The Great Flu Epidemic and its Effects on Families

We've all heard about the great worldwide flu epidemic that hit the world at the end of WWI, but have you seen its devastating effects on families in your genealogy research firsthand?

While researching my Minnesota Jung/Pilger/Eckel/Pillen descendants, I ran across the following set of death certificates:
October 23, 1918 - death of Laurence Pillen, 35 year old father of the family, living in Synnes, Stevens County,Minnesota
October 26, 1918- death of Joseph Pillen, the five year old of Laurence and Elizabeth (nee Hendrickson) Pillen
October 28, 1918- death of Elizabeth, the mother of the family dies, along with her two year old daughter, Christine
November 3, 1918- death of the four-year old daughter of the family, Alice
November 15, 1918- the death of Elizabeth's 16 year old sister, Loretta Hendrickson, who had come to help from Iroquois, South Dakota to help the family. One surviving brother, Gustave, was taken to South Dakota to live with his maternal grandparents in the aftermath.

I had tears in my eyes by the time I had finished transcribing the effects of the epidemic on the family, seeing that they barely had time to bury family members as the flu spread in the household. The epidemic hit close to home!