A building is gone, but memories of Franklin Hospital live on

FRANKLIN—The late Franklin Hospital is gone now, but not forgotten. Memories of the historic building remained on the minds of many, following the sudden razing of the historic 97-year-old building by St. Clare's Health Systems last week. "(It was) the friendliness, just the atmosphere of the place," explained Daniel Stevens Jr., who had worked as an orderly in the old hospital in the early 1960s. "It was healing with care. It was a place where nurses would come in and play cards with the patients during their breaks. "From the doctors to the custodians, everyone felt their job was important," Stevens continued. "Everything was very patient-centered; everybody was working for the patient. And none of the people who worked there really made good money, but it was a pleasant-working experience. It was a picturesque place at one time. And the setting was perfect: away from everything and surrounded by woods." First opened in 1908 by the New Jersey Zinc Company, the hospital served not only badly-injured miners who needed life-saving treatment quickly, but also the surrounding community and Sussex County as a whole. When the building opened its doors in June 1908, it had a capacity of 10 beds—five by way of separate rooms and the other five in a ward—along with a staff comprised of a head surgeon and three patients. That very first year, a total of 83 patients received treatment, some of whom needed amputations due to severely-crushed limbs. According to an out-of-county doctor who is now retired, medicine in 1908 included surgery techniques such as incisions, removals and drainage. But there was little to prevent infection since the ear liest form of antibiotics—sulfur—did not appear until the late 1920s. Instead, doctors then used salt, water and iodine. For anesthesia, ether was the likely choice, added the doctor, who also said that plastic surgery and/or prosthetic devices weren't around in 1908, either. By the late twenties, though, the hospital had already grown to include two more wings that allowed room for three more private rooms, a surgeon's dressing room, a laboratory, a reception room for the nursing staff, and two solariums, one for men and women separately. It was the addition of a commodious sunporch in 1924, however, that really stood out to Dr. Marion Wood, the Hamburg Historical Society president who became a patient at Franklin Hospital at the age of five. "I was born there," explained Wood, who later had a tonsillectomy. "What I remember about it from years ago is that they had a big porch on the side, and they used to wheel patients out there. I definitely remember my father being there. I can still remember that screened porch with patients who were brought out there. Today, with air-conditioning, they don't do that." For Joseph Bene, a board of trustee member with the Franklin Historical Society, it was a matter of life-saving surgery on Labor Day weekend of 1950. "It was on a Saturday in September of 1950," recalled Bene, who was a time keeper with the zinc company at the time. "I was having pain, so I went up to the hospital and I saw Dr. (William) Boyd." Boyd, who served as the hospital's seventh head surgeon from 1942 until his death in 1953, suspected an appendicitis attack, and so, using a local anesthetic that numbed his patient from the waist down, he went to work. "And he said, ‘look here, Joe, it's twice the size of your thumb,'" Bene added. ‘"Another five minutes, and it would have broke.'" Bene also remembers the late Daniel Stevens Sr., who was an employee at the hospital for 50 years, spending much of it as an X-ray technician. The older Stevens also served as Franklin mayor during the difficult time when the zinc company closed the legendary mines on Sept. 30, 1954. Other familiar names included hospital superintendent Rose McEntee, operating room supervisor Katherine Moran, and night supervisor Anne L. Moon. All three were registered nurses. "I did visit people up there, and it was a quaint hospital," recollected local historian and author Bill Truran, who, like so many others, had been born there. "And you seemed to know everybody there, and they seemed to know you." Stevens Jr., who today is a realtor, emphasized again that the Franklin Hospital epitomized an era where health care took on more of a personal, rather than an administrative, tone. "I can remember snowstorms, and the town snow plows would get all the nurses, who would be in the dump part of the truck, and they came to work," Stevens Jr. said. "They couldn't take care of the roads then like they do now, but it tells you something about the kind of community it was. "The pay was not great, but the benefits were just wonderful. Franklin was a wonderful place to raise a family in because it was such a tight-knit community. Everybody who worked for the zinc company was guaranteed a house and a job." The hospital's destruction also caught the younger Stevens off guard. "It was like reading the obituary where you read that a close friend died, and you didn't know he was sick," the former Hospital Road resident concluded. That's the feeling I got when I found out."