The Struggle to Erect a Hospital in this Community
Part Two of a Three-Part Series
In the last Transitions, it was noted that the sudden meteoric growth of the town in the early 1900s was almost overwhelming in terms of providing services for the exploding population. Water supply, sewage, schools, fire protection, police department, jail, and library – all were practically nonexistent as the town recovered from the disastrous fire of 1899.
It was a monstrous problem for our town fathers. The requirement for a hospital was especially pressing. Sending seriously ill people and those with injuries requiring life-saving care by train to Canada or Utica was simply unacceptable by any humanitarian standard.
A temporary solution that occurred in 1917 was to rent space from Mrs. Evelyn Morgan, a registered nurse and widow of one of Tupper’s early physicians, Dr. Robert L. Morgan. Four rooms were set aside in the spacious Morgan home, located still today across from the fire station on the corner of Cliff and High Street. (In later years, as I was growing up on High Street, it was the home of classmate Al Vom Scheidt, whose father was a justice of the peace here for many years.)
This measure was, of course, only a temporary solution, a “finger in the dike,” so to speak. Adding urgency to the medical care problem was the reality that alongside Junction Road (Demars Boulevard) the Oval Wood Dish Corporation was constructing the largest industrial plant in Franklin County, with the completion date only months away – a plant that would employ up to 600 people, most of whom would have family members.
I pose a question to readers, especially those acquainted with the O.W.D. over the years: Would you agree with the following scenario given the absence of any record I can find? William Cary Hull, general manager and vice president of the O.W.D., summons his young son, Gerald, to the company’s temporary office in his beautiful home on Water Street and issues a three-word order: “Fix this problem.” I think we can agree this was highly probable. W.C. was a highly successful industrialist, a hard-hitting executive with factories in Chicago, Michigan, etc. He would have had great concern over the morale and welfare of his work force.
As my grandson and his young friends would say in today’s language, “he was all crankshaft – no horn.”
Not having a hospital for his employees would have been unacceptable to Mr. Hull, and I believe we can add the creation of our hospital, in part at least, to the O.W.D. civic legacy that would include the golf course, the Sugar Loaf and Mt. Morris ski areas, etc.
Would young Gerald, fresh from Olivet College studies and fully involved with his company duties as time clerk and payroll officer (later in 1941, its president), dutifully delegate his father’s order to his friend, Riley Swears of the O.W.D. sales staff, who had time on his hands while waiting for production to start?
Speculation aside, we do know from the records that Swears was the individual who approached the late Msg. Edmund Hervieux and convinced that influential young priest to accompany him to nearby Gabriels Sanatorium so he could petition the Sisters of Mercy to establish and staff a hospital at Tupper Lake.
The Sisters of Mercy, it should be noted, had at this time acquired the Tupper Lake Sanatorium mentioned in last week’s column. Fortunately, they recognized the need for a medical care hospital. That, of course, was their mission, and the young sales manager’s overture to them was successful and ingenious.
On Sept. 14, 1918, three members of the order came to Tupper Lake. A modern hospital was about to be born!
Let’s depart briefly at this time from the central thread of this article and say hello to the Sisters of Mercy, whose successors still today operate the Uihlein Mercy Nursing Home in Lake Placid and the Mercy Healthcare Center in this community. Most of the material that follows comes from Forest Leaves, a quarterly publication of the Gabriels Sanatorium, 1903-1934, and The Brighton Story, a delightful history of the Town of Brighton, compiled by the late Geraldine Collins, former historian and longtime librarian at Paul Smith’s College.
As early as 1890, the Sisters had wanted to establish a nursing institution in this area. Near the end of 1894, the Bishop of Ogdensburg Diocese, the Right Reverand Henry Gabriels, urged the Sisters to attempt the establishment of a much-needed sanatorium for the cure of tuberculosis. With this encouragement, the Sisters began to consider where to locate such an institution, but attempts to purchase land in Saranac Lake, Lake Placid and Tupper Lake failed because of excessive costs. This was a major obstacle, of course, but before they were ready to give up their idea, they traveled to New York City in an attempt to secure funds and/or land for their project. Somehow, they knew Dr. Seward Webb, who had just completed the fist railroad (the Mohawk and Malone) to traverse the Adirondacks.
Aware of their good works, Dr. Webb arranged for a land gift from himself and Paul Smith. It turned out to be a beautiful piece of land in the wilderness of lot 78 in the Town of Brighton. Their plot was situated close to Dr. Webb’s railroad on a rolling piece of land that gradually rose to a good-sized hill that they called “Sunrise Mount.” History tells us that the first year of their new institution started with very little. All the Motherhouse could give them was $15, yet that $15 was increased through their efforts to many times that amount and went into the building of Gabriels Sanatorium, named in honor of their bishop.
It was a nonsectarian endeavor and no distinction of creed or color was made. One of their early publications stated that 15 percent of the patients were treated free, only a few paid the entire cost, and the greatest number less than the per capita cost.
Note: In rapid order in 1897, Rest-A-While was completed, and then St. Joseph’s the next year. Slumberland consisted of 10 street cars placed in an oval, with plenty of space between. This was the first Knights of Columbus unit at Gabriels. The sanatorium continued to grow quickly.
More on the Sisters of Mercy in the next Transitions.