Hospitals In The Schoolhouses, 1918

In October 1918 the Spanish influenza took a big grip on Mount Union, and two emergency hospitals were opened in school buildings.

The first opened in the school building at Kistler, the model little town across the river, where R. P. M. Davis, president of the Mount Union Refractories Company, spared no effort. It was filled to the limit within twenty-four hours, with twenty-one patients. Kistler had about 100 cases among its 800 people, and many of the nurses who worked there caught the disease themselves, though none of the cases was serious.

The second hospital was in the Mount Union High School building, under the town's Red Cross chapter, with the superintendent of schools in entire charge. Graduate nurses led a long list of assistant nurses, women from the Red Cross rooms pitched in, and a laundry was set up in the school laboratory. The Harrisburg Telegraph put the cases in town at probably 300 or more, yet reported the feeling that Mount Union would be able to handle the situation with the help it had.

Mount Union even spared help for its neighbors. When the situation at Robertsdale was reported not favorable, one nurse was relieved from the Mount Union force and sent there, with more to follow as they could be spared.

By October 30 a statement from the State Department of Health said the epidemic was apparently subsiding in Mount Union and Huntingdon. Robertsdale still had many new cases, and an emergency hospital had been opened in Mapleton for pneumonia cases only.

Checked 2026-10-31 · County histories and primary sources, read in full

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