Thus opens The Sheaf obituary for law student John Fraser.
Most of the estimated 50 million victims of the 1918-1920 Spanish flu pandemic were healthy young adults. Fraser, described as “one of the most brilliant of Saskatoon’s advanced students” was such a case.
The star gridiron player was born in Scotland and entered the university in the fall of 1914 earning a B.A. in 1917 and a M.A. in 1918.
His athletic and academic achievements came despite being “sorely disabled.” He had only one arm and that had but a single finger. He was a man undaunted “for such disabilities are as nothing to men made of the stuff of which he was made.”
For the small and tight knit university community his death was a sad and unexpected loss.