Part 7: Manitobans who died fighting "Spanish" Influenza

© 2020, Christian Cassidy

This series tells the stories of some of the Manitobans who died fighting the "Spanish" Influenza pandemic of 1918 -1919. For the complete list and an introduction to the series, see part one.

Anabel Schnell (1894 - 1919)

1919 should have been a very happy year for 25-year-old Anabel Schnell. Newly wed and living in a strange city, her husband had spent months recovering in a British military hospital and was finally coming home.

Albert Schnell, originally from Zurich, Ontario, first appears in Edmonton street directories in 1916 as a sales agent for Rumely-Advance, an American farm implements company with its Canadian headquarters in Calgary. There, he met Anabel Southworth who worked as a clerk at the Hudson's Bay store. Her parents resided in Vancouver but she lived in Edmonton with some of her siblings.

Schnell was drafted in November 1917 and the couple rushed ahead their wedding plans to January 18, 1918.

Albert joined the 1st Manitoba Depot Regiment in February and the couple relocated to the recently opened  Westmoreland Apartments on Preston Street, (suite 2 - section A), in Winnipeg. It is unclear why Anabel chose to come to Winnipeg rather than stay back in Edmonton where she had family.

The war was just weeks from ending when Albert finally made it to France in September 1918, but the fighting was still fierce. He received gunshot wounds to his right arm and right breast on October 3rd and wasn't well enough to be discharged until December 16th.

Anabel received word on January 5th that he was readying to leave for Canada. At the For King and Empire website you can read some letters from Albert and Anabel, including one where she informs her cousins: "Bertie's coming home, can you believe it?! ...Really, I am so excited my hand is just shaking like this ~~~~~~~~~."

In Winnipeg, Anabel busied herself as a V.A.D. nurse looking after influenza patients.

Little is known about her service. It is likely that she was providing home care as the annex hospital on Logan was closed at the end of November and she was not a hospital nurse. Mrs. Coll, a sister, was called for when Anabel became sick and was with her when she died on January 20, 1919, which was also her 25th birthday.

Manitoba Vital Statistics lists her place of death as St. Boniface, so she likely died at the St. Boniface Hospital.

Four days after her death, Albert arrived in Halifax aboard the HMS Aquitania and sent a telegram to Anabel to let her know he had made it safely back to Canada and was on his way home on the train. It read: "Leaving Halifax this afternoon; meet me".

The military was already aware of her death, though neighbours contacted officials and the media when the telegram arrive at the suite.

A Tribune reporter was told that YMCA support staff aboard the troop train were informed of the situation and would break the news to Albert when they were a couple of days from Winnipeg. (This delay seems to have been common back in the day when trips took days or weeks. When media became aware it set up the odd situation that the entire city was aware of a death for days whilst the oblivious loved one was en route.)

Albert arrived back in Winnipeg on January 31, 1919. Clark Leatherdale funeral home, which held the body, was the site of the funeral on February 2nd. One media account says that Anabel's body was buried in Brookside Cemetery, though nobody of that last name and year of death appears on the cemetery's roll.

The media had lost interest in the story by the time Albert arrived. Aside from a three sentence note in the Winnipeg Free Press the day after the funeral there was no follow-up interview with Albert or her family to provide more details about her life and death.

Whatever happened to Albert?

The Zurich Herald of March 11, 1920 carried a notice that Albert, now of Calgary, and Maud McBride were married in the town in March 1920. The Calgary street directory shows that he was the assistant manager of Advance Rumley, (the new incarnation of the same company he worked for in Edmonton.)

In the early 1930s, the couple moved to Regina where he became manager of Allis Chalmers Rumley's Regina operations, (again, same company, but expanded name.) He served on the board of a number of organizations, including the Saskatchewan Wholesale Implement Association and the Regina Exhibition Association.

Albert Schnell died in 1950 at the age of 60 and was buried in Regina Cemetery.

(*There are various spellings of Anabel's first name, including just "Anna" on her online death listing at Manitoba Vital Statistics. "Anabel" appears in a story about her death in the Edmonton Journal where she had family. It is also the spelling used on Albert's attestation papers and the will in his military file, which I assume he would have made sure was correct. That is why I use that version of the name here.)

Image sources:
Portrait from Jan. 30, 1919, Winnipeg Tribune
Death notice from Jan. 22, 1919, Winnipeg Free Press

Headline collage from Jan. 28 and 30, 1919, Winnipeg Tribune
Westmoreland Apartments from Google Street View
Headstone from Saskstachewan Cemteries Project