by Paul R. Spitzzeri
A significant part of the reason for the length of this post is that, as Los Angeles burgeoned in population during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, while economic inequality widened, aspects like medical care struggled to keep up with the growth, even as technology, procedures, techniques and other aspects were improving. Much progress was made in these areas in the last half of the 1800s, but access was becoming more challenging for a growing number of poor residents, including those of color.
Another aspect is that children tend to be vastly underrepresented in the interpretation of our regional history and, outside of education, this is one of the few elements of local life in which we get a chance to discuss in some detail the younger members of greater Los Angeles society. The establishment of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles as the 1900s dawned is an important event and dramatic changes took place in its operations through its first fifteen years or so.
We left off with part four by discussing some of the activities and events that took place at the facility through late 1909. While there was some marked development in the levels of care, funding for the institution and improvements made to the former residence and property of General Edward Bouton on which the hospital operated, a huge leap forward came with a summer 1904 bequest from the estate of Elizabeth Goodwin that left a valuable commercial property on Broadway in downtown Los Angeles to the association which ran the facility for a future new home.
The Los Angeles Times of 14 March 1909 wrote about the “cheerful sufferers” who convalesced in a “gem of cleanliness in a district [long known as Sonoratown] that might be cleaner.” One of the patients, called “the mainstay of the institution,” was described only as “Big Chief” and who spent almost all of his time lying in a brace because of a spinal condition—in November 1907, the Los Angeles Record featured the young Cahuilla patient, who was Charlie “Big Chief” Colby, who was then called “one of the brightest, merriest children in the hospital” but who could walk, so there may have been a change in his health status.
Another boy in the surgical ward, who was ten years old and not named, was said to be “wondering what he is to do in life without his feet” as both were amputated. The article noted that “charity cases are always given preference,” but there were some parents who could pay small amounts for their children. Lastly, it was noted that there were twenty-five children who could be cared for at the hospital, which was always full.
The 11 June edition of the Record went into great detail about the hospital with Katherine M. Zengerle writing that the facility did not accept patients whose conditions were considered chronic and incurable “because of its limited accommodations and facilities.” She added that, while “sickness is pathetic,” a visit left one feeling better than when they arrived because “when not actually in pain, the little ones are laughing and talking with each other.
Zengerle mentioned a screened area where young ones were kept to enjoy some sun, with a half-dozen baskets containing these patients, while “most attractive of all is the summer house” where children who wore braces for spinal and other issues were placed. She noted that the nurses believed that “fresh air and sunshine are wonderful aids in tuning the sickly little bodies.”
Mentioned again was “Indian Charlie,” a resident of almost three years, but “now on the road to recovery.” Moreover, the young man “is ready to make friends with every comer” with plenty of queries for visitors and information to share about his fellows. There was also “Japanese Tommy,” who had a cancerous growth on his nose, but “poor Tommy does not know what you are saying,” though “his eyes answer the smile you give him” and he carefully observed as Zengerle made her rounds through the ward. There was a Japanese attendant who “lingered a bit longer and with a little more tenderness” with the patient.
Also discussed at some length was superintendent Isabel Smith, “a sweet-faced, quiet woman,” who spoke about the infants under her care, who pointed out that
Improper foods and poor milk set up an irritation and soon the babies are beyond the parents’ care. These are the cases we are more apt to lose, for, when the inflammation is too great, we can do very little . . . The subject of feeding babies properly is one whose importance is hard for many people to realize.
Lastly, Zengerle noted that “the work of the hospital would be impossible were it not for the aid given by many of the most prominent physicians and surgeons in town” who “give their services without remuneration.” She concluded that, with the doctors, nurses, other workers and the “noble-hearted little woman” that was Smith, “the sick children of the poor are cared for.”
The 19 September edition of the Los Angeles Herald included a brief report that the most recent meeting of the hospital association led to the decision “to erect a building on the present site” because capacity was only for 27 patients, including those aforementioned baby baskets, along with a pair of wards and three private rooms. The idea was to sell the valuable Broadway property left by Goodwin “in order to secure money for the new building.”
