The great pandemic of 1918 hits Washington
Courtesy of Washington County Historical Society
An Oct. 4, 1918 headline in the Washington Observer reported on the spread of the Spanish influenza.
Courtesy of Washington County Historical Society
An Oct. 9, 1918, headline in the Washington Observer reported on the local response to the Spanish influenza.
Courtesy of Clay Kilgore
A common public health poster during the Spanish influenza of 1918 provided ways to prevent the spread of the illness.
Courtesy of Washington County Historical Society
Williard J. Rowland’s obituary appeared in the Oct. 15, 1918, edition of the Pittsburgh Daily Post.
Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series on the Spanish influenza outbreak of 1918 and its spread across Western Pennsylvania.
As summer gave way to autumn in 1918, most Pennsylvanians were absorbed with the progress of the Allied offensive in Europe during World War I, hoping an elusive military victory might soon be at hand.
When the so-called ‘Spanish Influenza’ began to consistently appear in Western Pennsylvania headlines in mid-September, it was mainly viewed as a problem limited to U.S. military installations. With the world war still dominating the news, it was not until the first week of October that Western Pennsylvanians began to comprehend the expanding threat posed by a new, invisible enemy.
While the Influenza A virus subtype H1N1 of 1918 would come to be known to the public as pneumonia, the influenza, the ‘grip,’ the Spanish flu, etc., the outcomes of these cases were often the same. The 1918 Influenza was a highly equitable and brutally efficient killer, taking the rich and the poor, the apparently healthy and the sick. Unlike previous flu strains, children fared very poorly against this influenza, and it cruelly tended to take them very quickly.
For the citizenry and many key public officials in 1918, however, this collection of hard facts had yet to become known.
The accumulation of this knowledge began harshly on Oct. 3, 1918.
Dr. Benjamin Franklin Royer, Pennsylvania’s acting commissioner of health, had been monitoring the Influenza situation in eastern Pennsylvania, and by Oct. 3 had seen enough. That day, he issued “Drastic Orders to Prevent Grip in State,” according to the headline in the Washington Observer the following day.
With the disease beginning to cross the state, Royer ordered the closings of “all public places of entertainment,” which shut down saloons, theaters and other businesses, and prohibited a wide variety of meetings and other social gatherings. In an age before television or the internet, the impact of the order would be acutely felt by a large portion of the population.
In fact, it was the most far-reaching order of its kind ever issued in Pennsylvania up to that time and failure to obey it was deemed a misdemeanor crime.
Oddly, Royer’s order allowed schools with medical inspection capability to remain open and ultimately deferred the issue of school closures to local authorities.
By Oct. 7, with the prospect of a cold winter ahead, the disease began to appear in Western Pennsylvania’s coal-producing region. From Harrisburg, Royer called for doctors and nurses to respond, warning “it is essential that medical aid be secured for the coal region or we will feel the effects of curtailed production,” and estimated that 150,000 cases of the influenza were already active across Pennsylvania.
Meanwhile, in Washington, the Observer reported churches had been closed Sunday by Washington’s Board of Health and noted a number of cases “scattered over town.” The Board of Health prohibited “all public meetings held indoors,” and closed all “moving picture establishments, dance halls, pool rooms, bowling alleys, clubs, lodge halls, etc.”
Social distancing had arrived in Washington.
While most citizens were reported to be “cheerfully complying” with the mitigation orders of state and local authorities, according to the Observer on Oct. 8, Washington’s schools inexplicably remained open.
School superintendent John C. Stiers had determined instruction would continue, a decision that would put principals and teachers on the front lines against the influenza. Teachers were advised to keep classrooms properly ventilated and “to impress the children with the idea that pencils and books must be kept out of the mouth.”
“These are just a few of the things that must be done. Your judgment must prevail.” Stiers’ directive concluded.
Remarkably, readers of Washington’s daily newspapers in the second week of October were not greeted with saturation coverage of the influenza’s gathering storm – the biggest news story, by far, continued to be the Allied effort to bring “the greatest war of all time” to an end.
