Tombstone Tuesday: Thomas William Regan (1895 -1918 ) victim of the Great Influenza Pandemic

My Great Uncle Thomas William (Willy) Regan who after doing a stint in the Irish Guards in Dublin & London left Co Sligo in 1914 aged 19 and joined F Troop of the 3rd US Cavalry in Fort Sam Houston, Texas. He was with them from 1914 to 1917, patrolling the border with Mexico. He then joined the Military Police and was posted to Camp Wadsworth, Spartanburg, SC (one of the giant training camps for WW1) where he died in the Great Influenza Pandemic of 1918. He was 23 and was buried in the military cemetery in Spartanburg.

His grave shows that he was a Horseshoer in Company A, 102nd Military Police.


The 1918 flu pandemic (commonly referred to as the Spanish flu) was a category 5 influenza pandemic that started in the United States, appeared in West Africa and France and then spread to nearly every part of the globe. It was caused by an unusually severe and deadly Influenza A virus strain of subtype H1N1. Many of its victims were healthy young adults, in contrast to most influenza outbreaks which predominantly affect juvenile, elderly, or otherwise weakened patients.

The Spanish flu pandemic lasted from March 1918 to June 1920, spreading even to the Arctic and remote Pacific islands. While older estimates put the number of killed at 40–50 million people, current estimates are that 50 million to 100 million people worldwide died, possibly more than that taken by the Black Death. This extraordinary toll resulted from the extremely high infection rate of up to 50% and the extreme severity of the symptoms, Victims tended to be young healthy people rather than the usual infants & old people and it is estimated that it killed 2.5 to 5% of the human population.

The Regan family were farmers in Mullaghnaneane (pronounced Mullinane) near Drumcliff in Co.Sligo, Ireland and there are still descendents living and farming in the area today.

Willie's father Thomas Regan, farmer in Co.Sligo, in about 1898