Side A: In late 1911, the Right Reverend Joseph Schrembs, Toledo’s first Bishop, corresponded with Sister Mary Bernardine McMullen and two companions, Sister Mary Anthony McMullen and Sister Mary DeChantel Lyons, and asked them to come to Toledo to establish the second of three Catholic hospitals in the new diocese. Land was purchased in 1916 on the corner of Madison Avenue and 23rd Street to build what would become a seven-story hospital. Noted Chicago architect, Meyer J. Sturm, was hired to design and construct the hospital using up-to-date methods of hospital construction. Costing approximately $300,000, Mercy Hospital of Toledo was completed in 1918. Bishop Schrembs dedicated and blessed the hospital on June 21 in a grand ceremony involving clergy of the diocese and the Mercy Hospital Guild as guests of honor.
Side B: Shortly before its dedication, Mercy Hospital of Toledo was inundated by patients suffering from the worst pandemic the world had known, the 1918 Spanish Influenza. Possibly more than 55 million people worldwide died from this flu. From a population of 240,000, The Toledo Blade reported 30,000 citizens suffered from this flu and 1,140 died. As the pandemic worsened, there was a recognized shortage of trained nurses in Toledo. The Mercy Hospital School of Nursing opened in 1918 and enrolled the first class of ten students. Nurses in training studied both theoretical and clinical curriculum established by the Ohio State Board of Nursing. On August 30, 1921, less than a year after the pandemic ran its course, the first class of ten students, including two Sisters of Mercy, graduated. Over the next seventy-six years, the Mercy Hospital School of Nursing graduated 2,921 nurses.
Slide toward Today to fade the historical sheet and see the modern map underneath.