News

St. Andrew's Hospital celebrates 100 years

By Scott Wagar

04/16/2013

Editor’s Note: From May 5-11 St. Andrew’s Health Center will be celebrating its 100th Anniversary as a medical facility. In celebration of St. Andrew’s centennial, the Bottineau Courant will be writing a series of articles on the health facility and its history. This week’s story will be on the origins of St. Andrew’s Health Center.
 

One of the most important dates in the city of Bottineau is October 23, 1913. On that date St. Andrew’s Health Center opened its door for the first time in its history.

The origin of St. Andrew’s Health Center was established by the Right Reverend Monsignor Joseph Andrieux who came to Bottineau in July of 1910 to serve the parishioners of St. Marks Catholic Church.

Andrieux came to America as a missionary in 1907 after serving as a horse soldier in the French Calvary during the late 1800s until 1902 when he left the military and became a priest after the French Socialist government passed anti-religious laws in France.

Once in North Dakota, the Diocese in Fargo sent Andrieux to Tarsus in Bottineau County and then on to Bottineau. While serving in Bottineau, Andrieux discovered the need of a hospital in the local community after discovering the number of deaths which were taking place within the territory he served of curable diseases.

Back in 1907, Andrieux cared for 15 parishes. His territory went west to Lansford; east to Dunseith; south to Granville and north to the Canadian border.

At that time in history, physicians were centrally located in the local towns. Outside of the towns, homesteads were plotted and farmed a great distance apart. When illness occurred for homesteaders, physicians had to travel by horse and buggy a long distance to care for their patients, which at times meant patients would die before being seen.

Andrieux’s summarized that if there was an only hospital with physicians practicing in the facility it could save time and lives.

With that idea, Andrieux came up with an idea in 1912 of opening a hospital in Bottineau County’s seat and went to work in establishing a hospital in Bottineau for all religious faiths in the community.
Andrieux’s idea didn’t come without hardship. In the 50th anniversary book of St. Marks Catholic Church, “Fifty Years and Growing,” Andrieux met difficulty from the start.

The young Catholic priest’s first step was to contact the Most Reverend Bishop James O’Reilly of Fargo’s Diocese, who was against Andrieux’s idea of starting a community hospital.

“Please remember, a hospital does not help in the building up of a parish, but is a continual drain on the peace of mind of a pastor who is loading himself with special and unpleasant cares and responsibilities, which actually belong to doctors, to the city council and county commissioners,” wrote O’Reilly to Andrieux.

At the turn of the 20th century, hospitals were owned by local towns. However, city leaderships soon discovered that hospitals were a financial burden on their public funds, which brought warnings to communities who were considering organizing a hospital in their towns.

O’Reilly had legitimate concerns, but Andrieux stayed focused with his requests for a hospital and in the end, O’Reilly gave his blessing to Andrieux to move forward with his dream of a hospital.

With the support of the Diocese, Andrew faced another problem, crop failure throughout the state of North Dakota, bringing poor economic times to North Dakota and the County.

However, Andrieux was a pastor with strong beliefs in his faith and the residents of Bottineau. In June of 1912, Andrieux held a meeting with Bottineau’s two physicians, Dr. J.A. Johnson and Dr. A.R. McKay; along with Bottineau’s mayor, Henry Bettie, leaders of the local churches and the Bottineau Commercial Club where he spoke about his idea for the local community.

Those at the meeting supported the idea and a committee was set up to raise the money for a hospital through local donations. The committee included Andrieux, Bettie, Johnson, McKay and John Haskett, the editor of the Bottineau Courant.

The very next day the committee members started their fundraiser and within a two hour period raised $2,500. Andrieux also met with a group of ladies from each church in town and two members of the Woman’s Club and once again spoke about his idea of a hospital in town. They in turn raised an additional $2,000.

From the fundraising Andrieux turned his attention to an abandoned building on the northeast side of Bottineau which was owned by North Dakota School of Forestry (Dakota College at Bottineau today).

In 1889, the North Dakota State Constitution sanctioned a School of Forestry in North Dakota, which was granted to the city of Bottineau in the November election of 1894.

Twelve years after the 1894 election, state legislators had not appropriated money to construct the School of Forestry. Without state support, the residents of Bottineau came together and raised $2,500 and built a two story wooden frame building that became the first structure on the Forestry’s campus. The building was placed on land granted by Bottineau’s Turf Club and in January of 1907 the college opened.

By the fall of 1907, the school of Forestry received state funding to construct a new brick building which became known as the Main Building on campus (today it is called Old Main). Classes began within the new structure in September of 1908.

By 1912, the original structure for the School of Forestry was empty and Andrieux had the idea of purchasing the building and renovating it into a hospital. That fall, with the $4,500 raised for a hospital, the building was purchased and renovation work started on the former school building.

As the building was being rehabilitated, Andrieux took his next step with the hospital and acquired six women to operate the hospital. At that time, Andrieux started correspondence with the Sisters of Mary of the Presentation in Wild Rice, N.D., and came to an agreement that the Presentation would operate the hospital once it opened.

The Sisters of Mary sent Sister San Gilbert, Sister Anthime, Sister Marie of Nazareth, Sister Marie of Amaury, Sister Denise and Sister Lawrence to Bottineau.

In the last week of October in 1913, the hospital opened and it became the news of the town and county quickly.

On November 7, the top headline for the front page of the Bottineau Courant was “Hospital Now Open.”

“Bottineau’s new hospital was opened by the Sisters of the Presentation last week and the first of the week seven patients were being cared for in the institution. The hospital was named St. Andrew’s in honor of Rev. Father Joseph Andrieux of St. Marks Catholic Church,” stated the Bottineau Courant article. “The hospital is in charge of Sister Gilbert, mother superior, and she has five assistants. The mother superior was formerly in charge of a hospital at Spring Valley, Ill. In fact, opened the institution and made a great success of it. She is well pleased with the new building which the citizens of Bottineau have provided and thinks the institution is sure of success.

“The building, which was originally built for the state school of Forestry, has been remodeled, enlarged and has all modern conveniences. The basement contains the boiler room (the building is heated by hot water), laundry, kitchen and dining room. On the first floor or main floor are the offices, chapel, nurses’ apartments, one of the general wards and a private ward. The second floor contains the operating room, preparation room, bath, three private wards and a general ward. The hospital has facilities for caring for about 25 patients,” the article continued to state. “The equipment throughout is first-class and altogether it is an institution of which Bottineau may well feel proud.”

The first patient at St. Andrew’s Hospital was Dean Veirs. The first nurse hired by the hospital was Anna Larson and the first baby born was  Andrew Brasseur, named after St. Andrew’s Hospital.

St. Andrew’s was on its way and within a short time period Andrieux had to start planning for a larger hospital, which would assist the hospital and community in many ways.

Writer’s Note: Next week, the Bottineau Courant takes a look at the growth of St. Andrew’s Health Center.