By Sylvia Neely and Terry Munderloh
Many happy birthdays occurred at 128 South Mt. Vernon Street when maternity facilities were virtually nonexistent in Prescott after the Sisters of Mercy Hospital was destroyed by fire in 1940.
When Father Alfred Quetu Came to Prescott in 1889 he appealed to the Sisters of Mercy in Phoenix to open a hospital in Prescott. The Sisters came in 1893 using a small house near the church for a hospital and in 1896 Frank Murphy sold to the Mercy Hospital Corporation five lots on Grove Avenue for $750.00. The City Council voted permission for the construction of a hospital and the imposing two-story brick structure was erected. Originally intended for use as a sanitarium the institution was adapted to administer to the sick and injured in 1903.
The concept of prenatal and hospitalized maternity care still lay in the future. Early day obstetrics was almost all done in the home assisted by women of the household or midwives. Maternal and child mortality rates were high.
Arizona was home to several well-respected midwives, many referred to as "doctor." Emma Lee French took care of expectant mothers and delivered babies from her home in Winslow and Lottie Whiteside was still practicing her craft from her home in Wickenburg in1907 at the age a of 62. Mona Warfield, a third generation midwife, attended to many births in the Kirkland area before she became a nurse at the county hospital in Prescott.
In the 1920's the propriety of allowing a (male) doctor to assist at home deliveries became more acceptable. After serving in World War One Doctor Clarence Yount Sr. returned to his practice in Prescott making house calls and delivering babies. His calls were made with a horse and buggy or a mountain wagon rented from Ruffner's Livery Stable. Most newborns were delivered at home with the weight of the babies determined by a fish scale.
Doctors and midwives could not be everywhere in the county at once. Many women in Prescott opened a room or two in their homes for expectant friends or relatives living in the rural areas to stay as their anticipated delivery date approached. Dave and Rose Merwin lived on the Ash Creek Ranch. Rose stayed at Mrs. Head's home on South Cortez Street where her daughters were born, moving into town about three weeks before the anticipated due date of each child. Norma Orr was born at Mrs. Head's residence in 1928, as did her sister Francis in 1931. Dr. Yount Sr. signed the birth certificates. Dana Brisindine Sharp, whose parents lived in Chino Valley, was born at May Wilson's residence on 143 South Marina.
At that time a new mother's confinement lasted seven to ten days after birth and it must have been a real treat for those hard working ranch women to come into town and stay in a home where meals were prepared for them. A doctor was on call just a few blocks away, friends and relatives came to socialize and the new mother could luxuriate in being pampered awhile before return to her rigorous daily routines.
By the mid 1930s the expanded Mercy Hospital was also providing maternity care. Shirley Whitney Mahan and her twin (who died at birth) were born there prematurely. Shirley only weighed two pounds. Incubators for babies did not exist. The nuns said she was a fighter and put her in a basket with a hot water bottle for warmth. When she was taken home her grandfather put her in a box with a light bulb.
When the Mercy Hospital was destroyed by fire in 1940 the Sisters decided not to rebuild even though the county hospital had no maternity facilities and limited space. In the interim the Medical Center, built by Dr. J. P. McNally, on the corner of Summit and West Gurley Street delivered babies and Catherine Lenox, Dr. Borne's nurse, converted her residence at 128 South Mr. Vernon to a maternity home where she was able to care for eight patients at a time. Catherine equipped the house with a delivery room and a separate nursery room for the babies. Post operation patients from the county hospital were also brought there for recovery if a bed was available.
Elisabeth Ruffner remembers the room at the Lenox maternity home where she stayed when daughter Melissa was born. The room had a rocking chair, she recalls, and friends and relatives came to visit bringing flowers and candy. The doctor made regular calls to his patients twice a day during the ten-day post birth confinement time but the mother only saw her a baby at feeding time.
Ruth Higgens' son Ronald Willis was born there in 1940. Ruth describes Mrs. Lenox as small, dark haired, very efficient and all business but not without compassion. During her labor Ruth could hear herself calling for her husband and Bill and hearing Catherine saying impatiently "I wish she had her Bill". Ruth describes the surroundings as very homelike and remembers Catherine bringing meals to her room, especially figs which Ruth had never before tasted.
Dr. Yount Sr. performed many of the deliveries at the Lenox maternity home but he also had some new additions to his own family and practice. His son C. E. "Ned" Yount Jr., was attending George Washington University Medical School where he met Florence, daughter of United States Senator Smith Wildman Brookhart. The two newly graduated doctors were married June 22, 1936. New joined his father's practice and R. Florence interned in pediatrics at Illinois Children's Hospital in Chicago before also joining her father-in-laws practice. In 1940 Florence gave birth to her son John at the Lenox Maternity Home.
In the late 1970s Roxie Webb Jr. bought the old house at 128 S. Mt. Vernon Street, which had fallen into disrepair. After he and his wife renovated the house they brought Roxie's parents over to see it. When they pulled up at the house Mrs. Webb Sr. just laughed and laughed. Son, she said, this is where you were born. Roxie had not known the house had once been the Lenox Maternity home and the place of his birth.
The Prescott Community Hospital Association was formed to establish a local hospital and purchased the vacant Jefferson Elementary School building on Marina Street. War efforts were taking all the medical supplies, hospital furnishings, and young doctors. Salesmen from surgical supply houses scouted the country locating supplies to equip the hospital. Committees worked to raise cash. Two ranchers offered $10,000 each if the townspeople would match the sum. It was done. Another Yavapai rancher purchased "The last operating table in the U. S." for the fabulous price of $1200. Prescott Community Hospital opened its doors on March l, 1943.
That evening Dr. Florence's patient, Mrs. Louis Howe, gave birth to the first baby born in the new hospital, one of thousand to be delivered by Dr. Florence in her lifetime.
In 1962 Prescott Community and the County Hospitals joined forces and a Hospital District was voted into existence. Yavapai Community Hospital opened in 1964 with Prescott Community Hospital patients coming over by ambulance. The new facility had 73 regular beds, 32 beds in extended care, 10 in obstetrics and 16 newborn cribs. Last year 960 deliveries occurred at Yavapai Regional Medical Center. Mother and child leave the hospital within one to two days after birth.
(Sylvia Neely and Terry Munderloh are volunteers at the Sharlot Hall Museum's Archives)
This unidentified family posed to show what appears to be five generations of women. Whether in Prescott or anywhere in Arizona, each of these women may have experience a different type of birth, and prenatal and maternity care - from the home, to a maternity home, to a hospital.