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This month, The Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago will have closed its doors for good. All patients and hospital activities were transferred to the brand-spanking new 23-story Ann and Robert H. Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago, the tallest children's hospital in the world. As one chapter ends, another begins; it is, truly, a bittersweet moment.
Children's Memorial was founded by Julia Foster Porter in 1882. In its 130-year history, it became one of the best known children's hospitals in the US staffed by numerous national and international figures in pediatrics and other child healthcare specialties, and was the site of many significant pediatric advances.
Historical Highlights
Julia Foster Porter (1846-1936), daughter of a wealthy physician, grew up in the Lincoln Park area of Chicago, married Reverend E.C. Porter, and had two sons. Reverend Porter died at age 36 in 1876, apparently of appendicitis. Mrs. Porter's elder son Maurice Foster Porter died in Lincoln Park at 13 years of age from "acute rheumatism" complicated by "valvular disease of the heart (mitral)", clearly acute rheumatic fever, of 4 months' duration.
In 1882, the following year, Mrs. Porter founded the Maurice F. Porter Memorial Hospital to provide free care to children 3 to 13 years old without discriminating according to race, creed, or ability to pay, because only one local hospital had a handful of beds for sick children.
The first building in Mrs. Porter's hospital was a small, three-story house in Lincoln Park, owned by the Porter family, remodeled to accommodate eight beds. Dr. Truman W. Miller, who had signed Maurice F. Porter's death certificate, agreed to be the Physician-in-Chief, and served in that...