DENEWCAS-L Archives

From:
Subject: Re: Irish Relative
Date: Mon, 9 Sep 2002 00:32:52 EDT

Dear Jane,

I am taking a stab in the dark, but maybe one that has the possibility of
being helpful to you. My mother's first cousin died of TB in the Brandywine
Sanitarium, Marshalton, Mill Creek Hundred, New Castle County, Delaware, in
1939. Twenty years later than the year you need information for, but perhaps
this institution had been functioning that long.

Also, years ago when I lived and worked in Delaware, I worked at two
locations that I was told (but did not confirm) had been hospitals in
northern DE (New Castle County) that treated TB patients. They were the
Governor Bacon Health Center (formerly part of a military base called Fort
Delaware, I believe) in Delaware City, New Castle County, Delaware, and Emily
P. Bissell Hospital, Wilmington, New Castle County, Delaware.

Governor Bacon probably became a hospital converted from a military
installation too late for your ancestor to have been housed there. (My
great-grandfather died there in 1953, a fact I learned years after I had
worked for the health center when it housed a "school for socially and
emotionally maladjusted children," much to my surprise.)

Emily Bissell Hospital may provide some better options. Check out websites
on Emily P. Bissell, a Delaware native/resident who was an effective
supporter of tuberculosis hospitals and research to develop treatment for the
disease. She created the first Easter Seal in 1907 to raise money to fight
TB by building funds to keep the "Brandywine Shack" open. The Brandywine
Shack in Wilmington was a TB hospital whose mission was to treat the poor.
Emily's cousin was the doctor who ran it.

For brief histories of Emily Bissell, see the following websites (and find
many more via search engines)
http://www.hsd.org/Women_AntiSuffragist_Bissell.htm;
http://www.hsd.org/DHE/DHE_who_bissell.htm;
http://www.lungusa.org/womenhistory/;
http://www.state.de.us/dhss/main/maps/bissell/mainbldg.htm (this one just
tells you what the Bissell hospital is used for today)

Did you notice I was gone for a while?

I just found a site which confirms that the Brandywine Sanitorium was founded
in the early 1900s and later (1925) became part of the Emily Bissell
Hospital. See: http://www.state.de.us/sos/dpa/collections/aghist/Frame.htm

Good luck with your search.

Karen

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