Alexander County IL Archives History - Books .....Chapter XIX Library And Hospitals 1910 ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/il/ilfiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Joy Fisher sdgenweb@yahoo.com September 19, 2007, 10:08 pm Book Title: A History Of The City Of Cairo Illiniois CHAPTER XIX THE A. B. SAFFORD MEMORIAL LIBRARY-ST. MARY'S INFIRMARY—THE UNITED STATES MARINE HOSPITAL THE Woman's Club and Library Association was organized in 1875, and in 1877 it established a subscription library in one of the rooms of what is now the First Bank and Trust Company Building. In 1882, the club tendered the library to the city for the use of the people as a free library; and the city, highly appreciating the offer thus made, accepted the same by the passage of ordinance No. 88, July 1, 1882, entitled "An ordinance to establish and maintain a public library and reading room in the City of Cairo, for the use and benefit of the inhabitants of said city,"—and July 6, 1882, Mayor Thistlewood appointed the following named persons members of the board of directors: Mrs. Anna E. Safford, Mrs. Henry H. Candee, Mrs. William R. Smith, Mrs. Philander W. Barclay, Mrs. P. A. Taylor, and Rev. Benjamin Y. George, the Hon. William H. Green, Mr. William P. Halliday, and Mr. Wood Rittenhouse. Mrs. Safford, seeing the great need of a suitable home for the new public library and earnestly desiring to honor the memory of her deceased husband, Mr. Alfred B. Safford, purchased the easterly end of block forty-two, fronting two hundred feet on Washington Avenue, 16th and 17th Streets, had the ground filled to the city grade, erected thereon the present handsome library building, and at once conveyed the property to the city for the purpose for which the first gift was made. The corner-stone was laid October 30, 1883, by the Alexander Lodge I. O. O. F., of which Mr. Safford had long been an earnest and honored member. The building was dedicated July 19, 1884, on which occasion Mrs. Safford delivered an interesting address, at the conclusion of which she tendered the property to the city. The same was accepted on behalf of the city by the Hon. Thomas W. Halliday, mayor, in a very appropriate address of thanks. On the tablet, set in the wall on the stairway, is the following inscription: "This A. B. Safford Memorial Library Building was erected in memory of Alfred B. Safford, born January 22, 1822, died July 26, 1877, by his wife, Anna E. Safford, A. D. 1883." At the time of the gift of the library to the city, it contained 1583 volumes. At the present time, it contains 16,157 volumes. The library occupies the south side of the main floor, and across the hall are the reading and reference rooms. The lecture hall on the south side of the second floor is a fine room. The north side of this floor is occupied by the museum and club room of the Woman's Club. It would be hard to find such an institution which has been more useful to the community in which it exists. The people of the city regard it as one of the greatest means of education and entertainment which could in any way have been procured for them. They look upon the building and beautiful grounds as a great credit not only to the donor and the city but in a measure to themselves. This is due no doubt to the fact that the property is the gift of one of our own citizens whom they esteem so highly. Mrs. Safford in erecting this memorial to her husband has erected in the hearts of the people of Cairo an equally enduring memorial. The present directors of the library are: Mrs. Anna E. Safford, president; Michael J. Howley, vice-president; Mrs. Samuel White, secretary; Mrs. Walter H. Wood, Mrs. Isabella L. Candee, Mrs. Kate F. Miller, Reed Green, Herman C. Schuh and Philander C. Barclay. Mrs. P. E. Powell, the librarian, has held this position continuously since the establishment of the library as a public institution. Misses Effie A. Lansden and Marie C. Glauber are her assistants. THE WOMAN'S CLUB AND LIBRARY ASSOCIATION, as above stated, was organized in 