The "Rossmere Sanatorium" Story

It was an ordinary day.  Looking through a book for which I did the layout and design titled "From the Beginning: A History of Manheim Township."  The book was authored by C. Nat Netscher and printed by Jostens which at the time was located in State College, PA.  Nat did a fantastic job of researching information that was included in the book.  Spent years with his research before he approached me and asked for my help with the layout and design of the book.  The 264 page book gives a thorough and accurate history of the township in Lancaster County, PA called Manheim Township.  

Photo of the Rossmere Hotel from 1898 when it opened.

I can still remember, while doing the layout and reading Nat's manuscript, looking at the couple of photos that featured The Rossmere Hotel.  The hotel opened in 1898 and was a showplace for travelers as well as locals.  It was bounded by Juliette, Janet and Francis Avenue as well as Marshall Street.  On page 8 of the book is a photo that was given to us by Ted Ardinger.  The hotel eventually enlarged in size and was known to host many an elegant dance for the wealthy families of Lancaster, but in 1925 the building became a tuberculosis (TB) sanatorium and the ballroom was converted into a ward for female tubercular patients.  In the early 20th century, TB was a common, and in many cases lethal, infectious disease in the United States caused by various strains of mycobacteria. Sanatoriums became common to help care for the sufferers of the disease.  It wasn't until 1943 when Albert Schatz discovered streptomycin, an antibiotic, that a cure was developed for TB. Shortly after that the  

Photo from 1957 shows patients on the porch of the
sanatorium in their beds.

sanatoriums began to close.  By the 50s TB was no longer a major threat.  The sanatorium that was housed in the old Rossmere Hotel closed in 1957 and eventually was demolished.  Just before the demolition a new Health and Welfare Center was  built ohm the same property.  But, to my mom, it was still a forbidden area of Manheim Township to visit.  We would often drive through the neighborhood while heading to my baseball games or visiting with friends  and had to turn the windows up in the car to prevent the TB virus from entering the car.  She was sure that the virus had invaded the area from when the sanatorium was in the neighborhood.  I was born in 1944, a year after the cure was discovered, and eventually received the vaccine, but mom still wasn't sold on it.  What surprised me the most was in the early 1960s when mom and dad bought a home on Janet Avenue, a few blocks from the Health and Welfare Center.  

A 1961 photo showing a snowscape that included both the
new one story flat roof Health and Welfare Center and the
about to be demolished Rossmere Sanatorium to the upper left.

The dreaded disease wasn't only my mom's worry I'm sure.  I have no proof of it, but my guess was that most people avoided the area that was close to the sanatorium.  I even found a photo dated 1957 that shows TB patients at the sanatorium laying in their hospital beds on the front porch of the place.  How scary that might have been for my mom had she seen that photo.  I'm not sure at what point in her life she accepted the fact that TB had been eradicated in the US and it was safe to frequent the neighborhood where her and dad eventually bought their home.  I would have loved to have talked to mom about her reasoning for her fear, but that will never happen.  I only have the memories of her fear of TB that must have haunted her.  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.