flu. Everyone in the family became ill except the mother, who ministered to her husband, son and five daughters. "Mame," as Mary was called, did what she could but it was not enough. Geoffrey Daniel Perrier Jr. died Sept. 23, 1918. Four days later, his grandfather, Daniel Perrier, also died from the flu.

"Two of Geoffrey's sisters could not attend the funeral because they were at Bridgewater Normal School and were quarantined," Davis said. "The wake was in the living room of the family home on Washington Street. They had to remove a window so they could get the casket out."

The service was held at St. Peter's church and the burial was at St. Joseph Cemetery. His obituary in the Old Colony Memorial reported"the community lost a young man who was well known and liked."

All told, 73 people died in Plymouth as a result of the Spanish Flu, many of them young and in their prime. The pandemic would eventually pass and life in Plymouth would return to normal as best it could following such a tragedy. The scars, though, would remain.

"Geoffrey's death had a profound effect on my mother, as well as the rest of the family," Davis recalled. "There's a story about my grandmother who, years later, was sobbing about him while washing the floor. She had held it all inside and then let it out in that moment."

___

(c)2020 Wicked Local South/Mariner, Marshfield, Mass.

Visit Wicked Local South/Mariner, Marshfield, Mass. at marshfield.wickedlocal.com

Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.