The 1918 flu and World War I
Certificates picturing the goddess Columbia as a personification of the U.S. were awarded to men and women who died in service during World War I. One such certificate surfaced many decades later. This one honored Adolfo Sartini and was found by grandnephews who had never known him: Thomas, Richard and Robert Sartini.
The certificate was a message from the past. It called out to me, as I had just received the credential of certified genealogist and had spent most of my career as a scientist tracing a gene that regulates immune cells. What had happened to Adolfo?