In Harrisburg, however, the potential enormity of the disease was coming into focus for state officials, who notified local boards of health to anticipate astounding sick rates of up to 15% and death rates of up to 5%.
William G. Nease, the county’s district health officer for North and South Franklin, North and South Strabane, Canton and Chartiers townships, was undoubtedly shaken by these awful mathematics – it would be his signature that was to be affixed to death certificates issued in his district.
The secretary of Washington’s Board of Health, Thomas W. Henderson, issued guidance to mitigate the spread of influenza in the Oct. 9 edition of the Observer – citizens were urged to keep homes well ventilated, allow sunshine to enter, sleep with windows open and take plenty of exercise.
Admitting a lack of statistical awareness, however, the board indicated it would need to gather data about the prevalence of the disease from local physicians.
At the state level, Royer supplemented his previous order with specific guidance limiting the sale of “alcoholic stimulants” only to “drug stores on registered physician’s prescriptions” and mandating the closure of all other retail vendors of alcoholic beverages with the placard “Closed by Order of the Commissioner of Health.”
On the Oct. 10, the board of health began posting another placard in Washington’s factories and public spaces.
It read: “Don’t cough. Don’t Sneez. Don’t spit. Don’t crowd. If you must cough or sneeze use a handkerchief. If sick go to bed and stay there. By Order of the State Commissioner of Health.”
The Observer reported while physicians estimated between 35 and 40 cases of influenza were in town, there was “some difference of opinion as to what constitutes real influenza.”
The next day, the Washington Board of Health, acting under Royer’s order from Harrisburg, began to notify all local brewers and distilleries to discontinue sales.
While Henderson advised the Influenza situation was “well in hand,” with only 60 cases reported in town, the Washington County chapter of the American Red Cross said it began ramping up activity to deal with the “influenza plague should it become epidemic here.”
While it seems several pneumonia-related deaths in Washington were not initially attributed to the influenza, the death of a prominent citizen soon got the public’s attention, a 43-year-old oil and gas industry magnate, was a former Washington resident and a well-known member of the Washington Female Seminary’s Board of Trustees.
On Oct. 12, just one week after attending a meeting of the Seminary’s Board of Trustees in Washington, apparently in fine health, Williard J. Rowland died suddenly in Pittsburgh.
The Observer reported “his death was due to pneumonia and comes as a great shock to his many friends here, as he was not known to be critically ill… Shortly after being here last week he took a chill…”
As news of Rowland’s death circulated, Washington’s population was truly entering the throes of an unparalleled health crisis.
Even with a total of 303 cases registered by the board of health by Oct 17, the Observer disturbingly reported many Washington residents were continuing their usual travel to and from Pittsburgh, where conditions were much worse.
Tension was already building over the influenza mitigation orders.
Some ministers criticized the closure of their churches and Sunday schools. And with growing financial distress after just two weeks, the Observer attempted to reassure business owners closures would only continue “just as long as necessary to avoid a spread of the disease.”
By the afternoon of Oct. 17, the situation had intensified, and it seemed a wave of the influenza had crashed with full force in the area.
William G. Nease, the district health officer, reported “an epidemic of Spanish influenza at Meadowlands.”
Grave warnings and a grim accounting of victims soon followed.
Nease had to begin signing and registering the terrible loss of life. The victims would painfully include, among many others: Christina Spinosa, a 33-year-old housewife and an Italian immigrant, Oct. 19; Norman Gillman, a 19-year-old clerk at Tyler Tube Mill, Oct. 22; Clyde Spencer, a 29-year-old glass factory worker, Oct. 24; and Catherine Bennett, a 41-year-old housewife with seven children, Oct. 25.
As the Observer went to print on Oct. 25, the full dimensions of the outbreak began to be somberly absorbed by medical officials and the general public in Washington.
With more than 1,000 cases reported to local physicians, the outbreak had not yet reached its crest in the Washington area. Soaring new cases, further tragic losses, escalating public unrest and clashes over mitigation orders were all yet to come …
Tom Milhollan is development coordinator of Washington County Historical Society.