Page 24 - Demo

Vintage Postcards of Indiana Health FacilitiesPrior to Hammond%u2019s St. Margaret Hospital, most locals were treated at home with doctors performing surgery in the patients%u2019 bedrooms. Not surprisingly, because some people felt the need to trek to Chicago for better medical care, it became obvious that a hospital was badly needed in fast- growing Lake County, Indiana. As a consequence, St. Margaret%u2019s Hospital opened its doors in the old Lautman family home, which had been purchased for $9,000. It was a two-story edifice with seven rooms and a basement, and had space for about 20 patients. In its first year of operation, 118 people were treated. It%u2019s Emmerling ambulance%u2014a wagon drawn by two white horses%u2014 soon became a familiar sight on the surrounding roads and lanes. Operations at Margaret%u2019s were first performed on a long, narrow table in the living room, and medicines were dispensed from a pie tin. John Stephens was the hospital%u2019s first patient, admitted with a broken leg. The first staff consisted of Sisters Alphonsa, Richardis, and Edwarda from the order of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration. They had arrived from Lafayette on the Monon train early on February 2, 1898. These first three sisters were soon joined by six more, and all were responsible for cooking and cleaning, as well as caring for patients. They also spent hours collecting money to keep the facility running. While it certainly had the support of the community, that support was often in the form of what was grown and raised on surrounding farms. According to Sister Edwarda, %u201cWe would fill sacks of potatoes, beets, carrots or whatever they had, chickens and grain to feed them at home. God bless those good farmers...for their charity and kindness; without it we could not have succeeded as we did those first trying years.%u201d It was soon clear that a bigger building was needed, so during August 1899, ground was broken next door for a new four-story brick facility with 70 beds. It was dedicated in October 1900.St. Margaret%u2019s Hospital%u2014%u2014Hammond, Indiana%u2014%u2014Established 1898Founded by the Sisters of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration in a small house. It was replaced by a fifty-by-onehundred-foot 4-story building that was dedicated on October 4, 1900. By 1915, it had been enlarged twice.Hospitals