by Tom Castaldi
The first
hospital to be established in Fort
Wayne was St.
Joseph Hospital.
Organized in 1868 by sisters of the Poor
Handmaids of Jesus Christ, it was under the leadership of Mother Katherine Kasper,
the Superior of
the order. Mary Catherine Kasper was a
remarkable woman, born in 1820 in Dernbach, Germany, who overcame her lack of
formal education and dedicated herself to prayer. She founded a society with
four other women and took vows of poverty, chastity and obedience and then
founded the Congregation of the Poor Handmaids of Jesus Christ on August 15, 1851. The
community grew teaching, caring for the poor, boarding factory girls, and
encouraging Christian values eventually expanding to nine countries.
After
Bishop Luers convinced Mother Kasper to send eight sisters to Fort Wayne, their first home was the old Rockhill Hotel which the
order had purchased earlier that year and which still marks the center of the modern
hospital. Located on the outskirts of
town at Broadway and West Main Streets, the sisters refurbished the old
canal hotel converting it into a mother house to operate as St. Joseph Hospital.
Acquiring the old hotel did not come
easily. Bishop John Luers, the first bishop of Fort Wayne, tried unsuccessfully to get the
Allen County Commissioners and city council of Fort Wayne to share the burden of purchasing
and repairing the building. Undiscouraged, Bishop Luers organized group of
citizens in the formation of the St. Joseph Benevolent Association, and with
his personal funds and those raised by the Association, bought the hotel and
made it ready for the sisters who arrived in May, 1869. They were still
scrubbing the facility when the first patient entered. Dr. Isaac Rosenthal, a
German immigrant who had arrived in 1847, performed the first operation in the
hospital in 1869 and became the first chief of staff for medical services.
Nurses and beds were at a premium.
In the first year, Sister Mary Henrica, having prepared the meals one day, went
on second shift keeping watch all that night at the home of a sick person. When
she returned the next day for some much needed rest, she found her bed had been
given to a patient the night before.
The sisters began a regular program
of caring for the poor so that those with severe medical problems would not
simply be placed in the “poor farm.” The
hospital grew steadily over the next several decades, and with additions in
1879, 1912, and 1929, included an isolation ward. By 1918, a nursing school had
been established; in 1946, the hospital opened a technicians’ school. In the last half of the twentieth century,
the hospital changed its name to the Saint
Joseph Medical Center.
A new facility replaced all the older structures; a major area of
specialty for the Medical Center is its Regional Burn Center. Once again the name Saint Joseph Hospital
identifies the facility and is part of the Lutheran Health Network.
Originally published in Fort Wayne
Monthly “Along the Heritage Trail with Tom Castaldi”
June 2009 No 55
Allen
County Historian Tom Castaldi is author of the Wabash & Erie Canal Notebook
series; hosts “On the Heritage Trail,” which is broadcast at 6:35 a.m., 8:35
a.m. and 6:30 p.m. Mondays on WBOI, 89.1 FM; and “Historia Nostra” heard on
WLYV-1450 AM and WRRO 89.9 FM. Enjoy his previously published columns on the
History Center’s blog, “Our Stories,” at history centerfw.blogspot.com.
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