In late 1800s into early 1900s many immigrants like my Grandfather Markowitz came to this country to enrich their lives and help their family's back in the old country.
Many came from war torn country's or religious suppression and many other reasons .
My Grandfather the son of a peasant farmer came from Austria which at the time was part of the greater Austro Hungarian Empire.
Now when he came over he had a sponsor family who he lived with in Pittsburgh's South Side where he learned to bake and eventually retired from National Baking Company in East Liberty .
He had a good life and lived the American Dream . Owning a home and raising 2 sons and a daughter.
But not all Immigrants who came here had the same privilege.There where those who came from Poland and Slovakia who came without sponsors as was the case for those who would loose their lives during the Great Flu Pandemic in 1918 and are buried in mass graves at the for many years unmarked cemetery near Winfield Twp Pa. in a very rural area you can easily miss .
Luckily it passed over my grandfather but not for these men who came to work in the Lime stone mines of Yellow Dog , The salt works and tile factory's and other industries in Butler county.
While my Grandfather lived with a loving family and in sanitary conditions this was not the case for those who ended up in Black cross often it was crowded factory provided housing often unsanitary to boot.
The perfect conditions for a Killing spree by influenza.
The epidemic was so bad coffins with bodies where often stacked up outside funeral parlors with so many dying. 12 a day in butler county
In the winter of 1918 it hit Winfield especially hard.
Hundreds died and with no one sponsoring them the body's started piling up.
https://www.theclio.com/entry/101394
To make matters worse many of these workers few possessions and personnel effects where not some times not returned to their family's overseas instead being stolen and split up between the workers and others who took advantage of the corpses .
Many times immigrants came to this country to only get killed in an industrial accident and word never got back to the family's and if it did it was often with no explanation.
With no sponsors and no family's the workers in Winfield ended up in mass graves in a Potters Field donated by a local farmer by the name of McLaughlin and 5 to 20 or more buried in a grave with no markers and no one knowing their names.
A Roman Catholic Priest Father O Callahan had erected a large wooden cross made of Railroad Ties which looked black from Creosote used on the ties which gave the cemetery its name of Black Cross .
because many buried there where catholic.
A permanent marker and solid white concrete cross where erected on the site in 2002
I was there recently and the field is overgrown and a total disgrace to those who are buried there
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fhSXdZyUcA
The cemetery is also legend of Paranormal activity they claim they hear young children crying and people speaking Italian .
Its a very quiet solemn and sad place if you go be respectful.
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