100 years ago
Saturday, Sept. 14, 1918. “It gives me great satisfaction to report that the past year has been the most prosperous in the existence of the Saratoga Hospital,” president Emma L. Levengiston tells the hospital board of managers today.
“Due to the efficient management of our superintendent, it has not been necessary to borrow money to pay the running expenses of the hospital but once during the year,” Levengiston reports, “This is the first time I believe that this has occurred in its history.”
Better still, the hospital has been able to pay off most of its debt. The only remaining obligation is a mortgage that has been reduced to $12,500. Approximately $35,000 raised in a fund drive by the hospital’s medical and surgical staff helped matters considerably.
An anonymous donor is credited with the erection of a solarium above the hospital’s operating room. “The need of such a place for our convalescents has been great,” Levengiston notes, “If necessary the room could be used as a ward, as it is enclosed and also heated. It will accommodate twentyfour beds and would be an ideal place for our wounded soldiers should they be sent us.”
The hospital staff has been reduced by the enlistment of six physicians, while the enlistment of six nurses for wartime service was compensated by the graduation of the largest nursing-school class to date, nine women. Must Be Under Fire to be Real Soldier “Although we anxiously await letters it seems very hard to write,” writes Sergeant Major Richard J. Sherman of the 105th U.S. Infantry regiment, “The time is very conducive to everything except letter writing, which is the situation at the present time.”
Writing to his parents, Mr. and Mrs. William C. Sherman of 63 Caroline Street, Richard describes his situation somewhere in France. “I am seated upon the ground with the typewriter on my knees, in a large thatched-roof barn, partly filled with flax, the rest with human beings which occupy the unfilled portions as their sleeping places.”
“We have been continually on the march since our arrival. A week is the longest that we have ever stayed in one place with the exception of twice. We have been through the mil now and consider ourselves full fledged soldiers.
“It is certain that no one can be until he has been under fire. I can’t exactly recall my first night under fire, that is, my thoughts are beyond recollection, but it is certain that a good many years flitted past within the first few minutes.”
Surviving their baptism and fire, Sherman and his comrades expect to be home for Christmas.