“For those of you who are kind of picky on history—and I suppose this is the kind of room where that might happen,” said Sr. Mary Therese Sweeney at the Orange Community Historical Society 2007 Annual Dinner, “the story of St. Joseph Hospital started in 1927.”
That’s why, she explained, the Sisters of St. Joseph and the staff of the St. Joseph Health System are celebrating the hospital’s eightieth anniversary this year—even though it didn’t open its doors till 1929.
Perhaps many attendees didn’t expect the keynote presentation, a history of the hospital and its growth in Orange, to be so rich in humor, but Sr. Mary Therese, the health system’s director of mental health, and her partner presenter, St. Joseph Hospital Foundation Vice President Julie Holt, brought the history of the Sisters of St. Joseph, St. Joseph Hospital, and the health system to vivid life on January 25.
The religious order got its start in 1650 France. From the beginning, the sisters were concerned with health care. They “provided a place to stay if you were in any form of desperation,” Sister explained.
In 1836 the order traveled to St. Louis. They, along with sisters from other religious orders, became renowned for their nursing skills. At the time of the Civil War, nuns were the only trained nurses in the United States; about fifteen percent of Civil War nurses were Catholic sisters, Sister Mary Therese said.
The Sisters of St. Joseph continued their westward journey, landing in Eureka, Calif., in 1912. “When we got to Eureka, we had 60 cents, so that wasn’t enough for a hospital,” the Sister quipped. Through hard work and savvy business deals the sisters managed to open a Northern California hospital, though, and their health care reign grew steadily.
A change in leadership in their local diocese led them to move to Southern California, where they moved onto Orange’s Burnham Estate—at the corner of what is now Batavia and La Veta—in March 1921. Very soon after the move the sisters began their efforts to open a local hospital. Estimated construction costs were $300,000 when the local newspaper first announced their plans. The original St. Joseph Hospital, which still stands on the campus with the modern hospital, Children’s Hospital of Orange County, and other facilities, ended up costing more than $600,000 to build.
Its first year, the hospital brought in an income of $1000. Sisters worked in every arena, from the laundry to the pharmacy.
Things have changed at St. Joseph, which was the site of the first bone marrow transplant in the county, and which—in 1986—opened the county’s first comprehensive outpatient cancer center. St. Joseph is home to the third largest emergency department in the state, and in August ground was broken for a new “one-stop shop” for cancer treatment.
The Orange Community Historical Society hosts general meetings, open to the public, every other month. Each meeting features a speaker on a topic of Orange history. For more information, click on Events.
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Last updated 03/19/2007 01:28 PM |