Hospital enjoys a rich history of triumphs
Catholic nuns spearheaded effort for medical center
By Katie Pizza
Argus Observer
Sunday, September 21, 2008 12:39 AM PDT
ONTARIO—As it nears the 100th anniversary of its construction, Holy Rosary Medical Center continues to be an important part of Ontario’s past and future.
“I’ve had three children born there,” Malheur County Historical Society President Tom Gray said.
The hospital began as an idea dwelling deep within the hearts and minds of six Dominican sisters of the Congregation of St. Catherine of Sienna. These sisters — Mother Mary Catherine Roth, Sister Superior Mary Dominic Murphy, Sister Mary Antoninus McCabe, Sister Mary Patrick McGuire, Sister Mary Augustine Collins and Sister Mary Catherine Clayton — were forced to leave Portugal after that nation’s government took over convents and schools.
A majority of those in the Portuguese Republican party were opposed to Catholicism and jailed the sisters, releasing them on the condition they would leave the country. After returning to their native Ireland, the nuns spoke with Father Peter Bowe, provincial of the Irish Capuchin Fathers, who had returned from the Baker City Diocese. He said the displaced nuns should look at making Eastern Oregon their new home because of a shortage of nuns and priests in the area.
The group left Drogheda, the Irish city where they first received training to be nuns, on Feb. 11, 1911. After visiting New York and Chicago, the six arrived in Ontario, where they were met by Rev. Hubert A. Campo and a local businessmen at the train depot. One area man, Dr. Jacob Prinzing, supported construction of a hospital.
The sisters originally set up a tent for patients in need of medical treatment and spent $5,000 to purchase the land where the hospital now stands, 351 S.W. Ninth St. in Ontario. Members of the community then banded together to help fund the hospital. The community donated $10,000 of the total $25,000 price tag. The rest was obtained through a loan. When it was first constructed, the hospital’s three stories and a basement included a single operating room.
“I believe it was originally built on a hill overlooking the town,” Holy Rosary Medical Center Volunteer Coordinator Linda deBoer said.
The hospital was completed on April 5, 1912, by the contractors Mallory & Mallory. The hospital was built with large verandas for patients to enjoy. The first patient, a Payette woman, was admitted April 17, 1912.
After the hospital was constructed, the sisters moved into the building, with their previous home remodeled and turned into a school, which held 20 pupils and six boarders. The school was discontinued, however, when the nuns learned there were not enough people to operate both the school and the hospital.
However, all was not rosy for the sisters after the hospital was built. Often, they were short of food and were forced to depend on the generosity of local residents to eat. The sisters also accepted payment of three rabbits and a hutch in exchange for treatment.
In February of 1913, the hospital saw the addition of a chapel. In 1915, a training school for nurses was opened, served by three nuns and two nurses. The first graduating class emerged from the school May 24, 1917.
In 1927, an elevator was installed, replacing the previous method of transporting patients up and down stairs on stretchers.
The money for the elevator was willed to the hospital by Elizabeth Poole from Payette upon her death.
Gray said the hospital has undergone a number of changes since it was first constructed.
“The whole front part is changed,” he said. “They used to have the nuns live in the front part of the building, and now they live in a whole separate area.”
A convent, which cost $50,000, was constructed in 1941.
The late 1940s represented a period of change for the medical center, then called Holy Rosary Hospital. In 1947, the hospital saw an addition of a $200,000 wing and a maternity ward. This helped to alleviate a bed shortage, which had previously forced the hospital to set priorities for admittance. In 1950, the hospital had 15 sisters, 24 doctors, 10 graduate nurses, 40 registered nurses and nurses aides, 72 beds and 20 bassinets.
The 1950s also saw the first meeting of a volunteer force, called the auxiliary, which met March 6, 1950. In the years that followed, the auxiliary held dances, bake sales, rummage sales, bazaars, card parties, silver teas and chili feeds. The money raised in these events — $24,867 from 1950 to 1954 when adjusted for inflation — was donated to the hospital to buy equipment such as food conveyors, an emergency lamp and an incubator.
The auxiliary also donated equipment for a laboratory renovation in 1955, which cost $9,047.83. Retiring auxiliary president Mrs. Hugh Gale presented the hospital with a check of more than $700 to help fund the effort, which included new sinks, gas outlets, shelves and benches.
Currently, the auxiliary, which has its own board of directors, has an average age of 67. It operates under the Holy Rosary Board of Directors.
As for the hospital itself, in the 1950s the hospital received the addition of an X-ray department, after the chapel was converted to house the machine and a new chapel built to better serve worshippers.
In 1959, the hospital received a new, $1 million wing, which contained 28 beds, a morgue, an autopsy room, a physical therapy department, a recovery room and a laboratory.
According to Argus Observer articles near the time of the wing’s grand opening, another draw was the wing’s “modern, high speed elevator (which) connects the entrance with emergency rooms and surgeries on the top floor.”
In the 1960s, Holy Rosary Hospital received new X-ray and dietary facilities, and a third floor was added to the wing constructed in the 1940s. An April 13, 1961, Catholic Sentinel article reported the hospital contained 88 beds, with 26 doctors helping the patients those beds contained. In 1964, the center received cryostat equipment to help detect cancerous tissue. The cryostat equipment would keep tissue below freezing temperatures, and other models are still used today to freeze cells for later use.
The 1964 equipment was purchased with $1,700 in donations from a funding drive headed by Paul Van Petten, the chairman of an advisory board for the hospital.
In 1969, babies were on the minds of hospital administrators, with a $500,000 maternity wing, which included an acute nursery care center, added at the time.
In 1977, construction began on an emergency room for the hospital. It was completed in 1978.
In the 1990s, a 10-bed outpatient surgical suite, a new physical therapy department and new kitchen and dining room areas were built. The ’90s also welcomed Holy Rosary’s current two-story parking facility situated in front of the hospital.
This facility more than doubled the establishment’s parking capacity — from 138 spaces to 289. In 1994, contractors completed construction on a covered drive-through area, which made it easier to pick up and drop off patients.
The remodeling also included a new chapel, which utilized the stained glass from the old chapel. The construction also included the current two-story vaulted entryway in the front of the building.
Currently, Holy Rosary Medical Center is a 49-bed acute care hospital.
As for the equipment inside, Holy Rosary continuously works to keep up with the times, from prenatal services to hospice care. DeBoer said the medical center is currently looking toward the future, namely 2011, when HRMC will celebrate its 100th anniversary, though she said no activities have been slated as of yet.
