Monessen was lucky. It fared better than most communities during the terrible ordeal of the Spanish Influenza of 1918. The first officially reported death occurred in Monessen on September 27, and the quarantine was lifted in the community on November 26. During that time thousands of cases were reported, hundreds were admitted to the temporary hospitals, but officially only 226 people died. That is less by half of the 28% that was the national average.

    Despite the fact that it is called Spanish, this influenza, a type A disease, was a world-wide pandemic that probably originated in China. From there it hit Japan, then Europe, then America and Africa. It probably got its name in May of 1918, when a very large number of Spaniards died as a result of the disease. It was worse than the Bubonic plagues that hit the world during the Middle Ages. It is estimated that the Bubonic Plague killed about 137 million people in three eruptions during the sixth, fourteenth, and seventeenth centuries. The Spanish Influenza killed 25 million people in a single year.

     The Spanish Influenza hit the United States in two waves: spring of 1918, when it struck the military camps throughout the country, and fall of 1918, when it was re-introduced from Europe with troops returning to the United States from World War I. On March 11, 1918, the first case of this flu was reported at Camp Funston, Kansas. By noon, 107 cases were reported at the same camp and two days later 522 cases were reported. This fast moving, air borne disease was in every state of the union within seven days. By the time it was over 800,000 people, 28% of all Americans, died. That is ten times as many as all the causalities of World War I (It is also believed that 50% of the soldiers killed in World War I fell victim to the Spanish Influenza, not enemy soldiers). In one week in October, in Philadelphia, 4,600 people died.

    Monessen was affected during the second wave of the disease, the fall of 1918. On October 5, the Monessen Board of Health, upon the edict of the State Board of Health, closed all churches, Sunday schools,  lodges, theaters, bar rooms, and clubs. No public meets of any kind were permitted within the community. By October 8, despite the fact that no known cases of influenza were reported in the community, (and only one death had been reported) violators of the quarantine were being arrested. Then on October 14,a large parade was held to celebrate the end of World War I. The Monessen Daily reported ten thousand people lined the parade route in Monessen. That parade probably did more to spread the disease in Monessen than any other event. By October 16, two deaths were reported, a father and son. The Monessen Elks Lodge on Seventh Street was taken over by the Red Cross as an Emergency Hospital and the influenza was well on its way in Monessen.

    The Red Cross, under the direction of H. Dallas McCabe, the East Side Land Company Manager, had been training and sending Red Cross Nurses around the country to help fight the influenza. This stopped. By October 21, the schools were closed and a second emergency hospital was opened at the Monessen High School on Sixth and Knox. Mrs. J. C. Motz of Motz Lumber Company was placed in charge of supplies and preparations. Pittsburgh Steel Company donated 30 cots. Mrs. G. F. Wright of Wright Furniture Company took charge of the linens.

    On October 22, confectionery stores, soda fountains, and soft drink and ice cream venders were forbidden to serve "in house." All sales had to be "take away." The death rate was rising and obituaries were posted on the front page of the Monessen Daily (if one was prominent), or listed on page four (if one was not). By the 23rd, Monessen was in the grips of the influenza. The headlines in the Monessen Daily read, : "City in Throes of Grip Epidemic  --Emergency Hospitals Filling."  Teachers were commandeered to work as volunteers going about the community looking for the sick and trying to improve health conditions. The hospitals were looking for cots. By the 24, a daily record was posted. On that day by 9am, 243 cases were known, while 70 were estimated as not reported.  From October 1st through the 22nd the records claim nine deaths in Monessen and on October 24, four deaths occurred. The next day 200 more cases were reported. At this point the Elks Hospital was closed and the patients moved to the High School. Women from the community began reporting to the High School to help nurse the sick.

    The tenements and poorer sections of town were the hardest hit. Entire families lay prostrate with fever and fear. Neighbors were helping neighbors. Friends were visiting families to see if they were OK, or needed assistance. Some men stopped working at the mills and factories of the town to help in their neighborhoods. In one Monessen family, a father and seven children were in the hospital and the mother, unable to cope with fever and her stricken family, ended up at the County Home for the Insane. In another, six of the nine Bachovchins on Ontario Street were stricken with the influenza. If fell to Mary Bachovchin, age 10, to nurse the sick back to health.  When the doctor visited he wanted to take some of the family to the hospital, but Mary "wept bitterly and begged to leave the family there, saying that she was getting along all right and could care for them." According to the Monessen News, she did, and they did.

