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Ottr Catltolic Heritage in Texas
necessary funds. With the aid of Major Frank E. McCoy, U.S.A. (later general), she succeeded in raising the sum of $14,449.17, which was placed at the disposal of Miss Nora Kelly, the recognized head of all charities in the City. Two large lots were purchased and the building for a general hospital was begun. Even before it was finished, patients had to be housed in the new building because the Charity Home had become overcrowded with destitute children, the aged, and the infirm. As stated, on June 1, 1917, the new hospital, called Divine Providence, was opened under the able administration of the Sisters of Mercy from Laredo and the Charity Home was relieved of its hospital department. 62 The Charity Home continued its charity mission under the direction of Miss Kelly, who in 1934 succeeded in getting the Sister Servants of the Holy Ghost to take charge of the Home. The next year, the property was deeded by Miss Kelly to Bishop E. B. Ledvina of Corpus Christi and has since continued, under diocesan direction, its great work in the extreme south end of Texas. Divine Providence Hospital, in charge of the Sisters of Mercy, took care of more than 2000 patients in six years, half of which on an average were charity cases. Frequently, the Sisters were obliged to give up their own sleeping quarters to patients, so much greater was their number than the normal facilities of the hospital. Expansion could no longer be postponed. An appeal for aid resulted in a donation of $35,000 by the citizens of Brownsville, who were deeply appreciative of the splendid work the Sisters were doing. To this was added the gift of two city blocks by Mr. Stillman of New York to the Sisters of Mercy, who under- took, with the help received, to build the present Mercy Hospital at a cost of $125,000, in 1923, which has since grown and developed to meet the ever increasing calls made upon it by the rapidly growing community and its surroundings. A modern, up-to-date institution, it serves the people without distinction of race, creed, or economic status. It has con- tinued the tradition set by the old Charity Home and become truly a refuge for the poor and the sick. Mercy Hospital, Slat<m, 1929. The citizens of Slaton called in 1928 on Father T. D. O'Brien, pastor of St. Joseph's, to use his influence in bringing to the city a hospital order of Sisters to establish a hospital. 62 Shelly, Catholic Hospitalization in Texas, 124-125. The Author helped bring and care for the wounded in the Matamoros attack. He also remembers the Christmas dinner for the poor children ~ven each year by the Charity Home in the organization of which be took part.
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