Bishop Joseph Busch with Mother Louise Walz, prioress, and Sisters Priscilla Schmidbauer, plant manager, and Ethelburga Farrell, treasurer, are on the podium dedicating the land purchased for the construction of the St. Cloud Hospital which was finally built beginning in 1926 and completed in 1928.
Exterior view of St. Cloud's first hospital, dedicated in 1886, during demolition. The brick building, on Ninth Avenue North next to St. Raphael's, was replaced by a chapel.
Frank Karn transferred from employment from Saint Benedict's Convent to St. Cloud Hospital when it opened in 1928 and stayed on for 45 years. He was a registered engineer.
The upper floors of St. Raphael's Hospital II were destroyed by fire in 1905. This was the sisters' third hospital in St. Cloud. With the failure of the hospital site (St. Raphael's I) east of the Mississippi River, the sisters had again faced the burden of financing a hospital; financial aid from the city was not available. In 1900 they had built this hospital of 2+ stories, large enough for 50 patients, next to the site of the first hospital on Ninth Avenue. It was again named St. Raphael's and often referred to as St. Raphael's II. The fire gave the necessary thrust, not only to restore the upper floors, but to expand the hospital. (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives, McDonald, pages 257-258).
Early medical staff of St. Cloud Hospital included (back row, left to right) Drs. J. McDowell, Clark, C. Goehrs, Bendix, Veranth, Evans, Schatz, Beuning, (Seated) Donaldson, Wenner, Baumgartner, J. Gaida, Halenbeck, B. Richards.
The main entrance to the St. Cloud Hospital was flanked with two open-court patios, each with a water fountain set into a foundation shaped as a Benedictine cross. The patio to the west of the entrance shown here was used as the public entrance to the pharmacy.
Construction of the St. Cloud Hospital began in July 1926. The Sisters had chosen a beautiful location on the banks of the Mississippi River and built the St. Cloud Hospital as close to its shores as feasible.
Miss Wilma Johnson, a superintendent of nurses from Chicago, was engaged by the Sisters of St. Benedict to serve as the first director of the St. Raphael's School of Nursing in St. Cloud from 1908 to 1910 (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives, McDonald, page 258).
The up-to-date equipment in St. Raphael's Hospital was the pride and joy of the sisters and the medical staff. The operating room was designed for the radically new method of sterilizing everything. Dr. John B. Dunn, who had studied surgery both in Germany and in the eastern U.S., introduced this method in St. Cloud as early as 1893. It had made useless the elaborate surgical equipment for the wet antiseptic or Listerian method used at the first St. Raphael's Hospital I (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives, McDonald, pages 257-258).
St. Raphael's Hospital (II) was furnished with latest type of equipment, including dumb waiters, bathrooms and toilets. Rates for health care services were advertised as follows; Accommodation in private room, per week, $9 to $15; Accommodation in double room, per week, $7.00; Accommodation in general ward, per week, $6.00; Beverages, Medicines and Night Watch . . . Extra; Medical Attendance . . . Payments Weekly in Advance. When the illness is likely to be of long duration, a deposit is to be made with the Superioress (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives).
The patients' rooms at the St. Cloud Hospital were private. The linen sheets, pillowcases, dresser scarves and small table clothes were matched sets, hand-embroidered by the Sisters of the Order of Saint Benedict.
Sisters were being trained for every aspect of health care, including the distribution of medicine. They served as certified pharmacists in their hospitals in St. Cloud, Duluth and Bismarck, and in the sisters' and students' infirmaries at St. Benedict's Convent/Academy in St, Joseph (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives).
Failing in their hope to dispose of St. Raphael's Hospital (I) by a sale to the State that was then looking for a location for a women's reformatory, the sisters converted St. Raphael's Hospital (I) to a nursing home. St. Joseph's Home (rear view) served the elderly for 78 years (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives, McDonald, pages 261-262).
The homey atmosphere of this room served well as the reception area of the hospital and later as a parlor when St. Raphael's Hospital became a nursing home (Saint Benedict's Monastery Archives).