Norwalk Hospital had its beginnings in a woman's compassion at the scene of a tragic accident, and became a reality in 1893 through the efforts of people from all walks of life. Now the hospital has realized its 100th year, still serving and leading, because of the steadfast support of neighbors who understand what an outstanding hospital means to the well-being of the wider community.
In 1888, when a young woman was devastated at the sight of a dying man in the street who had been struck by a train, there was nowhere in Norwalk to bring the gravely ill or injured.
The wealthy might be taken to New York or New Haven; ordinary people faced the hazards of horsecar wrecks, factory accidents, childbed fever and pneumonia with no place to turn, in a city without a hospital.
Margaret Cavanaugh enlisted passersby that day, to carry the rail victim to a makeshift dispensary in the South Norwalk depot, before she went on to her job as a hat trimmer. Deeply shocked, she vowed to find some answer for such tragic emergencies. She and other women employees went to foreman John Mains. At Margaret's suggestion, a City-wide meeting of hat workers was called-and the movement to establish the Norwalk Hospital was born.Townspeople Respond
After a "hatters' hospital fund" reached $6,000, a temporary community-wide association was organized at a public meeting. Its first fund-raiser was a benefit baseball game between married and bachelor physicians, netting $1052. The drive took on added urgency at the news that even the rudimentary first-aid room at the depot was closing. When a public rally for a hospital convened in October 1891, the Weekly Gazette reported the "monster meeting" filled every seat in the vast armory, with 300 standees as well. The Rev William J. Slocum of St. Mary's led off the pledges, declaring, "We don't want talk so much as we do want money," and the populace caught the spirit. Hat trimmers, with churches and schools, staged a bazaar hospital complex, raising $2,800, and leading citizenry flocked to the cause, assuring its success.
On December 3, 1892, incorporation of The Norwalk Hospital Association was granted by the state. At the first meeting, in the office of Judge John Light, John I. Ferris was elected president.
As temporary quarters, the association leased the second and part of the third floor of a frame house at 24 Leonard Street. On opening day, July 20, 1893, The Norwalk Hour praised the accommodations as "scrupulously clean, with separate wards for men and women, three snow-white beds in each." A converted kitchen served as an operating room and the landlord's son doubled as the first orderly and ambulance driver.
Among the original incorporators, besides ministers, merchants and other worthies, were four physicians; ever since 1868 local doctors had been meeting professionally, as the Norwalk Medical Society. Its secretary, William J. Tracey, MD., became Medical Director of the hospital, first of a Tracey tradition of physicians that is still going strong a century later, in the fourth generation. Also included were state representatives like John Mains.
Woman's Board Formed
Margaret Cavanaugh was named to another group created at the first meeting, a "Ladies Visiting Board" led by prominent townswomen. Later renamed the Woman's Board, it was charged with supplying many basic hospital needs and comforts, a mission that took on heroic proportion in the decades ahead.
Within days, five patients had been admitted. During its six years, the walk-up hospital treated 431 patients and had to turn away many more. The limits of turn-of-the-century medicine were evident from the records; only five operations were listed for 1893, all of them simple amputations of fingers or toes. Before public health measures and antibiotics, typhoid fever and pneumonia loomed large and lingered long. An average hospital stay back then was 20 days.
As patients streamed in not only from a growing Norwalk but from the villages of Westport, Weston, Wilton and Darien, the community pressed ahead with construction. On August 21, 1899, the doors opened on a new hospital on Armory Hill on the Post Road (Connecticut Avenue near Stuart).
The People's Hospital
The 26-bed institution now offered some private rooms and an "etherizing room" for surgery. The program of a 1900 musical spoke glowingly of "The People's Hospital," but reminded "appreciative hearts" of ongoing needs. The direct link of gifts to medical care is seen in the 1906 annual report's thanks for a tank of oxygen, a stomach tube, a clock for operating room. Other welcome donations were linens, bushel of apples, and "on one very warm day, ice cream for all the patients, nurse and orderlies." Then as now, friends also helped the hospital keep up with scientific advances. Only a decade after Roentgen announced his discovery of the X-ray in Germany, 1906 donors here were thanked for enabling purchase of "an X-Ray machine."
Norwalk Hospital nursing education began in December, 1905, with one "pupil nurse'" as the vanguard of generations of nurses who earned their caps during the 68-year existence of the School of Nursing.
Though the hospital expanded to 40 beds, in a few years it was overtaxed. Families began to look to hospitals for childbirth, but there was no maternity ward. The board confronted the need to build yet again. Fortunately, at this juncture new resources of leadership and philanthropy emerged.
