The Orphan Collector: A Heroic Novel of Survival During the 1918 Influenza Pandemic

Twenty-year-old Bernice Groves is trying to decide how to end her life now that her husband and son are dead. Only a week ago, her infant son, Wallis, had been the picture of health. When he started showing symptoms of the flu, she rushed him to the hospital. There were lines of people waiting for help, and she grew frustrated because she could tell by their clothes and the different languages she heard that many of the people in line were immigrants. Bernice believed the hospital should help “real” Americans like her and tried to cut in line, but a police officer stopped her. She took Wallis home, hoping to die together; however, he died the next morning while she did not. Overwhelmed with grief, Bernice refused to get rid of Wallis’s body; he now lies dead in the crib.

Bernice’s family has lived in South Philadelphia since the 1830s, when her grandfather emigrated from Canada. Now, the city is full of recent immigrants and people of color, whom Bernice blames for her son’s death and believes are taking jobs away from Americans like her (white and English-speaking). Her German neighbor, Mr. Lange (Pia’s father), took Bernice’s father’s job at the shipyard. The immigrants’ culture disgusts Bernice. She thinks their children are surviving disproportionately while children like hers are dying.

Two men in a carriage pass Bernice’s apartment, shouting for residents to bring out the dead, but she can’t bring herself to surrender Wallis’s body. Movement catches her eye, and she sees Pia looking up and down the street. Bernice wonders how Pia’s mother could be so irresponsible as to let her daughter leave amid the epidemic, but she then realizes that Mrs. Lange and her infant sons may be dead. Even though they were German, Bernice tells herself she cannot let those boys suffer, and she watches as Pia enters the building next to her own.

Pia tries to keep herself and her brothers alive after their mother’s death, but she struggles. Overwhelmed by grief, she does her best to keep her brothers fed, though they often cry often from hunger. Pia and her brothers stay in the front room, and she stuffs blankets under the door to the bedroom to try to keep the stench of her mother’s decomposing body at bay. Pia doesn’t want to give up her mother’s body because she is scared the authorities will separate her from her brothers. Although she hopes her father will return, she suspects he will not. Supplies are running out, and Pia knows she is going to need to leave the house to get more. She decides she will ask her neighbors if they have anything to spare.

Pia decides she must leave her brothers at home while she is gone. She finds her mother’s coat and scarf to wear and then gathers blankets and her brothers’ rattles, which she places with the twins in a cubby. Terrified, Pia promises her brothers she will be back soon and then runs out of the house to the sound of their cries.

Bernice watches to see if Pia returns, which she does not. Bernice decides to visit Mrs. Lange and confront her about letting Pia out; if Mrs. Lange is dead, Bernice will make sure that the twins are okay. She leaves her house, passing a neighbor’s door with two black ribbons. Bernice believes that the flu must have struck the household because her neighbor—Mrs. Duffy, an Irish immigrant and Finn’s mother—drank heavily. Bernice wonders what she did to deserve the death of her Wallis.

Making sure that Pia is not coming down the road, Bernice walks to the Langes’ apartment. The door is unlocked, and when Bernice enters, she encounters a horrible stench and hears the babies crying.

In the building next to Pia’s, black, white, and gray ribbons hang on every door. Pia knocks at one apartment, and the person inside shouts to leave them alone. She begs them for anything they can spare, but they refuse. Pia wants to return home but knows her parents would never forgive her if she didn’t try to get provisions for her brothers, so she continues. The empty apartments scare her, and she thinks about the dead bodies that are inside them. Finally, she finds an apartment with an unlocked door and lets herself in. The remains of a woman are lying on the carpet, and Pia vomits from the smell. She hasn’t eaten since the day before and feels dizzy. Collecting herself, she scours the apartment for supplies. She finds baby formula, black-eyed peas, and bread. Then she hears a man groaning from the bedroom.

Inside the Langes’ apartment, Bernice finds Mrs. Lange‘s remains. She worries for the twins’ safety but finds them tucked away in the cubby. Angry at Pia for placing them there, she promises the crying infants that she will take care of them.

Pia concludes that she is not going to find what she needs here and will need to visit the wealthier parts of town. On the street, armed men guard coffins, and a man dies in front of Pia, begging for her help. Pia runs from the man, scared and overwhelmed, her lungs on fire. She coughs and hopes she isn’t getting sick. She is hot, even in the cold October air. Suddenly, she crumples to the ground and passes out.

Bernice nurses the babies and wonders what has happened to Pia. Bernice decides Ollie and Max will be safest with her: Pia is too young to care for them, and if Pia does return and finds the boys missing, Bernice believes it is what Pia deserves for leaving them alone.

Before Bernice can leave, a nurse from the Red Cross knocks on the door, asking how the family is faring. The nurse questions Bernice, asking who lives with her and if anyone is sick; smelling the decaying body, the nurse asks if anyone has died. Bernice lies that her sister died and says she couldn’t leave the boys, who she claims are her sons, or carry the body by herself; her husband, Bernice says, is overseas fighting. The nurse promises to send help and encourages Bernice to keep her sons at home until the worst is over, explaining that children whose parents have died end up in the orphanages.

Eventually, the nurse leaves, and Bernice prepares to take the boys home with her. She plans to give them new names and raise the boys in a “loving home and [with] a caring mother who would bring them up right and teach them the American way” (94).

When Bernice returns home with the twins, she sees the nurse again. The nurse questions why Bernice is bringing the boys out when she just told her not to. Bernice lies that she promised to check on a friend who lives here. The nurse offers to help Bernice’s friend and enters her apartment. Seeing Wallis’s corpse, she asks whose baby he is. Bernice explains that her sister lost her child and is distraught. Confused, the nurse questions her about whether the person living here is Bernice’s friend or sister; Bernice says she meant to say “sister.” The nurse offers to help, but Bernice asks her to stay with the twins while she checks on her sister. Once in her room, Bernice pretends to be her sister and cries out for her dead child. When Bernice reemerges, the nurse’s face is blue and blotchy. Bernice tries to get her to leave, but the nurse begs for something to drink. Bernice agrees, but she is tired of the nurse and nervous that someone will hear the commotion. Seeing that the nurse is clearly dying from the flu, Bernice sprinkles rat poison in her tea. Choking, the nurse passes out, and Bernice begins to undress her.