In 1930, William Lee Burton, then 20, and Elsie Pavelka, then 16, were diagnosed with tuberculosis and were sent to the Oakdale State Tuberculosis Sanitarium outside Iowa City.The two met, and after several years of experimental treatments that included sleeping in screened porches during the middle of the winter, they married in 1939. "We like to say they read poetry to each at their bedside," said Virginia Melroy, one of their three children.
Patients gather outside of Oakdale Hall to play cards and relax in the fresh air in this 1927 photo. Demolition is scheduled to begin on Monday on the 104-year-old building, which at one time housed the state's largest tuberculosis sanitarium. (Special to the Press-Citizen)
The Oakdale Tuberculosis Sanitarium closed in 1981 when the unit, which now features outpatient treatment with antibiotics, was transferred to University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. The building it was housed in is scheduled to begin coming down Monday, officials said, leaving behind plenty of memories for those who worked at the tuberculosis hospital and later one of the numerous units that were housed there, including the Iowa State Hygienic Laboratory until December 2010.
"We had people working in places you never would have thought, but they did great work there," said Kathy Fait, a librarian and historian with the hygienic lab.
Oakdale Hall's history goes back to 1904, when at the height of a tuberculosis epidemic in the United States, the Legislature appropriated $50,000 to set up an isolation treatment facility on a 280-acre farm seven miles west of Iowa City, according to Mary Fabian on the IAGenWeb Project website.
The building went up in 1908 with eight patients to start and grew to a peak of about 400 beds during the 1940s, according to the Saturday Postcard by Bob Hibbs that was published in the Press-Citizen in May 2003.
The original treatment center featured no antibiotics until they were developed in the 1950s and 1960s, opting instead for fresh air and bed rest. Melroy said her parents talked about sleeping outside, even during the middle of winter.
"They would put people out in screened porches in the winter -- fresh air was supposed to be good for you," she said. "Good food, fresh air, they were seen as a way that people could recover."
http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20110308/NEWS01/103080321/Oakdale-Hall-holds-103-years-of-worker-patient-memories
The Oakdale Tuberculosis Sanitarium closed in 1981 when the unit, which now features outpatient treatment with antibiotics, was transferred to University of Iowa Hospitals and Clinics. The building it was housed in is scheduled to begin coming down Monday, officials said, leaving behind plenty of memories for those who worked at the tuberculosis hospital and later one of the numerous units that were housed there, including the Iowa State Hygienic Laboratory until December 2010.
"We had people working in places you never would have thought, but they did great work there," said Kathy Fait, a librarian and historian with the hygienic lab.
Oakdale Hall's history goes back to 1904, when at the height of a tuberculosis epidemic in the United States, the Legislature appropriated $50,000 to set up an isolation treatment facility on a 280-acre farm seven miles west of Iowa City, according to Mary Fabian on the IAGenWeb Project website.
The building went up in 1908 with eight patients to start and grew to a peak of about 400 beds during the 1940s, according to the Saturday Postcard by Bob Hibbs that was published in the Press-Citizen in May 2003.
The original treatment center featured no antibiotics until they were developed in the 1950s and 1960s, opting instead for fresh air and bed rest. Melroy said her parents talked about sleeping outside, even during the middle of winter.
"They would put people out in screened porches in the winter -- fresh air was supposed to be good for you," she said. "Good food, fresh air, they were seen as a way that people could recover."
http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20110308/NEWS01/103080321/Oakdale-Hall-holds-103-years-of-worker-patient-memories
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