Question:
I heart that there is a Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago.
Has Northwestern University died?
If not what is Northwestern Memorial Hospital a memorial to?
What good is it to name something "...Memorial..." if no one knows
what it is a memorial too?
I asked the swtichboard operator there what Union Memorial Hospital
was a memorial too. She didn't know. I've been meaning to call back
during business hours. Since Maryland is a border state, maybe their
referring to the Northern side of the Civil War...except the Union
lives. Maybe it means the Plumbers Union, Local 1323. I think that
merged with 1104 and became the Electrician and Plumbers Union 1587.
The two that are gone are certainly worth memorializing.
Memorial Stadium in Baltimore had a 50 foot (or more) high brass
plaque paying tribute the those from Baltimore who fought in WWII.
But that was at the front of the stadium, facing 32nd street and iirc
it was too far away to read when driving by, even if you were a
passenger and didn't have to keep his eye on the road. People who
parked in the lots, or who headed for the gates when they got there
didn't walk by the plaque.
So, can any one from Chicago tell me what happened to Northwestern
University, or maybe the Northwest side of the city? Did it blow up?
Answer:
As someone that once lived in an apartment on West Superior Street (a
block from this hospital), I feel obliged to reply. Your question
should be "What were Passavant Memorial Hospital and Wesley Memorial
Hospital memorials to?" Northwestern Memorial came into existance in
the 1970s as a result of a merger of those two hospitals under the McGaw
Medical Center of Northwestern University.
The answers to the revised questions are "To William Passavant and John
Wesley" William Passavant was a Lutheran minister that founded several
hospitals including another one in Pittsburgh. He didn't fund them, but
he was quite a fund raiser. John Wesley was the founder of the
Methodist church and several Methodist church affiliated hospitals
around the country have Wesley in the name.
Foster McGaw was one of the founders of American Hospital Supply
Corporation (for whom I worked for over a decade) in Evanston, Illinois.
I met Mr McGaw several times. AHS is no more, but survives as part of
Baxter.
Evanston is, of course, the home of Northwestern University (and one of
my alma maters). The Northwestern University downtown campus is (or
was, I'm not sure) right down the street from Northwestern Memorial. It
is also right down the street from the VA hospital where my wife worked
as an OR nurse. I picked her up a little bit after 11:00 PM on December
28th, 1961 after her 4/11 shift for our first date. The date is etched
in my mind since it is also her birthday. I hasten to add that the date
was pre-arranged by phone, and she wasn't picked up in the same sense as
the word is sometimes used.
So, you see, it's not true that no one knows. I did for years, and now
you do.
