MUSC Health's new Black River Medical Center at Cades opened to patients yesterday, and it seems an appropriate time to take a look at the history of hospitals in Kingstree and Williamsburg County.
From the first settlement in 1732 until the railroad came through Kingstree in the late 1850s, residents depended on the general practitioners living in the area for all their medical care. After the railroad came, patients with very serious injury or illnesses were taken by train to the medical college in Charleston or to McLeod's Infirmary in Florence. Some also went to Sumter to Mood's Infirmary, and some who were very well-off financially traveled to Baltimore to Johns Hopkins for treatment.
Around the turn of the 20th Century, Dr. Edward Theron Kelley moved to Kingstree from Timmonsville to practice medicine with Dr. W.L. Wallace. From the beginning, Dr. Kelley made it plain that his dream was to open a hospital to serve the people of Kingstree and Williamsburg County. Described by newspapers as a "stocky, energetic" fellow, he soon realized that there was an immediate need for better medical services than had been offered in the past. And so he set up an emergency operating room in his office behind his home on the corner of Mill and Academy streets in Kingstree. There he performed 490 operations in the 13 years prior to opening Kelley Sanitorium on that spot in 1919.
He made the announcement of his plans to build a sanitorium in 1918. The 85-foot by 54-foot, three-story structure would face Academy Street and provide patient rooms, a sun parlor, and sleeping porches, as it was a widely accepted belief that fresh air and sunshine were necessary for the cure of most of life's ills.
Dr. Kelley bought the latest medical equipment and traveled to New York to attend special courses and lectures to learn to operate it. Charles H. Singleton, a local Kingstree contractor, was in charge of building the $30,000 structure.
The new hospital was dedicated in March 1919, and by year's end, 415 patients had received treatment there. Dr. Kelley, as head surgeon, and Dr. Cuyler Harper, house surgeon, performed a total of 141 operations during that first year. And patients had come not just from Williamsburg County, but also from across the state of South Carolina. According to The County Record, a sign hanging in the reception area stated: A Hospital is a Hotel for the Sick.
The community showed its support for the new hospital by holding a linen shower, donating approximately $800 worth of bed linens and towels. The Kingstree Methodist Church placed Bibles in each of the patient rooms, and several families furnished rooms in memory or in honor of loved ones.
By 1921, Dr. Kelley realized there was a need for a facility to train nurses, and that year he opened the Kelley Sanitorium Training School. From 1921 through 1934 the facility trained 22 student nurses who received diplomas and passed the state boards.
By 1935, the hospital had undergone a renovation and now contained 16 rooms for white patients, some large enough to accommodate more than one patient. The Negro hospital attached to the main building contained 12 beds and employed one graduate nurse and two practical nurses.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, November 27, 1938, nurses at the hospital noticed smoke pouring from the walls and floorboards. They evacuated the 20 white patients, transporting four to Lake City hospital by ambulance and taking the rest to neighboring homes until they could arrange transportation to their own homes. The patients in the Negro hospital were taken to the telephone company across Mill Street, where they were taken care of until arrangements could be made for them to also go home.
Firefighters from Kingstree and Lake City fought the blaze from 2 a.m. until after daylight. They believed that the fire started in the basement near the furnace, and it appeared that the hospital's design acted like a chimney, funneling the flames upward to the third floor. While rooms on the first and second floors suffered severe smoke and water damage, the nurses quarters on the third floor were gutted, as was the two-story wing of the building which housed the kitchen, dining room, x-ray department and operating room. The separate Negro hospital was not damaged by the fire. Initial damage assessments of $15,000 quickly climbed to upward of $40,000 when it was discovered that almost all the hospital's equipment was destroyed.
Dr. Kelley was out-of-town at the time of the fire, and it took some time to reach him. He announced on December 2, 1938, that he had no plans to rebuild. This announcement caused a great uproar among area citizens, and several public meetings were convened to discuss ways to finance rebuilding the hospital. In August 1939, it was announced that $120,000 had been secured. Several of Williamsburg County's "winter colonists," most notably Bernard M. Baruch of Little Hobcaw and R.R.M. Carpenter of Delaware' E.I. DuPont Company, and the owner of Longlands Plantation in southern Williamsburg County, contributed to the hospital fund. Dr. Kelley and his adult children would retain two-thirds ownership of the hospital, and Dr. Kelley would remain chief surgeon. The hospital was named Kelley Memorial Hospital in memory of Dr. Kelley's wife, Lorena Ross Kelley, who had died December 2, 1937.
Boyle Road & Bridge Company of Sumter was contractor for the new 42-bed hospital. Architect John F. Mullen of Washington, DC, chose a Colonial design for the three-story hospital to harmonize with the then new United States Post Office at the other end of the block on Mill Street. The main body of the building measured 167-feet by 30-feet with side wings. Unlike its predecessor, this hospital faced Mill Street. One stipulation was that a sycamore tree standing near Academy Street was to be left untouched. When Dr. Kelley bought the property from the Hon. R.H. Kellahan, Mr. Kellahan asked that the tree remain standing, and Mr. Carpenter was now making the same request, which would be honored. Mr. Kellahan had reportedly pulled up the sapling while fishing in Black River in the 1890s and transplanted it to that spot, where it had flourished. The tree no longer stands.
The new hospital was dedicated on April 14, 1940, and continued to operate until 1965.
Next time, we'll look at more hospital history.
1 comment:
I greatly appreciate your articles on the history of Kingstree. I helps me better imagine the life of my ancestors. My grandfather died in Sept 1919, and Dr Kelley was the attending.
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