USA > Massachusetts > Berkshire County > Pittsfield > The history of Pittsfield, Massachusetts, from the year 1876 to the year 1916 > Part 20
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THE HOUSE OF MERCY
Her devotion to the House of Mercy sprang from a catholic sense of humanity, of which Pittsfield saw other evidence. Both the variety and the vigor of her interests were out of the ordinary. But it was with men and women whose mission was, in any degree, the alleviation and prevention of physical distress that Mrs. Plunkett associated herself with a sympathy especially profound. She could easily be enlisted in any philanthropic crusade, large or small, of which the object was to combat disease or needless discomfort, and her researches in the homely science of household hygiene were widely published. Doctors, and trained nurses, and medical students found her a warm and under- standing friend, while the women who worked so loyally with her for the House of Mercy were cognizant no less of her affection for them and their cause than of her capable leadership.
Mrs. Plunkett died at Pittsfield, December twenty-sixth, 1906.
As Mrs. Plunkett represented the type of Pittsfield woman- hood which founded, and upheld, and upholds the House of Mercy, so was the type of Pittsfield physicians who charitably labored and labor for it represented by Dr. J. F. A. Adams, and Dr. Franklin K. Paddock. Dr. Paddock was born December nineteenth, 1841, at Hamilton, New York. The vocation of med- icine had been followed by his ancestors, and thus with inherited ambition and aptitude he was graduated in 1864 from the Berk- shire Medical Institute at Pittsfield. Immediately upon gradua- tion, he began in Pittsfield the practice of his calling, and there continued it without intermission until his death on July twenty- sixth, 1901. He was married in 1867 to Miss Anna Todd, daugh- ter of Rev. John Todd.
Dr. Paddock's industry was incessant and unsparing; and although its goal seemed to be the performance of a daily duty to mankind, rather than the extension of prestige, it achieved for his skill, particularly in surgery, a far-spread reputation. His notable operative facility was innate and was backed by a fearless and imperturbable temperament, and this facility had been so cultivated, even in the pressing routine of a large general practice, by alert observation and patient independence of thought that Dr. Paddock became recognized by his professional
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fellows in New England and New York as a brilliant and pro- gressive surgeon. He was twice, in 1894 and in 1895, the presi- dent of the Massachusetts Medical Society, and he appears to liave had opportunities to establish himself with securc distinc- tion in fields where a larger measure of renown and emolument might have been obtained than in a Berkshire valley.
That he did not strive to do so was characteristic of him, and of his sort. Behind the modernity of his attainments was his ancestral spirit-the spirit of the old-fashioned country doctors, close to the hearts, and rejoicing to be close to the hearts, of the people among whom they toiled. The loncly hill roads knew him well, in darkness, or in sunshine, or with the wind and the storm in his teeth; and for nearly forty years his broad and important ministry was maintained with undiminished fervor. A modest and gentle-hearted man, he was at the same time posi- tive, outspoken, intolerant of avoidable uncertainty. In the eyes of the community he stood for rugged and brisk directness, both of purpose and expression.
Dr. Paddock's practical humanity and vocational zeal com- bined to make him an earnest and powerful coadjutor in the work of the House of Mercy. He had much to do, indeed, even with the inception of the undertaking, and brought to Pittsfield, after a visit to Europe in 1874, a stimulating account of the cot- tage hospitals in England. From its beginning, the House of Mercy enjoyed the continuous benefit of his intimate connection with it, of his professional ability, and of his personal influence throughout the county. By means of his large acquaintance among distinguished physicians in places remote from Pittsfield, he caused the House of Mercy and its training school for nurses to be widely and favorably known, and to profit by the advice and occasionally the actual services of expert practitioners, whose interest might not have been obtained without him. Finally, the constant readiness in which he held himself freely to do hospital duty, his cheery companionship, his ardor in the task of healing, were an inspiration to whose strength the hospital nurses and the members of the medical staff often bore uncon- scious testimony.
