PEORIA MUNICIPAL TUBERCULOSIS SANITARIUM

          PEORIA  MUNICIPAL  TUBERCULOSIS  SANITARIUM

                                        NORMAN  V.  KELLY

Folks around here called it ‘The San.’  In fact newspaper articles and editorials always referred to this magnificent hospital that way.  The patients did as well and through the forty years of the in house newsletter ‘Peoria Fluoroscope,’ patients and editorials called the TB Hospital ‘The San.’   Some people dropped the and just called it ‘San.’ I have written hundreds of historical stories about buildings and famous people in our town, but none of them had a heart and soul like ‘The San.’ It was like a ‘living thing’ to the patients and their loved ones.

 

As usual behind every major community project the dreamers, the planners, and the forward thinking people here in Peoria worked hard and long to get this hospital up and running, and it lasted from 1919 until January 1, 1973. Almost 6,000 patients went through the precious care the hospital delivered, saving thousands of lives as it cared for anyone that needed its services. Of course, their was a political element in such a project but the historical record shows that legislation was passed allowing cities to tax their citizens for the fund to build and maintain TB hospitals in 1908. However it was not until 1919 that the hospital was finally opened.  Again, no thanks to the politicians, they passed the taxing law but that is as far as their participation in the process went.  It took the efforts of men like Dr. Sumner Miller who got tired of waiting for a political boost and he formed a group in 1911 called The Peoria Tuberculosis Association; that group got little to no help from the city council.

 

                                     TB   ASSOCIATION

 

The Association formed a TB Dispensary inside the Bacon Mission located on the Southside of Peoria, Illinois in 1912.  Mayor Woodruff, in 1914 appointed a board of Directors for ‘The San’ that had not yet been built and the dispensary hired its first nurse, Catherine Connor.

Dr. Miller pressured the city council and they finally voted for a new tax and on November 4, 1914 the City of Peoria bought the Hartwig farm for $5,750.00, on a beautiful, restful place about eight miles up Galena Road.  They bought the Koch Farm, adding additional acres totaling fifteen acres.  Everything was ready to go but WW1 intervened.  The TB Dispensary group decided to push ahead and had two cottages built on the land while awaiting the war’s end. When WW1 ended building proceeded and eventually ‘The San’ acquired twenty-six acres and a lot more buildings. It was a city within itself, self-contained and later included a home for the nurses and the resident physicians. In January 1972 the ten patients still in the hospital were transferred to the Pulmonary Department of Saint Francis Hospital in Peoria. The TB Hospital then closed its doors and faded away as time rolled on.

 

                                  AN  EIGHTH  GRADE  PATIENT

 

Mary Linn lived in ElVista when I lived there. She was looking forward to her last year at Woodrow Wilson Grade School when she became ill with Tuberculosis.  Her father was in ‘The San’ and now she was going to join him.  Her father, at the young age of 40 died of complications from the disease and now she wondered what was going to happen to her. That was August of 1950 and instead of going back to school, she was admitted right away into “The San.” “I was put in one of the cottages just away from the main building.  They told me that my disease was not ‘positive,’ which meant that I was not contagious. My disease was discovered in an early stage so I was lucky they found it so soon. Naturally I was not a happy girl, I felt alone, I could not see my family and I was scared.  I quickly enrolled in the school and had a tutor for my eighth grade.  I certainly did not like my teacher but I managed pretty well and was happy that I would not have the eighth grade to do when I got back home.  The routine was pretty boring, lots of bed rest, and very good food three times a day which I ate over in the main building.”

Mary got along rather well but really missed her sister Norma and the rest of her family.  “I got a shot of Streptomycin every day and twelve pills a day; something they called ‘Pas.’ Everyone treated me rather nicely but my tutor.  I started to get used to everything and the daily routine.  You know, Norm, the doctors, nurses and just about everyone smoked inside the hospital, which I thought was strange but of course we did not know how dangerous that was way back then.  I told you I went in the hospital in August and on November 11, 1950 my father died; he was only forty years old. Since my father died of TB perhaps they watched me a bit closer because I remember getting a lot of x-rays and an awful lot of additional tests.  It was during March that I was released from the hospital.  I could not go to school and I spent most of my time in bed.  At least I did not get anymore injections but I still had to take all the pills. The doctor and nurses at ‘The San’ took very good care of me and I am grateful for all their kind words and treatment.”

 

So, the hospital stayed open for 53 years and then sent the remaining 10 patients to the Pulmonary Department at room 2-A in Saint Francis Hospital on December 31, 1972.  Through the efforts of all the doctors and nurses and dedicated staff, TB was no longer the deadly disease it was for so many years.

Editor’s Note:  Norm is a Peoria Historian, fiction and true crime writer and a monthly contributor to Adventure Sports Outdoors.   norman.kelly@sbcglobal.net