The influenza pandemic of 1918 devastated a staggering number of Western families.

Updated 7 minutes ago

Two Greek sisters remained close after emigrating to western Pennsylvania in the early 20th century.

Susana Mazarakis Pavlakis and Mary Protos both settled in Vandergrift and started raising families when an invisible visitor – a deadly virus spreading flu quickly – broke up.

Her dark legacy will affect generations to come, including Pavlakis' great-granddaughter, Loretta Sword, of North Huntingdon.

A century after Pavlakis died on December 4, 1918, in the midst of the world's deadliest influenza pandemic, Sword needed the help of a cousin to translate the Greek inscription on the gravestone of his back. grandmother.

This is because Sword's grandmother, Christine, then 3 years old, was separated from her father, her 2 year old brother James, and the family's Greek culture when she was sent live with a parent after the premature death of his mother at age 20.

Other branches of the family followed and passed on the ethnic customs. Christine Pavlakis and her descendants missed this connection.

"Many traditions have been lost because she's been separated from her father," Sword said. "Grandma lost her mother very young. She had a very difficult life. "

Stimulated by a long-standing interest in these diseases, Thomas Soltis, an adjunct professor of sociology at Westmoreland County Community College, is one of the people who shone a bright light on the pandemic on his 100th birthday.

"By the time we arrive at the first full week of October 1918, the disease has arrived in this Pennsylvania area with a vengeance … we had never seen it before nor seen it since," Soltis said. "There is probably no family in Westmoreland County that is not affected by this disease in any way."

The pandemic would ultimately infect between one-third and one-half of the world's population, killing at least 50 million people, perhaps as many as 100 million, researchers at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said.

Charles N. Patterson, 29, of Aspinwall, became the first known victim of influenza in the Pittsburgh area when he died October 5, 1918 at St. Francis Hospital. On the same day, the Army Infirmary in the Pittsburgh Point Breeze area reported the death of one soldier, one dead and one in serious condition; Another 60 received hospital care.

"The first death in this area was 17-year-old Mildred Sowash at Greensburg High School," Soltis said. The end of his brief life was announced on October 7, 1918 in the Greensburg Daily Tribune.

In the coming months, the flu pandemic has ravaged western Pennsylvania.

Many temporary hospitals have been established in Pittsburgh and the region, including Scottdale, Tarentum and Natrona, where influenza cases were first reported on October 8. The Greensburg Country Club housed an emergency department, as well as the borough building and several fraternal halls in Youngwood.

Tens of thousands of people in Allegheny and Westmoreland counties have been sick. About 2,000 people died in Westmoreland County. In Pittsburgh alone, the death toll has surpassed 4,500, according to conservative estimates.

"Ferocity of a hurricane"

The disease had particularly cruel consequences in the home Vandergrift Mary Protos, who lost two children from the flu the same week, said his sister.

Funeral directors could not keep up with the fast pace of deaths, leaving her husband, Nick, to bury their children.

"Nick had a wooden casket deposited at home," said Sword. "He had to clean and dress his children. He placed the boys in the coffin and took them in a carriage to a Vandergrift cemetery for burial. He dug the grave and buried it himself.

The damage was repeated across the country, with about 700,000 people who perished in just 10 months, said Soltis.

This far exceeds the estimated 423,000 Americans killed in action in all US conflicts of the First World War in Vietnam.

Compared with normal seasonal influenza strains, the 1918 virus disproportionately killed people in the prime of life between 20 and 40 years of age.

"He killed at a much higher rate, within 42 to 78 hours after having had it," Soltis said.

"What fascinates me the most is the speed with which the disease appeared," he said. "In Monessen, the ferocity of a hurricane hit the city.

"Nobody seemed to be able to escape. One or two Pennsylvania representatives died. Some members of Monessen's board died and some members of the same family died. "

On October 25, Monessen reported more than 1,000 cases of influenza; Greensburg had at least 1,500.

When Jan Moore of Derry Township receives her annual flu shot, she thinks about her grandmother, Ruby King, who did not have that option. At the death of King, October 28, 1918, at the age of 28 years. In Murrysville, she leaves her husband, Thomas, and four young children, including a newborn.

"She died a week after giving birth," Moore said.

Soltis discovered burials in local cemeteries marked in the fall. The monthly funeral at Union Cemetery in North Huntingdon increased from 10 in August to more than 40 in October. At the Greensburg Catholic Cemetery in Hempfield, the number of burials increased from the same number in August to almost 60 in November.

"There was a family in Pleasant Unity of 12 people, and eight of them died in a week," said Soltis.

The Greensburg Daily Tribune recounted the tragic fate of Charles Hausele's family. His wife Pauline and his son Jacob died on November 7th. His daughter Joanna and son Edward died the next day. On November 10, they were followed by three other children: Lillie, Mathias and Charles, whose wife, Emma, ​​also died on November 7th.

The last generation of the family had only three sons: Joseph, who was doing his military service, and two teenagers, Dan and William. The patriarch of the family also survived, returning several times to his native Germany, remarrying and divorcing before his death in 1938, according to Virginia Hausele, whose late husband, Reverend Raymond Hausele, was Dan's son.

The deaths from the flu "really affected" the survivors, said Virginia Hausele, noting that Dan had gone to work in the coal mines.

"I know it's marked it," she says, "because he had to fend for himself at such a young age."

It took 100 years for the deadly pandemic to impress younger generations who have not lived through it and think mostly of 1918 and the end of the First World War.

"It seems like a piece of history that we are not focusing on," Soltis said of the Spanish flu. "The devastation could have been so significant that people could say," Let's close the door and let's go ahead. "

"I think it will be dismissed. We must take our time and commemorate it. "

Editor's Note: On Monday, Tribune-Review will examine the enduring medical legacy of the 1918 influenza pandemic and the lessons learned for researchers.

Jeff Himler is an editor of Tribune-Review. You can contact Jeff at 724-836-6622, [email protected] or via Twitter @jhimler_news.

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