Laurel L. Hanan of the 339th Machine Gun Battalion of the 88th Division succumbed to the Spanish Flu during the Meuse Argonne Offensive during the tail end of WWI. Over 120,000 US servicemen were afflicted with Spanish Flu during the war, actually making the Flu more deadly than German machine gun bullets! I was able to stumble across this photo on eBay and was happy to add it to my collection. I’ve added Laurel’s photo to his findagrave.com page, and have requested an update to his page. Laurel was reburied in his hometown after the war.
Born: 13 NOV 1895
Died: 7 OCT 1918 – Spanish Influenza, France
Cemetery: ROSE HILL
Location: FREDERICKSBURG
County: CHICKASAW CO. – IOWA
Record Notes: WORLD WAR
Portraits of War 
I must tell you that Laurel Hanan is not buried in his home town (Fredericksburg, IA) at Rose Hill Cemetery. He was buried in France and I am still working on trying to identify which American Cemetery he was actually buried in. Unfortunately, there is some confusing information “out there”, however, people who know the family and the facts, know better. He has a stone on the family lot at Rose Hill, his parents put that stone there as a memorial to him. I’m sure that contributes to some of the misinformation. The stone has sunk somewhat, however, at the bottom part of the stone (now obscured), it does say, buried in France.