Published February 28, 2026
By Sharon Sandidge & Arlis Dittmer
When St. Mary’s Hospital opened in 1867 the first floor consisted of a chapel, a reception room, chaplain’s quarters, a guest room, a pharmacy, and a parlor. The basement held a kitchen, store room, bakery, laundry, linen room, and a furnace. The Sister’s rooms were on the third floor with the women’s ward and private rooms. The men’s wards and private rooms were on the second floor. The fourth floor had more rooms and a laundry drying room. Verandas were built on each floor the following year to give patients fresh air.
Two cisterns were dug. Luckily, they found an underground stream and sunk a well. They had to pump water by hand to fill the water tank. It wasn’t until 1882 that the Quincy Waterworks extended the water line to the hospital. As a private water company, it was costly but lightened the workload for the Sisters.
During these early years, the Sisters regularly conducted collection tours for supplies and funds. Collection tours were arduous in Quincy as the area around the hospital was sparsely populated. The sisters would walk many blocks into town and carry their baskets full of produce and other gifts back to the hospital. A few years later they were grateful when a benefactor gave them a horse and wagon which made their collection tours much easier.
The eight Sisters in the small community handled most of the chores on their own. The hospital operated without any endowment and relied on the benevolence of Quincy residents and gifts such as a cow and a few chickens from grateful patients. Fairs were also organized which annually helped to raise money.
The hospital had grown to 28 patients two months after opening. The first physician, Dr. Gross was a homeopath as was Dr. Talcott, the second physician to see patients in the hospital. They were described as giving their services generously by not charging.
Mother Frances Shervier came to visit the sisters and the facilities they had built in July 1868. This was her second trip to America but her first to Quincy. According to the Annals, “the extremely hot weather caused her great suffering.” Recent rains had made the path up Broadway to the hospital very slimy and slippery and the flies and mosquitoes were tormenting. Mother Frances insisted that screens be bought for the hospital windows, no matter the cost. Her visit “imparted to the Sisters fresh courage and stability in their holy vocation, and the renewed determination to follow her example of self-sacrificing charity in the spirit of St. Francis” as they served the needy, the sick, and the poor.
St. Mary’s Hospital welcomed their first surgeon, a more traditional allopathic doctor, Charles Curtis, in 1868. As he was financially secure, he did not charge his patients. That year, the hospital admitted 151 patients.
Even with a small debt, the Sisters realized they needed to buy land to expand the hospital and had to incorporation under Illinois law. Representing the Sisters in Springfield, Mr. Thomas Jaspers presented the Act of Incorporation which was ratified on March 4, 1869. Unfortunately, he entered the name of the corporation as the Sisters of the Poor of the Order of St. Mary, not St. Francis. Despite the use of the wrong name, they continued to buy small land parcels next to the hospital. These were transformed into gardens where patients could enjoy fresh air. They planted trees, built a grape arbor, and created a grotto. It took until 1872 to change the corporations name to the order, the Sisters of the Poor of St. Francis.
Around the same time, the city started sending those in poverty and the sick to the hospital instead of the poor house. The Sisters believed it was reasonable to request a small payment from the city for treating these patients. The city complied.
Dr. Michael Rooney volunteered his services to the hospital in 1872. After his marriage in 1875 to Abby Fox, the first woman in Illinois to receive a medical license, she managed the care for female patients at the hospital.
The Sisters had never experienced a bad storm until the 1873 tornado tore through Quincy. The hospital was tall and sitting by itself on the edge of the prairie. It lost several chimneys and part of the roof blew away. Luckily, no one was hurt at the hospital, but a man was killed on Eighth Street. Another key event that year was the hospital’s installation of a gas line which improved the lighting in the hospital and the Sister’s work load by not having to clean and maintain the many kerosene lamps.
During the hospital’s first ten years, 1,300 patients received care in the 40-bed hospital. By then, Blessing Hospital had opened but it was small and had only 20 beds in 12 wards. With the closure of the poor house, most of those patients were sent to St. Mary’s. The city paid $4 per week for city patients and $6 per month for invalids.
By 1877 the work of the hospital increased to such an extent additional beds were needed. A $20,000 west-side addition expanded capacity to 100 beds and included a larger kitchen. These years were not easy, but the courage, fortitude and optimism of the Sisters was evident.
Many changes and improvements occurred in the 1890s and into the early 20th century. The St. Mary’s Ambulance Society founded by benefactors of the hospital raised money through annual assessments for the purchase and maintenance of the city’s first ambulance used by all who needed it. Internal improvements were made to the laundry, kitchen, and chapel. After working and sleeping in the hospital for 48 years, a convent was built to house the Sisters.
During the first fifty years, from 1866 through 1916, the Sisters completed or acquired five additions to the original hospital to meet the city growth and continuing needs. By the early 1900s, St. Mary’s Hospital was considered “one of the very best hospitals in the West.”
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.
Peoples History of Quincy and Adams County, Illinois. Edited by Fr. Landry Genosky. Quincy, IL: Jost & Kiefer Printing Co., 1975.
Quincy and Adams County, A History and Representative Men, vol. 1. Edited by David F. Wilcox, Chicago, IL: The Lewis Publishing Company, 1919.
St. Mary Hospital. Better Ways Volume Xll Number 1, March 1991.
Sequel: The Magazine of St. Mary Hospital. Vol 6 No. 2, 1983
