St. Mary’s Hospital Begins

Quincy’s position on the Mississippi River made it a logical site for Union Army hospitals during the Civil War. After the war ended, the growing city had only one hospital, sometimes called the pest house, city infirmary, or asylum. It was described as “dull, cold, cheerless and comfortless.”

Father Herman Conrad Schaefermeyer of St. Boniface Church complained about the conditions in the city infirmary. He felt the patients were not treated well nor was he when he came to visit them, sometimes not even allowed to visit. He believed there was a need for Catholic sisters to come to Quincy to care for the needy, the poor, the sick by establishing a hospital.

Sister Felicitas, assistant to the Provincial Vicar at St. Clare’s Convent in Cincinnati, Ohio responded to his call and arrived in Quincy in 1865. She saw how great the need was. She was a Franciscan Sister, part of the order established in Germany by Frances Shervier. In 1851 Mother Frances and her group of sisters received approval of a religious charter from the Cardinal Archbishop of Cologne. A few years after they organized, Mother Frances was asked to send a small colony of sisters to Cincinnati, Ohio, to establish a hospital.

In January 1866, Sister Dominica Besener, the Provincial Vicar of the Order, had returned from Germany with permission from Mother Frances to proceed with the work in Quincy. On May 19, 1866, Sister Superior Eusebia, Sister Anna, and Sister Elizabeth from Cincinnati arrived in Quincy. Upon arrival, they were greeted by Father Schaefermeyer. Their first home was a small, rented cottage on 20^th and Vine. The house had four beds and four chairs. They took their morning coffee at the Franciscan Monastery and their meals at St. Aloysius Orphanage. They began their mission to care, to heal, and to show God’s love in serving the needy, the poor, and the sick of this growing community. The support of the community was evident as the sisters arrived in Quincy with nothing but a spirit and willingness to serve.

Even though there was a strong Catholic presence in Quincy there was no hospital. The Franciscan Fathers had been in Quincy since 1860. They established a monastery and St. Francis Solanus College. St. Boniface had established St. Aloysius Orphans Home after the 1849-1850 Cholera epidemic and the School Sisters of Notre Dame had been in Quincy since 1861, teaching young women at St. Boniface. They later established St. Mary’s Institute which much later became Notre Dame.

In the Franciscan spirit, the Sisters depended on God’s Providence and the generosity of the people as they conducted their “collection tours,” going door to door asking for supplies and donations, hoping to raise the money and materials needed for a hospital. People came to their cottage with donations. One day after their arrival,  they received the first offering of $2 from Joseph Unbing, who lived at the poor house. Sister Eusebia said, “that man may come to the hospital someday.” He did and worked for his room and board peeling potatoes. The second donation was from a woman in poor health who hid her household money from her drunken husband. She asked to be cared for in her last illness. All donations were listed in their annals, even recording a donation from the first known German Catholic, Michael Mast, who arrived in Quincy in 1829.

The Sisters cared for people in their cottage and also visited the homes of people dying from Tuberculosis, known as consumptives. Their first patient was a poor woman who died after a few days of care. The sisters were able to find a coffin and a burial plot, which was unusual for the city’s poor in those days.

On August 13, 1866, three months after their arrival, the Sisters set up their first temporary hospital with 12 beds in the Bishop’s House on the corner of Eighth and Vermont Streets. The house had been procured for a possible Bishop. The house was cleaned by the ladies of St. Boniface and blessed. The Sisters acquired feather pillows and woolen blankets. Their first patient was a French Canadian who had forgotten her English, so a French priest was sent for.

The girls from St. Boniface school donated a child’s bed and made the linens. They gave it to the Sisters with the poem, “Take this bed, O Sisters dear, Let some sick child be tended here.” Unfortunately, the first child in care, a three-year-old boy named Eddie, had died. The girls filled his coffin with flowers and holy cards and after the funeral, accompanied his coffin to the cemetery.

In June 1867, the School Sisters of Notre Dame purchased the Bishop’s House. While waiting for the permanent hospital to be completed, the Franciscan Sisters moved to another temporary hospital located on the third floor of St. Boniface School.

Multiple building sites in Quincy had been shown to the Sisters, but most were considered unsuitable for constructing a hospital. Fr. Schaefermeyer and several Quincy businessmen created a bank fund for land purchases, while the City Council granted $1,000. The sisters chose a 180- by-180-foot tract of land for $3,094 near the corner of 14^th and Broadway as the site for a hospital building.

Brother Adrian Wewers, an architect from the Order of Saint Francis, designed the hospital plans. When the plans were finished, they were sent to Cincinnati. The Sisters grew impatient as they had no response. Sister Eusebia wrote, “Had everyone died there?” Death had indeed visited as a cholera epidemic came to Cincinnati. The year 1866 ended with no hospital building.

In March 1867, the excavation work finally began. Fr. Schaefermeyer laid the cornerstone on May 4, 1867, during a well-attended ceremony with a parade. The newspapers reported it as an interesting and imposing religious and civil ceremony with 500 people attending. Construction progressed quickly. St. Mary’s Hospital, a four-story facility with 50 beds, opened on October 25, 1867, less than 18 months after the Sisters arrived.

Sharon Sandidge is a Registered Nurse who worked for 45 years at St. Mary and Blessing Hospitals. She received her BSN from Hannibal-LaGrange College and her diploma from St.
John’s Hospital School of Nursing. 

Sources:

Annals of Saint Mary’s Hospital, Incorporated Under the Title: “The Hospital Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis at Quincy, Illinois. 1866-1925.

Brennen, Fr. and St. Boniface Congregation. Souvenir of the Diamond Jubilee of St. Boniface Congregation, Quincy, Illinois. Jost & Kiefer: Quincy, IL, 1912.

“The City Council.” Quincy Whig April 28, 1847,2.

“The City Hospital Or Pest House.” Quincy Whig and Republican, March 18, 1869, 4.

Landrum, Carl. St. Mary Hospital traces roots to Belgian Border Town, Quincy Herald Whig, May 17, 1992, 13.

Quincy and Adams County,  A History and Representative Men, vol. 1. Edited by David F. Wilcox, Chicago, IL: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1919.