In the foregoing pages we have seen how closely also the
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name of Dr. J. F. A. Adams was identified with the early growth of the hospital. Dr. John Forster Alleyne Adams was born at Boston, March twentieth, 1844. The outbreak of the Civil War interrupted his professional education at Harvard; and the young student sought service in the medical department of the navy and performed important duty on Farragut's fleet. Re- turning to college after the war, he received his degree of Doctor of Medicine from Harvard in 1866. He spent a year abroad in study at the great hospitals of Vienna and Paris, and thus with an equipment of experience somewhat uncommon for a youthful physician in those days, he came to Pittsfield in 1867, and soon formed with Dr. Franklin K. Paddock a partnership which, al- though formally discontinued after fifteen years, remained a practical association of purpose and effort until Dr. Paddock's death. Dr. Adams exerted a unique intellectual force in Pitts- field all his life. His wit, his play of philosophy and humor, il- luminated meetings of literary, scientific, or charitable societies; and his pleasantries were quoted probably with greater relish than those of any other Pittsfield man of his day. His voice was crisp, and his eyes possessed a peculiar sort of smiling, kindly brightness which the years did not dim. A scholarly reader, both of general and professional literature, he had the art of packing the more elaborately expressed thoughts of others into brisk, pithy, memor- able phrases. He loved books; and he was a faithful trustee and president of the Berkshire Athenaeum and Museum.
The spirit of Christian philanthropy was strong in Dr. Adams. He was ever ready to devote the product of his study and experience to the good of the community; he labored on the town's board of health when such labor was not popular; and he strove always, by speech, pen, and act, to show people how to protect themselves against disease. He was a scientific investi- gator, who knew how to make the result of investigation plain to the layman. His services to the House of Mercy were given long and unstintedly. After age had called him to rest and re- tirement, he undertook, with the zeal of a younger man, to es- tablish the anti-tuberculosis sanatorium in Pittsfield, and he was for five years president of its sustaining association. In the re- ligious, charitable, and parochial activities of his church, St.
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Stephen's, he was a constant and devout sharcr, serving for many years as its senior warden.
Dr. Adams died at Pittsfield, July twenty-seventh, 1914. In his death the medical profession of the county suffercd, and recognized, a singular loss, for he had endeared himself to its members, as he had to the citizens of Pittsfield, by his adherence to the ideals of a cultured gentleman, proud of the work given him to do in the world and cheerily desirous to do it well.
Another friend of great value to the House of Mercy in its youthful days was Dr. W. E. Vermilye, who came to Pittsfield in 1871 and ceased to be a resident of the town in 1886. He was a native of New York City, where he was born in 1828. Dr. Ver- milye was a courtly, kind-hearted, and high-principled man, and a helpful officer of St. Stephen's Church. He died at Flushing, New York, February second, 1888.
CHAPTER XV
CHARITIES AND BENEFACTIONS
A S the women who inaugurated the House of Mercy were American pioneers in providing public hospital relief outside the large cities, so the early managers of the Union for Home Work, formed in Pittsfield in 1878, were among the first practical philanthropists in this country to establish successfully a central organization of which the purpose was to carry on all the various charitable works of a community. A similar association existed in Buffalo in 1877, and an experiment of the same sort was on trial in Hartford, Connecticut, at about the same time; but in towns of no greater population than Pitts- field the centralization of charity was, in 1878, a novel under- taking.
The origin of the Union for Home Work was inspired by Rev. Jonathan L. Jenkins. When he founded it, he had been a resi- dent of the town for scarcely a year; and he could look at local social problems with the clear vision of a newcomer. Charity in Pittsfield, both public and private, had been loosely adminis- tered. The selectmen, charged with aiding the poor outside the almshouse at the expense of the town, had little time, and some of them had occasionally little willingness, perhaps, for due inves- tigation. The fields of the various charitable societies over- lapped at some points, while at others they left intervals of un- covered ground. Moreover, because of the comparatively small size of the community, they were bound to depend generally upon the same supporters; a condition that prohibited that division of philanthropic interests which is possible only in large cities and which is advantageous alike to those who give and to those in need.