1875. Its charter members were Mesdames Anna E. Safford, Isabella L. Candee, Kate B. Gilbert, Charles Thrupp, Phillip H. Howard, Charles Pink, Amarala Martin, Carrie S. Hudson, John H. Oberly, Horace Wardner, William R. Smith, Catherine C. E. Goss, William Winter, Samuel P. Wheeler, Al Sloo, and C. C. Alvord. The first officers were Mrs. Oberly, president; Mrs. Candee, vice-president, and Mrs. Goss, secretary and treasurer of the club. The club was incorporated Februray 9, 1877, under the general act of the legislature for the incorporation of such bodies. Mrs. Candee, Mrs. Goss, and Mrs. Ford made the necessary certificate for its incorporation. The trustees for the first year were Mrs. Oberly, Mrs. Smith, Mrs. Wardner, Mrs. Winter, Mrs. Safford, and Mrs. Adele Korsmeyer. (See record book No. 8, page 28, at the court-house.) I do not know how I can better express the good this club has done for the people of the city than by asking what our condition would now be had it never existed. What we could or would have had in its place I do not know. Perhaps nothing. Too many of us do not stop to consider the influence it has had upon the people of the city. The roll of its members is indeed an honored one. I know of nothing that can be pointed to, in our city, which can approach it in this respect. They have placed it upon a firm foundation, as enduring, I hope, as the city itself. It will, I am sure, interest all the members of the association to give here the names of the deceased members. They are as follows: MRS. MARY J. ADAMS MRS. N. R. CASEY MRS. M. A. ARTER MRS. JENNIE M. DEWEY MRS. MARY C. BARCLAY MRS. EDITH ELLIS MISS IDA BARRETT MRS. SUSAN G. FISHER MRS. I. N. CARVER MRS. EMMA B. FRANK MRS. JENNIE M. GALLIGAN MRS. F. J. PETER MRS. C. C. E. GOSS MRS. P. A. TAYLOR MRS. MAMIE H. GORDON MRS. W. W. THORNTON MRS. EMMA GOLDSMITH MRS. CHRISTINE WOODWARD MRS. ANNIE HOLMES MRS. ADELE KORSMEYER MRS. JOHN H. OBERLY MRS. J. A. SCARRITT MRS. ADA V. PARSONS MRS. HERMAN MEYERS MRS. W. H. STRATTON MRS. JOHN M. LANSDEN MISS HATTIE SMITH MRS. W. B. GILBERT MRS. HERMAN C. SCHUH MRS. E. M. STARZINGER MRS. J. D. LADD Nothing can stay this growing list; but as name by name is added thereto, the honored roll will reflect honor, more and more, upon the institution of which they were members. ST. MARY'S INFIRMARY.—In 1861, on a call from Governor Morton, of Indiana, the superior of the Order of the Holy Cross at Notre Dame sent out sisters to act as nurses, some of whom were stationed at hospitals at Cairo and Mound City. At the close of the war, many citizens of Cairo, including Dr. Horace Wardner, who had been associated with the sisters in their hospital work, urged the Order to establish a permanent infirmary in the city; Mother Angela, then mother-general of the Order, came to Cairo in October, 1867, and with the assistance of Dr. Wardner secured a temporary location on Eleventh Street, between Commercial Avenue and Poplar Street, and placed Sister M. Augusta and Sister M. Matilda in charge. On January 1, 1868, they removed to a larger building, known as the Pilot House, on Washington Avenue, where the present Armory building now stands. In 1869, the Trustees of the Cairo City Property donated to the Order block numbered eighty-nine, in the First Addition to the city, on upper Walnut Street, for hospital purposes; and that year they erected a large frame building thereon, and furnished and equipped it as St. Mary's Infirmary. In 1870, Sister Augusta was recalled for promotion, and Sister M. Edward succeeded her, and continued in charge until the summer of 1877, when she was succeeded by Sister Anthony. In 1866, Sister Anthony was recalled, and Sister M. Adela, who had been an assistant in the infirmary for some years, was made superioress. In 1892, a handsome three-story brick addition was erected in front of the main building, at a cost of seven thousand dollars. In 1901, the present three-story brick addition, extending almost the entire width of the block, was built at a cost of twenty thousand dollars. Rev. Charles