Our Catlt0lic Heritage in T ezn.s
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impressed by the modern facilities and marvelous service of the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul at Charity Hospital in New Orleans, decided that Waco needed a similar institution. The idea of organizing a stock company to build a hospital suggested by Johnson was soon aban- doned after their return to Waco in favor of Dr. Hale's plan to cooperate with an organized group that could furnish the indispensable trained personnel required. If the citizens offered a site and a contract for the care of the City patients, the plan might appeal to an organized and experienced group such as the Sisters of Charity. The matter was formally presented to the Business Men's Club, unanimously approved, and com- mittees appointed for the various sections of the city to raise funds for the purchase of a site. In one day sufficient money was raised to purchase from Judge M. Serett the site occupied to this day by Providence Hospital. 56 With the first step successfully accomplished, a committee went to Galveston to invite the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word to build a hospital in Waco. Regretfully, the offer was refused because of lack of personnel and the means to assume the full responsibility for building the new hospital. It was then decided to contact at once the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul in Dallas, who had so successfully established St. Paul's Hospital. The invitation was accepted under difficult circumstances, the Sisters agreeing to build at their own expense O.R the site offered, if the City agreed to give them a contract to care for the City patients. Local politics came near ruining the plan, but fortunately the contract and agreement was eventually signed and on Sunday, October 11, 1903, Mayor Allen D. Sanford participated in the laying of the cornerstone. The ceremony was attended by Bishop N. A. Gallagher, who after the morning's Solemn High Mass, helped lay the cornerstone that afternoon. Msgr. James M. Kirwin paid a glowing tribute to the glorious record of the Sisters in helping to cope with epidemics in the past, breaking through lines of guards in quarantined sections not to flee from the pestilence but to carry comfort, love, and tender care to the suffering. A veteran of the Civil War, Judge Gerald, recalled the splendid service rendered by the Sisters during the War Between the States; Mayor Sanford congratulated the City on the coming of the Sisters and pledged the support and cooperation of the community; and Bishop Gallagher
56/bid., II 3-114.
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