Housing for sisters suffering from tuberculosis in 1910. In the early 20th Century, tuberculosis was rife in religious communities, and accounted for the deaths of many young sisters. Fresh air was regarded as the primary treatment. Duluth Benedictine sisters suffering from the disease lived in screened caravans on the grounds of the Kenwood property.
In 1908, St. Mary's Hospital in Duluth started its first school of nursing. Student nurses lived at St. Theresa's Hall nearby the hospital at Fourth Avenue East and Third street. Here, an early graduating class assembles in front of the residence.
The staff of St. Mary's Hospital, Duluth, in 1925, including (front to back) student nurses, sister nurses and chaplain, physicians, sister staff, lay nurses and staff. The sister in black in the second row is the hospital administrator, Sister Olivia Gowan.
In 1935, children from the St. Mary's Hospital pediatrics unit take advantage of a sunny summer day on the roof. The chairs came from the Chicago World's Fair.
St. Mary's Hospital early insurance ticket. From 1892 until 1913, the Duluth Benedictine sisters sold an early form of hospital insurance in the form of "lumberjack tickets" which for a fee of from $1 to $5 (and later more), entitled the holder to admission to any of the Benedictine hospitals in Minnesota. This side of the ticket describes conditions under which the ticket cannot be used.
A hospital insurance ticket from 1895 for St. Mary's Hospital in Duluth. These tickets were sold to lumbermen in northern Minnesota by sisters such as Sister Amata Mackett, who travelled to their camps and performed other home-y duties for the lumberjacks as well as selling tickets.
The "new" St. Mary's Hospital in 1898. In 1894, the Benedictine sisters of Duluth had plans drawn up for a proposed motherhouse and school to be built on property they owned at 5th Avenue East and Third street. The foundations were laid, but money was short and the project had to be abandoned. In 1897 Bishop McGolrick suggested that a hospital be built on that site. The building was completed in 1898 and the hospital moved from its West End location to the new site of St. Mary's Hospital.
During the Second World War, Girl Scout troops volunteered at St. Mary's Hospital. Here, in 1942, they are washing and folding rubber gloves. They also cleaned surgical instruments.
The building which was the first St. Mary's Hospital in Duluth, as it appeared in 1945. In the mid-1880s, Abbot Alexius Edelbrock of St. John's Abbey considered creating an independent foundation of Benedictine monks in Duluth. In 1887 three buildings were constructed in Duluth's west end: a church, a parish house and a school and residence using bricks manufactured at St. John's. Plans for the new foundation did not materialize, but Abbot Alexius convinced Mother Scholastica Kerst that the large building could be converted into a hospital. The Benedictine sisters did exactly this, opening the first St. Mary's Hospital at 20th Ave. East and 3rd Street on February 29, 1888.
Nursing students from St. Mary's Hospital School of Nursing in 1937 enjoy a game of billiards in their recreation room at their residence at Third Avenue East and Third Street in Duluth.
Student nurses from the College of St. Scholastica practice on animals in the laboratory at St. Mary's Hospital in 1939 with the assistance of a technician.