Does anyone with a knowledge of Seattle recognize a hospital, sanatorium or nursing home, possibly private, described in a letter of 1918 as "rather a pretty place about 3 miles out of town in a grove of fir trees"? It's an enduring family mystery that my great-aunt, Frances M. Brewer (née Marks), probably wrote her last letter from this place, but we have yet to find a record of her death, anywhere. She was in transit from her home in California (a place apparently called Elmdale, which is also a bit of a mystery), to visit her sister in Winnipeg, Manitoba, but was already so ill -- mostly likely, with influenza -- that she was refused entry into Canada and turned back to Seattle. After a dreadful day, first in search of lodgings and then of a hospital bed, a kind woman at the YWCA finally secured her a place at this unnamed institution, "at $30.00 a week, & the taxi out here was $8.00 more". (That said, it's likely that what was 'three miles out of town' in 1918 seems relatively central now.) Frances died before the second week of November, and a hospital contacted her sister thereafter, but the rest is yet unknown. The 1918 pandemic apparently reached Seattle by October 3, with some 700 cases reported by the University of Washington Naval Training Station, which suggests that this letter was written in October 1918 -- but from where? Thank for your time and attention.
