Research into the health care history of the Roanoke area, active in this space occasionally, continues on several other fronts.
One is a Carilion Clinic project led by Dr. David Trinkle involving a mobile recording studio housed in a converted camper dubbed Healthstorian. The idea is to bring interview facilities to those being interviewed for a oral history collection about the development of health care in the area.
Previous work in this column involved the story of old Burrell Memorial Hospital, founded in segregated Roanoke in the early 20th century to serve the African American community.
More on the project in a bit. First, though, let’s whet the appetite for lively narrative with a couple of stories about the old hospital from one who was born there.
That’s where 75-year-old Rosa Moorman started, with an account of her own birth her mother shared with her.
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“My mother told me lots of stories,” Rosa said.
Rosa’s mother Christine had given birth to a healthy Rosa and was recovering in the hospital. The first postpartum day passed uneventfully. Then a second and third.
After a week, happy mother and healthy baby were still in the hospital. By this time, the full moon had arrived and with it, the anticipated onset of a number of new births. The maternity ward was already full, though.
“The hospital was so small that the nurse came in and said somebody had to go home.”
A volunteer was quick to raise her hand.
“My mother said, well I’ve been in here a week.”
Turns out that the doctor had forgotten to authorize Christine Moorman’s discharge.
“I was her first child and she didn’t know how long these things took. She was having a good time being with the other ladies and was feeling OK. She just thought the doctor would come in and let her know.”
This was not just any doctor, too. He was Dr. J.H. Roberts, an esteemed co-founder of the hospital and by all accounts a wonderful man and physician.
“He was a great doctor,” Rosa Moorman said. “He helped my family and others through a lot of sickness.”
That and other personal recollections are the basis for what has come to be known as the Oral History of Health Program, a collaboration of the Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine, Radford University, Carilion Clinic, Virginia Tech Library System and the Roanoke Public Library.
Part of the inspiration for the project is StoryCorps with National Public Radio.
“Over the last 10 years, the concepts of oral history projects and storytelling have exploded with a variety of media formats,” Trinkle pointed out in the written rationale for the project. “This along with several ongoing initiatives has led to the development of this sustainable oral history of health project for our region.”
Underway for about a year now, Trinkle and others have been busy. A geriatrician as well as the associate dean for community and culture at the medical school, part of Trinkle’s work with older people involves the patients’ oral history. That experience and Trinkle’s general love of storytelling was part of the original inspiration for the project.
Ongoing efforts have centered on a variety of topics including environmental health, accounts from retired doctors and other health care professionals, the opioid crisis, and research projects at the medical school.
Research about early health care in the African American community has also been part of it. On that front, the going has been more difficult. Trinkle has been working with Carilion’s N.L. Bishop, the former top administrator at Burrell and later president of Jefferson College of Health Sciences before it was absorbed by Radford University earlier this summer.
Earlier in the project, Trinkle hoped to gather artifacts from Burrell for public display. Working with Bishop, precious little could be found. For a number of reasons that have not all been explained, the history of that facility and health care in general for that community is riddled with holes.
That finding has been echoed at the Harrison Museum, in the work of amateur documentarian Jordan Bell, and our own experience.
Part of the problem could be linked to the changing missions for Burrell over the years.
The hospital opened in 1915 with 10 beds in a former residence on Henry Street. After a move to a bigger facility at McDowell Avenue and North Park Street six years later (replaced at the same address with a big new building in 1955) Burrell closed as a hospital later to reopen as a mental health hospital, a nursing home, and finally an intermediate care facility.
Bishop was chief administrator there starting in 1997 when the facility transitioned to intermediate care. Since, he has been one of the champions of the dig for history of health care in African American Roanoke as part of the larger mission of the oral history project.
“It’s inappropriate to exclude the African American part of the story of the development of medical care in the Roanoke Valley,” said Bishop, who is black. “But that’s the way it used to be done, like it was not important.”
The search continues. A program is planned for later this month that will center on Burrell. Among the attendees will be Dr. Al Hagy, a former administrator at the hospital, Bishop, and other researchers including students at the medical school who have been looking into the history of surgery at the old hospital, Trinkle said.
As for the Healthstorian, it is a vintage camper retrofitted as an audio recording studio. Appearances by the mobile studio and its team of interviewers are being planned for visits to various city neighborhoods. For instance, an event is scheduled this week at Explore Park for Southeast as part of the National Night Out neighborhood program.
Here’s one more story from the engaging and entertaining Rosa Moorman.
Her mother being the practical sort, Rosa along with her twin brother and sister were scheduled to have their tonsils removed at the hospital. After the operations, the twins recovered swiftly, but not so for Rosa.
So badly did her throat still bother her after the surgery she could eat nothing, not even the obligatory post-procedure serving of ice cream. Her worried mother implored her to eat to no avail.
Then appeared Rosa’s grandmother, who was not to be trifled with while insisting the child must eat. The refusal of nourishment continued nevertheless.
The grandmother promised she would go home for a more palatable offering. Upon her return, she produced a serving of homemade pinto beans that she had mashed to a sort of mush.
Rosa ate.
“I never had any trouble after that.”
If you’ve been wondering about something, call “What’s on Your Mind?” at 540-777-6476 or send an email to whatsonyourmind@roanoke.com. Don’t forget to provide your full name (and its proper spelling) and hometown.