# data[].attributes.body
Coronavirus Resource Page for Students from The Learning Network

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Writing prompts, lesson plans and student activities to teach and learn about the pandemic.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
NBC's Tom Brokaw reports on the influenza pandemic of 1918, a global epidemic that killed millions of people.

# data[].attributes.headline
Comfort from a 102-year-old who has lived through a flu pandemic, the Depression and WWII

# data[].attributes.subject
Comfort from a 102-year-old who has lived through a flu pandemic, the Depression and WWII

# data[].attributes.body
Washington Post

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Lucille Ellson in the 1930s. (Family photo)

At Lucille Ellson's home, inside her brimming drawers, are hints of how the present mirrors the past.

Ellson is 102 years old. She was born Dec. 30, 1917, right before a flu spread through military camps in Europe and the United States and became a global pandemic. She was a baby then, unaware, but heard stories of how her uncle contracted the flu while serving in World War I; and how her father got it so bad that he took time away from the family farm outside Laurens, Iowa.

Neither died. Ellson's mother would remind her of that, too. But it wasn't Ellson's last time living through a historic crisis. She was a teenager during the Great Depression. She was a schoolteacher and young wife during World War II. And she has reflected on that as the country faces another pandemic, this one from the novel coronavirus.

Ellson has been going through the letters, newspaper clippings and other stuff - she calls it "mumbo jumbo" - she's kept over a century. It all reminds her of what's gripping the country, the feeling of being stuck inside and a bit scared, and of not knowing what the future holds.

"I know a lot of people are in a panic about their weddings because they have to cancel them or postpone them," Ellson said this week from her home in Orlando. "Well, let me tell you about my wedding."

She can only draw faded lines between the coronavirus and the 1918 flu, since all those stories are second hand. The lines get thicker between today and the Great Depression, spanning 1929 to 1933, with millions applying for unemployment and the economy faltering. But Ellson sees today and the World War II period as true parallels.

It starts, for her, with a delayed wedding. She was supposed to marry Floyd Ellson in July 1942. Then came the Dec. 7, 1941, attack on Pearl Harbor. She and Floyd knew what that meant. He had a low draft number. Their marriage would have to wait. He was soon enlisted in the Navy, sent away for training, and Ellson stayed home teaching in Iowa while panic reigned.

Plumbers were out of work, she remembered, because all metal was directed to the war effort. A few local heating businesses closed for the same reason. People left her tiny town and rushed west, hoping for jobs building ships in California or Washington state. There was a shortage of teachers, and the school system begged her brother, who had fallen sick and was discharged from the Army, to come use his college degree in their classrooms.

"I spent so much time reading the ration book," Ellson recalled. "The grocery store shelves were empty. It wasn't quite like now, because you were allowed outside, but there was the same fear. That we didn't know what was going to happen tomorrow."

When she and Floyd did have their wedding, about a year later than expected, they weren't gifted any metal dishware or table cloths. Those materials were still needed in large bulk by the U.S. military. She left teaching for a desk job at the Great Lakes Naval Training Station. He was away for 17 months as a gunnery officer. They were lucky and lost no relatives or close friends in the war.

She's 105. He's 106. The world's oldest living couple celebrates 80 years of marriage.

Floyd didn't make it home for Christmas in 1944. But he did send a letter to Lucille, who would soon give birth to their first child, a baby girl named Jane. They loved writing to each other. They would later write a book together, titled "My First 100 Years," an effort Lucille finished after Floyd died at 104 in 2012. They had been married for 69 years.

"Darling I really love you," Floyd penned to Lucille in a letter dated Dec. 25, 1944. "Everything you wrote & each little package just brought out to me your really true colors. You made this a very pleasant Christmas in such a way that I cannot be bitter. I can only hope we can be together next year & we can demonstrate to each other only what we can feel now. ... I will sign off now and dream of you."

Floyd was honorably discharged on Dec. 20, 1945. He made it back to Iowa for Christmas with Lucille and Jane.

"I've been through so many things," Ellson said. "To cope with this virus, and all that's going on, I would tell people to not get stressed about planning far ahead. You can't do it. A long time ago, I started making a list every morning of what I had to do. It was the only thing I could control, and I stuck to it, you hear me?"

Those lists are similar day-to-day: Check in on family with her iPad, do Zoom video calls with her kids, their kids, and their kids' kids. Make meals and bake desserts to leave on the front porch for her son who lives nearby. She cooked for 25 people in February. She calls that preparing "a little something."