    By October 26, 443 cases had been reported, with 15 deaths. On the 26th, there were 14 new cases and 5 deaths. Monessen was holding its own against the disease. The city council ordered the town to be cleaned and all garbage to be removed from city streets. (A garbage controversy had been raging all year in the community.) On October 29, The Pittsburgh Products Company (to merge with Pittsburgh Steel in 1920s)  opened a hospital for its employees in the Turner Hall at Donner and Second Street. It was the third emergency hospital in the community. On that same day, State aid appeared in the presence of J. H. Maxwell, a doctor, and Miss Jennie Martin, a registered nurse. They took over the supervision of all health facilities in the community.

    Over a thousand cases had been reported in Monessen by October 31. The death toll began to rise. On November 5, no deaths had been reported for 30 hours, but by November 13, 55 total deaths had been recorded at the hospitals. By November 20, the death rate stood at 70. At the end of November, the ban on hotels and bars, theaters, churches was lifted. The hospitals closed shortly thereafter and for all intents and purposes, by December 1 the influenza was over in Monessen.

    In an assessment of the toll the Spanish Influenza in Monessen, the Monessen News reported on November 26, that people between the ages of 30 and 40 were mostly the victims, while many did not die of the influenza itself, but of Pneumonia. The Emergency Hospital at the High School treated 282 patients, 169 males, 113 females, 102 married people, 180 single people, 279 white and 3 colored (Which raises a number of question?) The official death toll for the entire community, posted in the Daily on December 10, stood at 226.

    For nearly a century the origin of the Spanish Flu was unknown. Now, with DNA, scientists have been looking into the matter again. The Armed Forced Institute of Pathology in Washington DC found the lungs of a "doughboy" killed by the influenza in 1918 sitting in a jar of formaldehyde. From their investigation there were able to determine that it began in birds, traveled through pigs, and on to humans. The jump rope ditty was more on the mark than anyone could imagine.

Story by Cassandra Vivian

    When the influenza of 1918 hit Monessen, my family was living on Short Street. My mom, Carolina Paggini Parigi, age 27, reported to Monessen High School on Knox and Sixth Street and was put to work nursing the sick. We were lucky, there was just the three of us: my father Nazzareno, my mother, and me. We fared well. So, my mother was free to help others, and she did. She had no education, but had taught herself to read and write. She was quite a woman, my mother. In those years, babies were born at home and she became a midwife to old Doctor Kreger. He always told his patients, "Do you know Mrs. Parigi? Well, when you are ready to deliver, call her to help me." The first embrace a lot of babies in Monessen felt was from my mother's warm arms. She helped birth my son, Alfred, and my daughter, Cassandra.
                                                                             Elizabeth Parigi Vivian, Monessen, September, 1998, age 85.
 

Looking over your material, to my surprise, I found the name of my Aunt as one of the victims of the Spanish Influenza.  You asked to give you notice if there is a need of corrections with the list.  As you well know, at that time names were spelled incorrectly because of the English translation of the sound of letters in their pronunciation.  So if you do not mind, I would like to correct the spelling of my Aunt's name.  I checked the death date and it matches.  Her name should be changed from: Eda Viska to Ida Visca.  In Italian, it is pronounced the way it was spelled in English by the officials but
spelled incorrect. She came to Monessen from Paganica, Italy. The Provence of Abruzzo. She was the sister of my father, Oscar, my Uncle Adam (The tailor on McMahon) and my Aunt Elisa DeCeasare (Confectionary store owner on Morgan).
                                                                                                Norman Visca, California, August, 2000

This is all the information I could find on my grandmother, who is not on the list above. My grandparents lived on Ontario Street in Monessen. My grandmother's name was Antonio Berger Oberleitner and she was born in Austria. They had five children and the youngest was one year old when my grandmother died of the influenza at the age of 32 on June 29, 1918. I really didn't know or realize the terrible ordeal our area and the country had furing this epidemic. I was glad to have been able to read the article in the Valley Independent. Thank you -- the Historical Society -- for bringing it to the attention of the families and the public (via the Internet).                                                     Janet Ritenoen, Belle Vernon PA, December 2000