The Halloween edition of the paper had an important announcement regarding the future of the hospital and which changed the plan for a new structure on the existing site. The Herald reported that “four acres of ground at the southwest corner of Sunset boulevard and Vermont avenue, in what is known as the Lick tract,” this being the estate of San Francisco’s James Lick at the southwest corner of Rancho Los Feliz, “with sufficient money for the erection of a suitable building to be used by the Children’s Hospital society of Los Angeles.”
The bequest was from the will of the late Emma Phillips, who died not quite a week prior, with an estate of just north of $40,000. The provision was that a hospital be built by the fall of 1914 and that it operate for a half-century, while being named for Phillips’ daughter, Lillian. For construction, $3,000 was allotted with another $600 for landscaping.
On a general level relating to the health of children, it is striking to read an extraordinary editorial titled “The Slaughter of the Innocents” in the Times of 5 December, in which it was stated that any war that took a half million lives annually would be considered horrific, “yet it is almost as horrible to think that a half million babies die in America every year from preventable causes.” The paper asked, “Is it not incredible that we sit by and look at this state of affairs calmly?”
It further wondered “that every human being being born in this world ought to live out the natural span of life” because “no one person has any better right to this privilege than another.” Not only that, the paper asserted that “we continue to regard human life as the cheapest commodity in the world” and chided readers “we ought to be ashamed of ourselves” while adding “a nation that is so brutally selfish as this cannot always prosper.” If this condition was to continue, it thundered “the wrath of God is sure to visit us if we sit idly and lift no hand to prevent this awful slaughter of the innocents.”
All the effort directed to militaries, steel mills and soap factories belied the fact that too many people were “caring not as much as a snap of our fingers for the ravishes that death is making among the poor and the needy whose little ones are carted off to untimely graves . . . for the want of aid and attention.” The remedy for readers was to “interest yourself in children’s hospitals” and other institutions “trying to keep the specter of disease and death away” while avoiding “squandering your time at so many things that are trifling and of no account.”
The 19 March 1910 issue of the Herald ran a feature under the heading of “Little Invalids in Loving Care” which began with the observation that,
If the health of children is not cared for while the juveniles are maturing, the poor and dependent class will increase during the coming generation. Physical development of boys and girls is a vital matter which both parents and educators must see to if they perform their duties.
The subject of health and proper growth is an adjunct to that other question—[that of] morals. Without one the other becomes a problem for which even the wise have not found a solution.
After lauding the California Congress of Mothers and City of Los Angeles for its work, the paper noted that “the Children’s Hospital committee has gone further” for its efforts directed to the end that “the dread of illness combined with poverty has vanished.” This was because, two years prior, an initiative was undertaken with “unfortunate school children who receive as good treatment and attention as any other infants [children] in the city.”
Any school with a Parent-Teacher Association had a branch and “not only has a room been endowed in the hospital, but furnishings have been put in, clothing, provisions and other necessities and comforts have been forthcoming constantly.” At two schools, McKinley and Hooper Avenue, “screen houses” were built for fresh air exposure, while a fund to procure an ambulance stretcher was developed with four schools. More work was done at Inglewood, where a sewing bee for making clothes for hospital patients accompanied fundraising efforts.
Under a subheading of “Boon for the Poor,” it was added that the hospital was “a clearing house for the children of parents who cannot afford” to follow the directions of doctors “regarding treatment of ailments.” Students with tonsil and adenoid issues were not permitted to go to school, but treatment was financially prohibitive for many families. As part of its mission, the facility “will take in the worthy little ones and treat them without expense” because “the best of medical science, medicines and food are due the children of unfortunate families, and these are to be afforded freely and gladly.”
The collaboration of the Mothers’ Congress and the hospital was directed to “the health and physical upbuilding of the coming generation” and represented a strengthened relationship between mothers, poor and well-to-do, and between parents and teachers. Given this, the article concluded, “the hospital work is complete in itself, covering the city so far as the local committees are concerned, and guaranteeing that every poor child shall have the best of medical treatment when necessary.”