Ellson has few infirmities for her age, wearing a hearing aid and taking thyroid and blood pressure medicine. She still walks unassisted when inside. She otherwise uses a rollator for balance and storage. She calls it her "buggy."

Lately, she's been focused on organizing the drawers that show a life in full. She is sorting the mumbo jumbo into categories. One is for when her house will be sold, a pile of neighborhood regulations, the property deed, and old contracts that Floyd signed. Another is for receipts she doesn't want to throw away. Another is for her kids, with the first-grade report card that shows she received a "D" in deportment and more letters from the war.

This is not her way of wasting time. She wishes she had more of that. But what Ellson wants people to know - "if I can preach for a minute," she requested with a laugh - is that this, like everything else, will pass.

"I learned that from living, I guess," she said. "You see a lot when you get to 102."

She's 105. He's 106. The world's oldest living couple celebrates 80 years of marriage.

How did America's oldest World War II veteran live to 112? Cigars, whiskey and ice cream - every day.

Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter have been married longer than most presidents were alive

'You were the reason': Barbara and George Bush's love story remembered at her funeral

AD

AD

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Comfort from a 102-year-old who has lived through a flu pandemic, the Depression and WWII

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
At Lucille Ellson's home, inside her brimming drawers, are hints of how the present mirrors the past. Ellson is 102 years old. She was born Dec. 30, 1917, right before a flu spread through military camps in Europe and the United States and became a global pandemic.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
NBC Learn K-12 offers unique collections of video resources, primary sources, historic footage, images, mini-documentaries and text resources designed for use in the K-12 classroom.

# data[].attributes.body
Username: 6615vmjs
Password: haea11

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Gale offers a variety of resources for education, lifelong learning, and academic research. Whether you are looking for peer-reviewed articles; full-text magazines, newspapers, and eBooks; primary source documents; and videos or podcasts, Gale puts the right vetted content and tools at your fingertips!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Gale offers a variety of resources for education, lifelong learning, and academic research. Whether you are looking for peer-reviewed articles; full-text magazines, newspapers, and eBooks; primary source documents; and videos or podcasts, Gale puts the right vetted content and tools at your fingertips!

# data[].attributes.body
Username: 6615vmjs
Password: haea11

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
This innovative full-text newspaper resource allows users to search articles instantly by title, headline, date, author, newspaper section, or other fields. Gale OneFile: News provides access to major U.S. regional, national, and local newspapers as well as leading titles from around the world. News also includes thousands of images, radio, and TV broadcasts, and transcripts.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
This innovative full-text newspaper resource allows users to search articles instantly by title, headline, date, author, newspaper section, or other fields. Gale OneFile: News provides access to major U.S. regional, national, and local newspapers as well as leading titles from around the world. News also includes thousands of images, radio, and TV broadcasts, and transcripts.

# data[].attributes.headline
Brittanica Encyclopedia, COVID-19 Article 

# data[].attributes.subject
Brittanica Encyclopedia, COVID-19 Article 

# data[].attributes.body
Username: 6615vmjs
Password: haea11

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Welcome to Britannica School , a safe, up-to-date, and age-appropriate information resource for Elementary, Middle, and High School.

# data[].attributes.headline
Brittanica Encyclopedia, Spanish Flu Article  

# data[].attributes.subject
Brittanica Encyclopedia, Spanish Flu Article  

# data[].attributes.body
Username: 6615vmjs
Password: haea11

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Welcome to Britannica School , a safe, up-to-date, and age-appropriate information resource for Elementary, Middle, and High School.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Newsela | Officials say coronavirus targets elderly and ill, children mostly unaffected

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The coronavirus continues to spread, with elderly people and those with long-term illness most at risk and children least threatened.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Newsela | Search speeds up for vaccine against the new coronavirus

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Historically, it has taken years to develop vaccines. Now, scientists tapping the latest technology and knowledge of microbiology are racing to protect people from the new coronavirus.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Newsela | The link between the coronavirus and wildlife

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
There has been much speculation, as well as misinformation, about the origins of the coronavirus and its possible wildlife hosts.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Newsela | Canceled foreign trips and anxiety: U.S. schools prepare for coronavirus

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Experts say the coronavirus will be spreading in the U.S., though only 135 cases were reported as of March 4. Schools plan to turn to online learning if forced to close.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Newsela | Scientists are trying to figure out the best protection against the flu

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Scientists are searching for the flu's best defense.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Newsela | The 1918 flu pandemic that killed millions