J. Eschman, then pastor of St. Patrick's church, superintended the construction of the building, and the same was dedicated February 18, 1892, by Right Rev. John Janssen, bishop of Belleville, assisted by the local pastors, Rev. C. J. Eschman, Rev. J. D. Diepenbrock and by Rev. F. Pieper, Rev. William Van Delft, Rev. C. Goeltz and Rev. William Goeltzhauser. The chapel in the infirmary was the gift of Rev. C. J. Eschman, as were also the altar, pews, organ, and stained glass windows. Dr. W. F. Grinstead has furnished two private rooms, a surgical ward and an ambulance, and has also added a new operating room and furnished the same, at the cost of about two thousand dollers, and borne one half the cost of the fine and substantial iron fence around the grounds. Dr. W. C. Clarke has given a fine X-ray apparatus, as a memoral to the late Dr. W. W. Stevenson, who was a strong friend of the infirmary; among the many others who have remembered the institution in a very substantial manner may be named Dr. A. A. Bondurant, Dr. John T. Walsh and Dr. James McManus, Mrs. Eliza Halliday, Mrs. M. E. Feith, Mr. John S. Aisthorpe, Mr. P. T. Langan, Mr. Frank Howe, and the Rhodes-Burford Company. At present Sister M. Asteria is superioress, besides whom there are eighteen other sisters in the infirmary. Five hundred and thirty-nine patients were treated in the infirmary during the year 1909. All the leading physicians of Cairo comprise the medical staff. UNITED STATES MARINE HOSPITAL.—Capt. John R. Thomas, our congressman in 1882, procured, in that year, the enactment of a law appropriating sixty thousand dollars for the purchase of grounds and the erection of buildings for the hospital, and in September of that year, Surgeon-General Hamilton came here and he, together with Mr. George Fisher, the surveyor of the port, and General C. W. Pavey, the collector of internal revenue, looked over the city with a view to choosing a site for the same. The matter was not definitely decided, it seems, until some time in 1883, when the present grounds between Tenth and Twelfth Streets and Cedar Street and Jefferson Avenue were chosen and purchased of the Trustees of the Cairo Trust Property for the sum of $14,000.00. The grounds include seventy-two lots. The buildings, practically as they now stand, were finished in 1885, but the hospital was not formally opened until some time in February, 1886. Up to that time patients had been taken care of by the Sisters of the Holy Cross; and they for a time conducted the new hospital, under the supervision of Dr. Carmichael, who was the first surgeon in charge. The names of the surgeons and passed assistant surgeons in charge are as follows: Duncan A. Carmichael, Passed Assistant, January 25, 1885, to January 25, 1888; James M. Gassaway, Surgeon, January 25, 1888, to June 14, 1890; Rell M. Woodward, Assistant Surgeon, June 14, 1890, to March 18, 1894; Ezra K. Sprague, Assistant Surgeon, March 18, 1894, to November 24, 1894; James M. Gassaway, Surgeon, November 24, 1894, t0 Jury 25> J897; Parker C. Kallock, Surgeon, July 25, 1897, to January 9, 1899; W. A. Wheeler, Surgeon, January 9, 1899, to May 4, 1899; H. C. Russell, Assistant Surgeon, May 4, 1899, to December 5, 1899; John M. Holt, Assistant Surgeon, December 5, 1899, to April 25, 1901; James H. Oakley, Passed Assistant, April 25, 1901, to June 11, 1903; Gregorio M. Guiteras, Surgeon, June 11, 1903, to April 30, 1907; Julius O. Cobb, Surgeon, May 9, 1907, to April 22, 1908, and Robert L. Wilson, Passed Assistant, April 22, 1908, to the present time. Additional Comments: Extracted from: A HISTORY OF THE CITY OF CAIRO ILLINOIS BY JOHN M. LANSDEN WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS CHICAGO R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY 1910 COPYRIGHTED, 1910 BY JOHN M. LANSDEN The Lakeside Press R. R. DONNELLEY & SONS COMPANY CHICAGO File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/il/alexander/history/1910/ahistory/chapterx133gms.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/ilfiles/ File size: 12.5 Kb