During World War I, the University of Washington had a U.S. Navy training station on the shores of Lake Union. Before the camp closed in 1919, over 5,000 men had been trained there for both naval and naval aviation units. There were 724 cases of influenza at the camp between October and December, 1918, and thirty-four deaths. One of those who perished was Allen Cooper Ostrander, a freshman in Electrical Engineering. Allen enrolled with the UW Naval Reserve Force as a Seaman second class on June 6, 1918, and died of pneumonia brought on by the flu at the camp on October 17, 1918.
Born in Detroit, Allen had a twin brother, Arthur Peter, who died shortly after birth. Together with his parents, Arthur Dale Ostrander and Harriet Mary Cooper, and younger sister, Ruth, Allen moved to Buffalo, New York, and then to Outlook, Washington, in Yakima County. His father also served in the Navy during the Spanish American War and World War I. Allen’s sister Ruth Elizabeth Ostrander was a 1922 graduate of UW. An endowed scholarship in the School of Public Health is awarded in her memory to students in Nutritional Sciences. Allen, his parents and sister, are all buried at Seattle’s Evergreen Washelli Cemetery. (bit.ly/uw_ostrander)