Results tagged “West Side Osteopathic Hospital” from York Town Square

This part of the York City map of 1888, from the booklet "Northwest York" gives a view of what became known as The Avenues. North Hartley Street, the address of the earliest forerunner of Memorial Hospital, can be seen at bottom, left. Background posts: Industrialist Thomas Shipley's 'enduring monument' in York did not 'endure' and Glatfelter, Morgan Smith head industrial legacy list and Spring Garden Band: 'It's like being in the room with history' .

Memorial Hospital's plans to move from the east side of York to the former Hawk Lake golf course on the north side are well known.

And many people alive today remember when Memorial moved from the west side to its current location along Interstate 83.

But before the West Side Osteopathic Hospital and Dr. Edmund Meisenhelder's West Side Sanitarium operated, where was the hospital located? ...

Mary E. White became the first black nurse at Memorial Hospital in the mid-1950s. Background posts: York County WWII nurse: 'You know, it was the biggest war ever, and they needed nurses', York's Wonder Women: The stories of four more movers and shakers, Histories attempt to fill blanks in women's, black history and Pioneering York doctor slighted: 'She felt ... her professional status was well established'.

Nurse Mary E. White's story is similar to many professionally trained blacks in York County in the 20th century.

She trained for a profession but experienced problems gaining employment in her field.

Her fourth application for employment at Memorial Hospital worked, as the following excerpt from my York County black history, "Almost Forgotten," states:

Rachel Witmyer, member of a committees that founded the forerunner to Memorial Hospital is seen in this 2005 photo with Ruth Kammer, left, and Memorial CEO Sally Dixon. Witmyer died this week at the age of 97. Background posts: York's Memorial Hospital eyes site at different compass point, Well-known doctor, York, Pa.'s Edmund Meisenhelder, beat back flu and East side Memorial Hospital formerly on west side.

Dr. Rachel Witmyer was part of the team responsible for opening West Side Osteopathic Hospital in 1945.

That hospital was a successor to Edmund Meisenhelder's West Side Sanitarium and a forerunner of Memorial Hospital.

She had opened her own practice seven years before. And other female doctors had preceded her in York County.

Dr. Martha Bailey of Dillsburg was one.

Ruth Kammer's "Inside West Side" names at least two other early 20th-century female osteopaths: Emma E. Donnelly and Rachel E. Walker.

Florence La Rose Ames' "That Sovereign Knowledge," a history of York Hospital, lists Elizabeth G. B. Cannon as an intern in 1939.

So, at least a handful of women had been practicing medicine around the county for years.

But not enough to prevent an incident that dismayed Witmyer one day soon after West Side opened... .