Her Mother Voted In The Wake Of The 1918 Pandemic. Now, Voting Is A 'Sacred' Ritual

During the 1918 flu pandemic, Blanche Reeves was living in rural Iowa when she got sick. Even though she was still recovering in November 1920, she managed to cast her vote in the presidential election.

Her determination to exercise her vote continues to inspire Blanche's daughter, Helen Merrill, a century later. In a remote StoryCorps conversation last week, Helen, now 91, told her granddaughter, Elizabeth Hartley, 27, how voting has become a "sacred thing" for her.

Helen, speaking from her home in Flagstaff, Ariz., told Elizabeth, who lives in Denver, that Blanche was bedridden, apparently in a coma, when a doctor paid her a visit in 1918.

"She could hear everything said, but she couldn't respond or move or anything," Helen said.

But her mother did remember hearing the doctor deliver grave news to her husband, Ralph Reeves.