Under a name selected with wisdom in its avoidance of the word "charity", the Union for Home Work began its helpful
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operations in 1878 with a board of management of twenty-five men and women, five being chosen by cach of five churches. The Union was supported by donations, which were stimulated by the annual appeal of a public meeting. A superintendent was employed; and headquarters were soon occupied in a house on Dunham Street, which were in 1883 removed to the Read building at the corner of North and Fenn Streets. Originally the chief functions of the association were to distribute charitable assist- ance, to find work for the indigent, and to advance religious in- terests. These were soon broadened. Indeed, a noteworthy merit of the institution was flexibility. After a few months, for example, the religious function, at first strongly emphasized, was discarded; and during the earliest five years of its existence the Union conducted, besides a bureau of employment and of charity distribution, a sewing school, an evening school, coffee rooms, and a series of mothers' meetings. In the same period, the annual number of visits of investigation made by the super- intendent increased from 700 to 2,500, and the number of volun- teer district visitors from thirty-three to fifty. The selectmen for two years consigned to the Union a part of their official work of "outside relief", and for the next two years the whole of it, work which involved the assistance of about sixty dependent families. Then came a rupture and a stormy town meeting; and the Union ceased to be the town almoner.
The Union was incorporated in 1887, and a board of trustees, a body separate from the board of managers, was empowered to hold its property. The organization had by that time initiated and assumed the charge of several additional philanthropies, such as a club for working girls, a small and elementary vocational school for boys, and the care of poor children sent from the great cities to Berkshire for a fortnight's playtime. In 1889 the newly established Berkshire County Home for Aged Women became allied with the Union for Home Work; and the latter removed its headquarters to the building erected on South Street for the use of the two organizations by the sons of Zenas Marshall Crane.
This alliance proved to be too complicated and was severed in 1890. The Union, however, retained its rooms in the South Strect building until 1895, when it occupied the house on Fenn
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Street numbered 119, which it was enabled to purchase by the sale to the Home for Aged Women of its interest in the property of the Home. At the same time, a general reorganization was ef- fected. Established in its new quarters, the Union conducted a sewing school, a cooking school, a day nursery, a fruit and flower mission for poor invalids, a boys' club, and the administration of a "fresh air fund" for the benefit of New York children; super- vised a reading and coffee room on Depot Street; and maintained employment and charitable aid departments. The Pittsfield Kindergarten Association opened the first free kindergarten in the city in the house of the Union on Fenn Street.
Perhaps the Union in later years attempted to do too much. Perhaps the dual organization, with a board of trustees and a separate board of managers, was cumbersome. At any rate, it is obvious that soon after 1900 the increasing size of the city caused philanthropic people to separate more and more into de- tached groups, each with a particular interest. The Union for Home Work ceased to be active in 1911, having done good service for thirty-three years by enlisting the support of hundreds of generous men and women, by introducing Pittsfield to many valuable agencies of charity, then new to the community, and by cultivating a spirit of co-operative kindness. Founded when such organizations were rare in this country, the Union was not only a benefit but a distinction to the town.
Upon the long list of presidents of the Union are the names of Rev. J. L. Jenkins, Rev. George W. Gile, Rev. W. W. Newton, Rev. George Skene, Rev. Orville Coates, Rev. Carl G. Horst, Rev. I. Chipman Smart, Walter F. Hawkins, Joseph Tucker, Rev. Thomas W. Nickerson, and John M. Stevenson. The first superintendent was Theodore Bartlett, and his successors were George E. Sprong, Rev. George H. C. Viney, and Mrs. J. A. Maxim.
The Union and its successors in various fields of philanthropy supplemented the beneficent activity of many charitable societies in the different churches, of which no enumeration or description can here be attempted. Nor can our pages venture to relate in detail the philanthropic work performed by local branches of several organizations having a national scope, like the Ethel
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HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD
Division and the Pittsfield branch of the Red Cross. It is to certain charities belonging more distinctively to the city that the present chapter purposes to direct attention.
When the Union for Home Work was organized in 1878, its officers suggested several charitable enterprises which miglit be developed, and among these was mentioned the establishment in the future of a home for aged women. Ten years later, this project was generously made possible. In 1888, a graceful brick building, designed for the uses both of the Union and of a home for aged women, was erected on South Street by the sons of Zenas Marshall Cranc of Dalton, in compliance with the wishes and to the memory of their father, who died in 1887.