Friends in Deed
John J Cavanaugh, a brother of Margaret, was energy personified. In industry he rose from workbench to executive suite, becoming head of the Hat Corporation of America by the 1920's. Elected mayor of Norwalk in 1909, he donated the yearly salary of $250 to the hospital and became a director. Soon the hospital became his lifelong crusade.
When it was found that an adequate new hospital would cost $100,000 (astronomical in 1915), it was Cavanaugh who induced John H. McMullen, a retired construction magnate, to take the presidency and begin fundraising. Even more importantly, Cavanaugh interested E.T. Bedford, a financier, oilman and philanthropist from Greens Farms, in the welfare of the hospital. Bedford had the foresight to see what a fine hospital could do for an entire area, and the wisdom to structure "giving" in ways that would spur community efforts. During more than 75 years the vision and generosity of the Bedford family has been crucial to Norwalk Hospital's growth and strength.
A Crisis Calls
The new 75-bed building, high on Stevens street overlooking the city, was being readied for a December 3rd debut in 1918 when the deadly worldwide influenza epidemic struck. Board member Samuel Roodner rushed his own crew over to help finish the work, and on October 12th the doors were flung open for the sick. Within 35 days, 119 flu patients were treated.
With Bedford leading the board and Cavanaugh second in command, expansion continued. To train enough nurses, the Nursing School badly needed its own building. Bedford made a 50 percent challenge pledge that was matched through a Kiwanis Club campaign and Knights of Columbus benefits, to erect the Mary A. Bedford Nurses Home in 1926. He went on to underwrite the entire Bedford Pavilion, which doubled the hospital's capacity to 160 in 1929.
Medical advances also kept pace; the first electrocardiagraph for detecting heart disease arrived in 1920. Then a scientist hired from Cornell Medical School set up a pathology laboratory. With updated devices, she and a "roentgenologist" started an X-ray department and diagnostic X-rays tripled in one year. Radiation therapy began in 1928, and the hospital hired its first house physician and interns, a harbinger of today's major medical education program.
During the Great Depression, survival was a real concern for institutions as well as individuals. 110 American hospitals were forced to close in 1932 alone. Nonetheless, Norwalk Hospital not only prevailed, but pioneered.
Its Hospital Service Plan group insurance in 1935 was one of the state's first; later joining with New Haven, it evolved into Connecticut Blue Cross.
Medical innovation included a Tumor Clinic begun in 1934, ahead of most community hospitals in the area. This weekly consultation for cancer patients, regardless of ability to pay, was the first step toward today's comprehensive clinic program, with more than 30 specialties serving over 50,000 yearly.
A World War II labor influx had an already-full hospital overflowing. With government help the North Wing was added in 1944. Yet much more was needed when the postwar suburban explosion tripled the demands upon Norwalk Hospital. Once more the people responded. Energetic campaigns by surrounding towns as well as in Norwalk made the Community Pavilion a reality in 1953. The generosity of Charles A. Dana and Mrs. Roman H. Heyn led to the Dana Pavilion in 1961. Further 1960's expansion added more floors, in a race to keep up with area growth.
New medical and educational vistas opened in the 1970's. Norman A. Brady served as President from 1971-85. The hospital, in 1975, formalized its affiliation with Yale University School of Medicine for it graduate residency program in internal medicine. Today every clinical department has an educational association with its counterpart at Yale. Our hospital introduced Ambulatory Surgery to Connecticut. We launched the nation's first postgraduate residency exclusively for surgical physician assistants. Norwalk became one of the first hospitals in the state to install a hospital-wide computerized patient information system. In 1978 a vigorous building drive doubled the hospital's square footage.
Initially, President David W. Osborne led the hospital in meeting the challenge of change in the 1990's. Community health care needs called for modernization of older facilities, limited new construction and cost containment. The times called for a long-range effort of scope and vision to continue to enhance quality care in all areas. Our outpatient surgeries, treatments and visits continue rising to well over 100,000 annually.
Norwalk Hospital, under the leadership of Mr. Osborne, celebrated its Centennial in the early 1990's with the successful completion of this major improvements program of construction and modernization...all made possible, once again, by contributions from the entire community.
"It is most gratifying" John J. Cavanaugh said fifty years ago, "that the hatter's dream has become one of the most notable hospitals of the East, from the most humble beginnings." Remembering here our origins and aspirations, Norwalk Hospital welcomes a new century of partnership with those we serve.
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