$250K grant to bolster Flood Museum

Tribune-Democrat (Johnstown, PA)

Mar. 9—The 1889 Foundation is recognizing its special connection to Dr. Victor Heiser by awarding a $250,000 grant to the Johnstown Area Heritage Association that will — in part — be used to tell his story of surviving the city's most catastrophic disaster.

Heiser, who, at the age of 16, was orphaned by the 1889 Flood, practiced what nowadays would be described as "population health" before that fully developed concept existed on a large scale.

He graduated from what was then called Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia, spent time performing health screenings on immigrants coming into Ellis Island, and implemented worldwide public health policies for several diseases, including smallpox, malaria, plague and cholera. He built the Philippines public health system, including establishing a leper colony in that nation.

Heiser, whose published works include "An American Doctor's Odyssey: Adventures in Forty-Five Countries," is credited with saving more than 2 million lives.

The connection to Johnstown's most historically important event and Heiser's decades-long medical career are the reasons why the 1889 Foundation-Jefferson Center for Population Health, an initiative to improve overall wellness in Cambria and Somerset counties, has awarded funding to the Johnstown Area Heritage Association for its Johnstown Flood Museum Revitalization Project.

The museum upgrade will include a "Voices of the Survivors" exhibit, highlighted by Heiser's audio interview with David McCullough for "The Johnstown Flood," a book published in 1969 that started the author on an eventual Pulitzer Prize-winning career.

"This particular project had, No. 1, the Victor Heiser component to it," 1889 Foundation President Susan Mann said. "That was what we honed in on for this specific grant. I'm not even sure how familiar most people are that the Victor Heiser (MD Endowed Professorship at the Jefferson College of Population Health) was part of the establishment of the 1889 (Foundation)-Jefferson Center for Population Health.

"And so, the Victor Heiser story has such a connection to public health with Dr. Heiser surviving the flood, going off to Jefferson, so there's that connection, but also then later in life he devoted his life to probably at the time what was not termed 'public health,' but he honestly was working in the area of public health and population health as we know it today."

"Voices of the Survivors" will also include stories of other local residents who lived through the catastrophic flood that killed more than 2,200 people, told using illustrations, photos, period art and texts.

JAHA will also create a separate "Flood in 3-D" exhibit as part of the project.

"What we want to be able to do is incorporate some new technology," JAHA President Richard Burkert said. "We're going to do a general exhibit upgrade. We have plans for touchscreen databases, that kind of thing. The part we're going to be doing with the 1889 Foundation funding is really I think the neatest part we're going to add to the Flood Museum, which is two interactive media experiences basically. The one (the 1889 Foundation) felt most kinship with is the one we're calling 'Voices of the Survivors.' "

The 1889 Foundation's grant will be used as a match to unlock a $500,000 Pennsylvania Redevelopment Assistance Capital Project grant and private foundation funding.

The Johnstown Flood Museum Revitalization Project also will include structural improvements — roof, gutters, masonry, HVAC, etc. — to the building, on Washington Street in downtown.

"They're long past what is considered to be their useful life," Burkert said. "We want to be able to insure people that they'll be comfortable in the museum. Particularly, we want to be able to insure the stability of the collections that we store there, too."

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