Johnstown had neither a hospital nor an almshouse--never had, its poor being taken to Ebensville, twenty miles distant. Under ordinary circumstances this might do, but with the scant, poor homes of this winter we felt it to be unsafe, and saw that better provision should be made. Accordingly the use of some half-dozen unset portable houses, known as the "Oklahomas," was asked of the Flood Commission, and erected adjoining our warehouse, as separate wards connected by a covered way, and provided with an adjoining house of eighteen by thirty feet, two stories high, for kitchen, dining, store, sleeping and living rooms for the use of the wards and attendants. These were all fully equipped and warmed for the accommodation of thirty patients, with the best of new outfit, and the hospital was known as the "Johnstown Infirmary." These things accomplished, there remained but one more danger to be guarded against. The citizens still had no organization of their own for the relief of their needy people through the coming winter, and no protection against any alarming report which might be sprung upon them. Any sensational writer could still, if he chose to, report two hundred cases of typhoid fever in Johnstown, alarming the whole country, with not a case of genuine typhoid there, and there were none to say him nay; or that its people were freezing or starving, with nowhere the authority to correct the misstatement. This protection was needed, not alone for Johnstown, but the people at large as well. A few well-timed suggestions were sufficient. The meetings were held in our house and some of the leading men and women of the city effected a permanent organization to be incorporated under the name of the "Benevolent Union of Conemaugh Valley." This completed, we had only to turn over to their hands, as the leaders of the town, our warehouse with its entire remaining stock, amounting to some thousands of dollars; the care of the infirmary; one of our trained clerks, with all papers and accounts of our relief work from the day of its inception; one of our experienced working men to handle transportation--to fit up for them large, warm rooms for winter use; give them our blessing; accept theirs in fullest measure; say good bye to them and to our faithful helpers, with heavy hearts and choking voices, and return to our home, bearing the record of a few months of faithful endeavor among a people as patient and brave as people are made, as noble and grateful as falls to the lot of human nature to be. Enterprising, industrious, and hopeful, the new Johnstown, phoenix-like, rose from its ruins more beautiful than the old, with a ceaseless throb of grateful memory for every kind act rendered, and every thought of sympathy given her in her great hour of desolation and woe. God bless her, and God bless all who helped save her!