Galesburg’s Cottage Hospital’s School of Nursing trained nurses in for parts of nine decades. Cottage Hospital opened in 1893, and the School of Nursing started the following year in 1994. Cottage decided to stop admitting new students to the School of Nursing in 1969.
One of the more famous graduates of the school was Mary Sandburg, the older sister of Carl Sandburg. She has started out as a teacher, left teaching, and entered the Cottage program. She graduated from the School of Nursing in 1907.
In the early 1900’s Lombard College and the School of Nursing developed a coordinated program. Years later, in 1943 Knox College and Cottage developed a five year nursing program. Students went the first two years to Knox, taking biology, physiology, and chemistry. Then the students moved over to Cottage for a three year program to become nurses.
Nurses lived in dorms in cottage. 30 freshmen on the third floor, 30 juniors on the second floor, and 30 seniors on the first floor. So at its peak, it housed 90 nursing students, who were on call. They could be awakened in the night in cases of emergencies. The students had a “house mother” who supervised the students. They had a 10:00pm curfew on weekdays, and a midnight curfew on weekends.
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| Cottage School of Nursing grads working at Cottage Hospital in 2002. |
The Cottage School of Nursing started in 1994. In 2002, there were still 26 nurses working at Cottage Hospital who received their training at the Cottage School of Nursing. The Cottage School of Nursing had an impact on Galesburg health care for over a century!
The following pictures are from the collection of June (Plyn) O’Brien who graduated from GHS in 1965, and the Cottage School of Nursing in 1968. There are pictures of her classes at the School of Nursing, and pictures from a 2002 calendar celebrating nursing at Cottage.
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