Occasional features on the hospital continued, such as one in the 12 June issue of the Times with the headline “Laugh While Pains Wrack” and which began by citing a placard on the door of the hospital reading “Owing to the overcrowding of the hospital, none but charity patients will be admitted.” The piece continued,
And yet this most gracious of all charitable institutions in the city of Los Angeles; a place where little, wan, white faces toss on the pillows of small white beds, must needs let other frail, poverty-stricken babies die in their unsanitary and unfit homes, because there is neither sufficient money to maintain them at this hospital, purchased and dedicated to saving their lives, and because it is impossible to pay enough nurses to properly care for them.
For the care and treatment of twenty children, expenses were all of $600 a month, though there was room for seven more patients “if the means were provided.” Funding from the City came to $50 monthly along with $250 for the lease of the stores on the Broadway party and “such donations as come from benevolent people.” While the Goodwin gift was valuable, there was a dozen years’ lease on it and for an amount then considered “ridiculous,” though it was added that the board of managers was energetically seeking a buyer because “the demand is so pressing.”
The paper continued that, such as it was, the existing facility “is well equipped and its surroundings are such as conduce to the comfort of the little sufferers in its care.” The superintendent, a Miss Leonard, was considered capable and was helped by an assistant, four “pupil nurses” and a nurse who worked evenings.
The operating room was praised as “one of the best and most sanitary in the city” as well as “the scene of some remarkable operations,” including one known worldwide in the medical community for a strangulated hernia performed by Dr. W.W. Richardson on a baby not thirty-six hours old. While the procedure was successful, the child died of another cause after a little more than a year. Also highlighted was a treatment for tetanus, which was usually fatal, with the City paying $300 for an anti-toxin.
“Little, laughing Gloria Fernandez” arrived a year prior with a diseased leg and, after other methods failed, five inches of her thigh bone were removed and, half a year later, her progress was considered excellent. During that long convalescence, Gloria mostly remained in bed with a weight attached to a rope to keep her leg from shortening as new bone grew and she was taken out in her bed to the screened porch for air and sun, but when a Times photographer came, she was placed on the lawn “to her great delight, as may be seen in her laughing face.”
On a portico, two small girls were noticed, covered in bandages and strapped to boards, with a three-year old suffering from rickets and the other, who gave her name as Vida, having a tubercular disease of the spine. She, too, was photographed, twice, and it was added that she and the unnamed companion were in that state for five months, but “they, too, were laughing as if this were a bit of play.” A nurse added that they hardly cried, but were prone to merriment “almost incessantly.”
Other patients suffered for malnutrition and pneumonia, while a two-year-old Italian boy, Piero Rinetti, placed with Gloria, wandered onto a train track and was hit, causing a concussion and fractured elbow—this 8 May accident was covered in the Times of the following day. Hospital President Mrs. Albert [Kate Page] Crutcher (1869-1954), who took on that role during the major depression year of 1907 and served for an astounding four decades told the paper, “we have no detention or contagious ward” and had to turn away patients suitable to these, though the facility very much would treat them. She earnestly hoped for someone to fund such a project.
After reminding that the services were free and that physicians charged nothing for their work, Crutcher, whose husband was a prominent attorney in what is now the firm of Gibson Dunn, commented that “the very poorest children on the streets are the ones we are looking for, and yet our regular income is far from adequate to care for those we receive, to say nothing of those we are compelled to turn away.” She added that, even when patients were released, nurses routinely followed up to see that they were doing well.
We will return tomorrow with part six, so please join us then.
I appreciate the sentiment expressed on the 1910 Herald and cited in the blog:”If the health of children is not cared for while the juveniles are maturing, the poor and dependent class will increase during the coming generation.” This statement remains remarkably true, over a century later. However, in light of the current social chaos, emphasis on positive life guidance appears to be more imperative within both families and schools. Moreover, I think the above opinion should expand to encompass not only physical health but also mental wellbeing. Neglect in these area will increase not only poor and dependent class, but as we’ve witnessed the criminal class is growing as well.