Salem Hospital and Training School for Nurses
31 Charter Street
(building no longer standing)

John Bertram purchased the three-story brick building that used to stand at 31 Charter Street and made a gift of twenty-five thousand dollars to endow the Salem Hospital — “the fulfillment of a need which had been felt for some time in the city.”¹⁶ The hospital opened its doors in October of 1874 with twelve beds, increasing that number to sixteen in the first year “to receive and care for the sick and disabled seamen of this port.”¹⁷

In 1879, “Miss D. Duff,” a graduate of the Massachusetts School for Nurses, was appointed matron, and “this was the beginning of the seventh training school for nurses in the country.”¹⁸ Two trainees were admitted, and two rooms on the top floor of the building were prepared for maternity cases as part of their instruction. Before electricity was introduced in 1888, nurses worked at night by kerosene lamp. According to a commemorative booklet about the nursing school, “Thus began, very modestly, a school that was to grow in size and experience and which has continued undiminished with an enviable record of achievement for ninety-nine years… one only has to look at the record to know that The Salem Hospital School of Nursing… has consistently and continually maintained a standard second to none.”¹⁹ As demand for services grew, the number of students increased and the need for nurses far exceeded the supply. In 1897, the Alumnae Association of the Salem Hospital Training School for Nurses was founded in part to keep a registry of graduates and to assist them with job placement. The school’s first pupil, Emily A. Sturmy, was made an honorary member of the association, and in 1901, the association joined the Nurses Alumnae Association of the United States and Canada.

By 1903, 31 Charter Street was no longer used for patients, and there were twenty women nurses in residence. Increased gifts and endowments “had enabled the trustees to build along Charter and Liberty Streets to meet the expanding needs of the hospital.”²⁰ A diet kitchen was added, along with a library for the students, and the need to continue expanding was clear. In 1914, a meeting was scheduled to discuss building a larger facility on Charter Street but, instead, the Great Salem Fire started on Boston Street and made its way to south Salem and the hospital. Hospital trustees were urged not to rebuild on Charter Street but instead to relocate to safer ground and to a location where they could more easily expand — on Highland Avenue, where the hospital remains today.

A key supporter of the Salem Hospital Aid Association, founded in 1939, was Salem’s only opera star Mary Curtis-Verna (see S24). Her father was a surgeon at the hospital, and she volunteered there as a teenager. In 1957, this internationally famous artist returned to give a benefit concert for the hospital’s building fund.

Notes
16. Monograph of the Salem Hospital School of Nursing (Salem, Mass., 1978), 2.

17. Ibid.

18. Walter G. Phippen, M.D., From Charter Street to the Lookout: The Salem Hospital – A Brief History, (Salem, Mass., 1966), 7-8.

19. Monograph of the Salem Hospital School of Nursing, 5.

20. Ibid., 3.