Trending
PORTAGE -- Headstones poked out from beneath the frozen ground last week in Prospect Cemetery like a morbid garden that surrounded an expanse of white and unbroken snow.
That space in the Portage Township cemetery, though devoid of grave markers, is not free from tragedy.
It is a mass grave that houses more than 100 bodies of those killed by a 1918 influenza pandemic, which affected communities both locally and globally.
Now, 100 years later, historians remember the millions of lives lost around the world, and medical professionals promote the advancements that have greatly improved flu prevention and treatment. But they did not dismiss the possibility of another worldwide health emergency.
"Nothing else in modern history compares with the all-consuming nature of the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918," said Jared Frederick, a local historian and instructor at Penn State Altoona. "More Americans died as a result of the influenza than were lost in the entirety of the American Civil War."
'Deadliest year in human history'
The worldwide influenza outbreak is often referred to as the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918. While Spain's population was greatly affected by the illness, officials at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have dispelled the notion that the virus certainly began in the European country.
There is no consensus about where the virus started, experts said, but they have agreed that an estimated 500 million people -- or one-third of the world's population -- became infected with influenza in 1918.
Across the world, approximately 50 million people died as a result of their illnesses, and about 675,000 of those deaths occurred in the United States, according to historians.
"The horror was compounded by the fact that World War I was concurrently in its final ghastly stages," Frederick said. "Thus, 1918 could be considered the deadliest year in human history."
According to the National Archives and Records Administration, the virus infected victims across the age spectrum and was equally prevalent in urban and rural areas. Some of those victims died within only a few hours after symptoms began to show.
In 1918, the Mirror reported extensively on the flu's progression. A June 13 report explained 61 people had died from the virus in Sweden, and a headline that appeared on July 8 read, "Grippe epidemic threatens world."
The article chronicled the "obnoxious disease" as it spread from one European country to the next and asked an important question.
"Will the disease spread to the United States and cripple that country's war industry also?"
Portage under federal quarantine
On Oct. 8, 1918, the Mirror ran an article about the virus' effect on Washington, D.C. It cited the U.S. War Department, reporting that 300 ordnance department employees had become ill.
The same news item makes reference to an advertisement that appeared in a local newspaper seeking professional pallbearers to carry caskets at funerals.
On the same day in Blair County, Altoona and Logan Valley Electric Railway Co. reported 41 conductors and motormen were off on sick leave. The absences prompted the local transportation department to adopt a new "one-man operating method" on trolley lines in Altoona and Tyrone.
Frederick provided insight, remembering a conversation he once had with a local survivor of the 1918 pandemic, Fred Weakland.
Weakland was 10 years old when he contracted the virus, which prompted him to be quarantined behind a white curtain, Frederick said.
"He overheard the doctor tell his parents on the other side of the curtain, 'I fear he may not survive the night,'" Frederick said. "Fred had doubts he would reach his 11th birthday, but he pulled through. He lived to be nearly 101 and passed away in 2009."
Influenza-related news and health warnings continued throughout 1918 -- and not just in Blair County.
Cambria County residents also were struck by the virus, and evidence of their struggle is still clearly apparent in Prospect Cemetery, where flu victims are buried in a mass grave.
"It basically was a pit, where they wrapped everyone in sheets and rolled them in," said Linda Miko, a member of the cemetery's board.
Miko said more than 100 bodies were placed in the grave, but nearly all records of the deceased were lost in a fire. In 1998, members of the Portage Area Historical Society placed a monument to mark the mass grave.
Irene Huschak, the historical society's president, shared an article that appeared that year in a issue of Johnstown's Tribune-Democrat. It claims that 253 Portage residents were killed by the flu in 1918.
"Portage was under a federally ordered quarantine for six months. No schools or churches were open and the only reason a person could be in town was to get essential supplies," an expert told the Tribune-Democrat in 1998. "If people were caught even talking to each other on the street, they faced penalties under the quarantine law. The epidemic was so bad that the town ran out of wooden caskets."
So many people were ill, that the local, four-story Mountain House Hotel was used as an impromptu hospital.
Miko said she was once told a member of the family that owned the hotel was tasked with transporting sick people during daytime hours and with removing dead bodies at night.
Across Pennsylvania, an estimated 350,000 reported cases of influenza were reported in 1918, according to Nate Wardle, a state Department of Health emergency preparedness public information officer.
Modern medicine reduces deaths
In the 10 decades since the flu pandemic, the creation of vaccines and antiviral medications, as well as improved global nutrition, has done much to reduce the number of flu-related deaths, medical experts said.
During the last flu-season, 149 Pennsylvanians died as a result of flu-related complications, and in the 2015-16 season that number was even lower at only 64, Wardle said.
Influenza can be contracted at any point throughout the year, but the number of cases typically increases during the colder months, Conemaugh Health System's Vice President of Medical Affairs Elizabeth Dunmore said.
Those months, typically January through March, are often referred to as flu season, said Dunmore, who specializes in internal medicine.
Those who become ill likely can distinguish the flu from a common cold by paying attention to their symptoms, Robert Sullivan, an Altoona-based infectious disease specialist, said.
"The thing with the flu is, it will put you down," he said.
Those with the flu will often feel weak, Sullivan said, explaining the virus also typically causes high fevers, sore throats and a severe cough.
The cough is especially dangerous because respiratory secretions help to spread the virus, experts said.
"The flu can kill you," Sullivan said, adding those with immune system deficiencies or other underlying health issues are especially vulnerable. "It can be very devastating. It can be a very bad illness."
Vaccination guards against flu
Aside from avoiding those who show symptoms, the best way to guard against influenza is to receive a yearly vaccination, which can be administered to people older than 6 months old, Dunmore said.
"Everybody who is a candidate to get a flu vaccine should get it," she said, explaining most health insurance companies cover the cost of inoculation.
The effectiveness of inoculation can vary from year to year, as there are numerous strains of the flu. Vaccine manufacturers often have to guess at which one will be most prevalent.
"What happens with the flu vaccine is they look at trends as flu moves across the globe," Dunmore said. "Every year, it fluctuates how effective the vaccine is going to be."
A number of media outlets, including the Chicago Tribune, have cited medical experts, reporting that this year's vaccine may be only 10 percent effective.
Ian Branam, a press officer with the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, called those reports a "misperception."
The 10 percent claim is based on figures from Australia, he said, noting the same likely will not be true in the United States.
"Based on U.S. laboratory data at this time, CDC anticipates vaccine effectiveness this season similar to what has been observed in the past," Branam said.
Still, Branam did not dismiss the possibility that another worldwide flu outbreak could occur at some point in the future.
"Influenza viruses continue to pose one of the world's greatest infectious disease challenges, and the risk of pandemic influenza is always present," he said. "The way influenza … viruses change constantly and their ability to jump from animals to people make it inevitable that another pandemic will occur."
If that is the case, Dunmore said, it's not likely the death toll will be as high.
"They have access to antibiotics and critical care that they didn't have 100 years ago," she said. "Even though I think the risk of a pandemic is always there, we do have so much more."
Mirror Staff Writer Sean Sauro is at 946-7535.