Early in June, 1889, the building was occupied by the Berk- shire County Home for Aged Women and by the Union for Home Work. It was then announced that "the Union for Home Work is the corporation holding the real estate, and its Board of Mana- gers elects the Board of Control of the Home, but has no further connection with the management of the institution." In 1890, however, this arrangement was altered, because of confusion re- sulting from the alliance of a local with a county organization, and the Home for Aged Women was separately incorporated. The institution originally was not endowed, and did not offer to support its beneficiaries entirely without cost to them. The ex- penses were paid by annual subscriptions. The first occupants of the Home were the matron and the two former inmates of a modest establishment of a similar character on Elm Street, which had been conducted for two years under the auspices of Rev. W. W. Newton and had been named by him "Naomi Home."
The inmates of the Berkshire County Home for Aged Women have numbered about twenty each year. A considerable endow- ment fund has been accumulated, and more than three hundred men and women compose the sustaining corporation. The first president of the Board of Control, Mrs. James B. Crane, was suc- ceeded in 1905 by Mrs. Zenas Crane, who is now the president. The institution, neither a hospital nor an almshouse, has filled a place among the philanthropies of the city which in most com- munities is vacant.
Zenas Marshall Crane, whose wishes were followed by his
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sons when they placed the institution at the disposal of the people of the county, was a native and resident of Dalton, where he was born January twenty-first, 1815, and where he died, March twelfth, 1887; and an account of his honorable life and character belongs more properly to the history of that town than to a history of Pittsfield. It may be said of him here, however, that his many philanthropies were not confined in their operation to a single community, and that he was conspicuous throughout Berkshire for his support of causes of charity, education, and re- ligion. His humanitarianism was at once tender and firm, nor did it lack the quality of high courage, for he was an early member of the "Free Soil" political party in 1848, when publicly to attack slavery required no little boldness.
It has been mentioned that the house of the Union for Home Work on Fenn Street provided a room for the city's first free kindergarten. This school was supported and conducted by the Pittsfield Kindergarten Association, organized in August, 1895, with a membership of about one hundred and fifty, The kin- dergarten was opened in the following September. It remained for a year on Fenn Street, and then was moved to a room in the Solomon Lincoln Russell schoolhouse. In 1898, the room in the schoolhouse being no longer available, the city government made a small appropriation for renting a room elsewhere on Peck's Road for the kindergarten conducted by the association, whose work, although on a small scale, was so excellent and so well- advertised as to result in the adoption of kindergartens as a part of the public school system by the school committee in 1902. The association then turned over its equipment to the city and was dissolved. The prominent officers had been Mrs. William L. Adam, Mrs. George H. Kinnell, and Mrs. Walter F. Hawkins. Two teachers were employed, and about $1,000 was raised an- nually for running expenses.
The organization of the Pittsfield Anti-tuberculosis Associa- tion in 1908 was due in chief to the benevolent spirit of Dr. J. F. A. Adams and to his enthusiastic devotion to the task of healing and preventing disease. The by-laws of the association de- clared its objects to be "to promote a careful study of conditions concerning tuberculosis in Pittsfield; to inform the community
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HISTORY OF PITTSFIELD
as to causes and prevention of tuberculosis; to secure adequate provision for the care of tuberculosis patients in their houses, and in hospitals and sanatoria; and to own, conduct and main- tain such hospitals and sanatoria." Money was contributed sufficient for renting a farm of about forty-five acres near Lebanon Avenue, on the southwestern outskirts of the city, and for con- verting the farmhouse to the uses of a sanatorium, which was placed in charge of a matron and nurse. The property was pur- chased by the association in 1912; and soon afterward a legacy from Dr. F. S. Coolidge of Pittsfield provided for the erection of a hospital. The announcement was made in 1915 that the new hospital would be called the Frederic Shurtleff Coolidge Me- morial House and that it had been endowed by Mrs. Coolidge in the sum of $100,000. The association now owns sixty-three acres of land, and its two hospitals can care for thirty patients.
Dr. Coolidge was born in Boston in 1867, was graduated from Harvard College in 1887, and, after receiving a medical degree from the same institution, began the practice of his profession in Chicago. There he was married to Miss Elizabeth Sprague. On May fifteenth, 1915, he died in New York. The later years of his life were spent in Pittsfield; and, although ill health had enforced his retirement from active practice, he gave spirited and valuable service to the House of Mercy and effectively co- operated with Dr. Adams in launching the Anti-tuberculosis Association.
