| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Posted on Wed, Nov. 13, 2002 BEFORE DESEGREGATION, AFRICAN AMERICANS HAD NO OTHER HOSPITAL Tim Funk , Staff Writer
What used to be 411 W. Hill St. is now part of Ericsson Stadium. But for 70 years, it was the address for Good Samaritan Hospital, where black doctors huddled around operating tables, black nurses wore uniforms of starched white and cheers went up whenever a black baby was born. On Tuesday, retired nurses and doctors who worked at North Carolina's first privately funded hospital for African Americans gathered with dignitaries -- some of whom started life as Good Sam babies -- to unveil a historical marker just outside the stadium. For black Charlotteans, who have seen so much of their history bulldozed in the name of growth, it was a big day. "Without Good Samaritan," Jim Richardson told the gathering of about 50 people, "African Americans in this whole region would never have had a place to go for operations and treatment for serious illnesses." "Good Samaritan Hospital," the plaque reads. "1891-1961." Those were years of segregation. Black taxpayers helped pay for the latest equipment at Charlotte Memorial Hospital, but they were not permitted to walk through its front doors, let alone seek treatment. Instead, they went to Good Sam. Former N.C. Sen. Richardson, 76, grew up a short hike from the hospital. As a kid, he'd fetch soft drinks and run errands for patients. As a young man, he'd hang around for a different reason. "The day the hospital closed was one of the saddest days of my life," Richardson said. "I went home and cried all day. They had some of the prettiest nurses." Mecklenburg County commissioner Norman Mitchell also spoke Tuesday. He was born at Good Sam, at 3:05 p.m. on Sept. 7, 1947. Mitchell said he pushed for the historical marker at the request of civic leader Willie Stratford Sr., who died this year, and Thereasea Elder, a retired nurse who worked on the hospital's maternity floor for 14 years. Elder, 75, was also there Tuesday, along with several alumni of the hospital's nursing school, who continue to hold reunions every other year. In the '40s and '50s, they said, the hospital's doctors and nurses dealt with chronic shortages of money, linen and modern equipment by improvising, chipping in their own money and taking on extra chores. Nurses bought curtains, painted rooms, mopped floors, cleaned bathrooms and washed windows. "We were sort of behind the times, at least compared to what they had at Charlotte Memorial," said Esther Sturgis, 68, who started working at Good Sam in 1955. "But we did the best we could. And everybody took care of each other." Good Sam: The early years Good Samaritan -- named for the biblical character who cared for a wounded man lying by the Jericho Road -- was built by a church. A white church.Led by Jane Renwick Wilkes, the Ladies Aid Society of St. Peter's Episcopal Church raised $700 for the lot on Hill Street and $4,400 to build the hospital. It opened in 1891. "Every room is well ventilated," read a newspaper report. "On the upper and lower floors are hot and cold baths, and the rooms are provided with iron cots with springs." The first patient: A man found lying inside the gate, unconscious, and in the last stages of pneumonia. He was given a bed and cared for until his death. In its early years, Good Sam suffered from a perception that hospitals were places where people went to die. Such attitudes faded with the new century, and Good Samaritan eventually added two wings and 22 nurses. "(Good Samaritan) had a small beginning, but today it has 100 beds and bassinets," The Observer reported in 1942. "In the last four years, 3,107 babies have been born in the hospital. Nine hundred operations for tumors were performed last year." By the 1950s, St. Peter's found it hard to support a hospital. "It was frustrating to me," said Dr. George Lowe, 81, a pediatrician. "The hospital did an excellent job of medical care, but we didn't have the facilities or the equipment that other hospitals had." In 1961, the city took over, renaming it Charlotte Community Hospital. A few years later, after civil rights protests, Charlotte Memorial (now Carolinas Medical Center) was desegregated. Good Sam's chapel saved The building that began as Good Samaritan eventually became Magnolias Rest Home. Then, in 1996, it was torn down to make room for Ericsson Stadium. Not all of it was demolished. Elder told the Levine Museum of the New South that the hospital's chapel was in storage. In 2001, the museum restored about two-thirds of it; the rest had been invaded by termites. Pews, an organ, an altar and stained glass featuring the Good Samaritan are all on display at the museum on Seventh Street. For Elder, it was a chance (like Tuesday's unveiling of the marker) to trumpet a cherished bit of history. "God put me in the right place at the right time," she said. "And I'm glad he did, because it's so important to pass on your history to generations yet unborn. They need to know whose shoulders they'll be standing on." | |||||||||
|
