In memory of

Joseph P. Simunek

Police Officer · St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department

Died on November 12, 1918, aged 29.

United States of America

His life

Police Officer Joseph Simunek died as a result of complications of Spanish Influenza due to an outbreak at the 7th Police District on Magnolia Avenue.

A week earlier, ten officers attached to the Police District were stricken at the same time. Officer Simunek, Officer Ude, and Officer Mandeville were the only officers that died due to the outbreak. All three officers died within 24 hours of each other. At the time of their deaths, the St. Louis Police Department was 175 officers short due to World War I and the Spanish Influenza.

Officer Simunek was survived by his father, sister, and brother.

Survived by

Officer Simunek was survived by his father, sister, and brother.

The 1918 Influenza Pandemic

January 1, 1918

The influenza of 1918 came in waves, the worst of them in the autumn of that year, and it killed the young and strong as readily as the old. Before it was over it had killed more people than the First World War.

Police officers worked it without vaccines, without antibiotics and often without masks: enforcing quarantines, carrying the sick, standing posts in cities where the dead outpaced the undertakers. They caught it doing the job, and there was no treatment to give them.

They are the first named here.

Everyone taken by The 1918 Influenza Pandemic →

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