Dr. J. F. A. Adams was the first president, and he was suc- ceeded in 1914 by Dr. Henry Colt. The hospital cares annually for about fifty patients; and the current expenses have necessarily been met in great part by current donations and by the yearly subscriptions of the members of the association, of whom therc were 813 in 1916.
One of the many undertakings of the Union for Home Work, between 1895 and 1900, had been to provide a daytime home for the infant children of working mothers. This was the object sought by the organization, in 1905, of the Pittsfield Day Nursery Association. The first president was Mrs. William H. Eaton, whose successors have been Mrs. A. M. Cowles, Miss Louise Weston, Mrs. J. McA. Vancc, and Mrs. Clarence Stephens. A
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CHARITIES AND BENEFACTIONS
house on the north side of Columbus Avenue, near Francis Ave- nue, was opened as a day nursery by this association in February, 1906. A few years afterward, the nursery was removed to the house on Fenn Street formerly occupied by the Union for Home Work. In 1908 the Pittsfield Day Nursery Association was in- corporated. The number of children cared for at the nursery of course varies greatly from day to day, the aggregate for the year being at present about 5,000. The association is unsupported by any endowment fund, and is dependent upon the subscriptions of its one hundred members, active and honorary, and upon the pro- ceeds of benefit entertainments.
The provision of public playgrounds, equipped and expertly supervised, for the boys and girls of the city was initiated in 1910 by a few citizens, who obtained from the municipal government an appropriation of $300 for this purpose and the privilege of trying their experiment on the grounds of the Plunkett School during the summer vacation. As a committee in charge, the mayor appointed sixteen men who had been nominated by the Board of Trade, the Father Mathew Total Abstinence Society, the Young Men's Christian Association, and the Boys' Club, each organization naming four members.
In 1911, this committee was incorporated as the Park and Playground Association, and the members borrowed sufficient money on their personal obligations to purchase the plot of land on Columbus Avenue, now called the William Pitt Playground. The city government appropriated $500 for maintenance, and $1,000 was raised by subscription. With this money the associa- tion, in 1911, opened and conducted three playgrounds, one on the common, another at Springside, and a third on Columbus Avenue. Since that year the development of the system has been rapid. The annual municipal appropriation has been increased to $3,000. In 1912 and again in 1913, the association bought land at Springside. Additional playgrounds were opened near Pontoosuc Lake and at the Russell factory village. In 1915 the city purchased all the land owned by the association. The out- lay for maintenance and direction, however, has been met only partly by the annual appropriation from the city treasury, and popular subscription has been necessary.
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Although the chief purpose of the association has been to give to Pittsfield children a broad opportunity for healthful, safe amusement, large classes at the playgrounds have been attended in sewing, basketry, and clay modeling. Instructors of folk dancing have found many pupils. The number of trained super- visors employed by the association has increased to about thirty. In 1915 the total attendance of children at the different play- grounds during the summer was approximately 90,000. The presidents of the Park and Playground Association have been J. Ward Lewis and Charles L. Hibbard.
The Hillcrest Surgical Hospital was incorporated under the laws of the Commonwealth as a public charitable institution on July ninth, 1908. The hospital had then been conducted for a few months as a private enterprise by Dr. Charles H. Richardson, who shared with several Pittsfield doctors and other citizens the opinion that the existing public hospital accommodations in the county were unable to satisfy the increasing demand for them. The number of patients in the hospital when the institution was incorporated was twenty-four and the building utilized was at the south corner of Springside Avenue and North Street.
The usefulness of the new hospital to the people of the city, and indeed of the county, was demonstrated almost immediately. During the first two years of its existence, 1,058 patients were cared for; of these, 352 were classified as free, or paying only in part for hospital care. The facilities were increased by the addi- tion of two buildings, one of which was used as a nurses' home; three hospital rooms were endowed; and the donations received amounted to nearly $20,000. A post-graduate course of instruc- tion in surgery was offered to nurses having diplomas from other institutions; and in 1909 a full course training school was or- ganized.
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