New Heritage Tour highlights SSM Health’s rich history in Madison

Madison, Wis. (11/15/2017) 

This year SSM Health St. Mary's Hospital - Madison is celebrating 105 years of providing exceptional care to our patients and community. But our heritage of healing actually began in Madison several years earlier, with Dr. Joseph Dean.

Dr. Dean, who opened the first Dean Clinic in 1904 in a building on the corner of State and Carroll Streets in downtown Madison, was instrumental in bringing the St. Louis-based Sisters of St. Mary (now known as the Franciscan Sisters of Mary) to Madison to open a "sisters' hospital." The doors of St. Mary's Hospital opened on Sept. 22, 1912 with 70 patient beds. It was the beginning of a more than 100-year partnership that was made official with the merger of SSM Health and Dean Clinic in 2013.

That partnership and SSM Health's rich history in Madison are the focus of a Heritage Tour debuting during Heritage Week. For much of this year, a group made up of St. Mary's Hospital Mission Awareness Team co-chairs Deb Beduhn and Alicia Iannece, project sponsor Austine Duru, St. Mary's Hospital VP of Operations Jon Lewis, St. Mary's Hospital Director of Volunteer Services Joanne Johnson and St. Mary's Hospital Performance Improvement Educator Marian Bemis worked to put the tour together. Hospital volunteers who are former employees and/or St. Mary's School of Nursing alumni and others also contributed to the project or acted as consultants. The Heritage Tour Committee would also like to recognize Scott Longley, who was the Heritage Tour Chair, and thank him for his leadership and guidance.  

Follow in the footsteps of our founders

The Heritage Tour begins at the Wisconsin Regional Office (WRO), where colorful artwork and digital displays depict the rich history shared by SSM Health and Dean throughout the years. There's a media center that showcases our entire integrated system and milestones from Wisconsin's history, along with a historic timeline in the form of a large mural and accompanying monitor that rotates stories from across the decades. Additionally, the legacy of our founding sisters, as well as the people who helped shape Dean Medical Group over the years, is depicted in artwork in the WRO conference rooms and hallways.

From WRO, tour-goers board a shuttle bus to see the location of Dr. Dean's first clinic, as well as the locations of Dr. Dean's home and of the house where his wife, Minnie Karsten-Dean, grew up. During the trip, tour guides share stories about Dr. Dean, his family and his medical practice.

The tour then makes a stop at SSM Health St. Mary's Hospital - Madison, where the heritage of the sisters' ministry of health care truly comes to life. Beginning in the former Sacred Heart Hall (now Alumni Hall), which was home to St. Mary's School of Nursing from 1944 until 1974, tourists can enjoy refreshments in the school lounge while browsing artifacts such as Dr. Dean's desk and hospital blueprints from 1912. Other points of interest at St. Mary's Hospital include pillars from the original hospital's so-called "TB balcony" where tuberculosis patients went to get some fresh air; the Winter Garden where the fa?ade and entrance of the original hospital can been seen; the Healing Garden and stone archway that was part of the hospital from 1926 through 2005; the St. Mary's School of Nursing display near the cafeteria; the hospital chapel; and the history wall in the Atrium.

 From St. Mary's Hospital, the tour makes a stop at nearby St. James Parish, which also played a role in bringing the sisters to Madison. In fact, the sisters stayed at the convent affiliated with St. James until they were able to take up residence in the hospital.

The final stop on the tour is at Resurrection Cemetery, where tour-goers have a chance to pay their respects to 12 of the sisters who devoted their lives to providing exceptional health care to our community, including Sister Fortunata—commonly known as the "Angel of St. Mary's." The cemetery is also the resting place for the Dean family, as well as residents of the Greenbush Neighborhood whose bodies were transferred from a cemetery that had been on the site of what is now St. Mary's Hospital. A visit to our Infant Loss Memorial site is also included, as a reminder that every life is precious. The tour wraps up with a drive past the historic Fish Hatchery clinic that served the Madison community for decades.

Regional leaders will be taking the Heritage Tour during four sessions this week. In 2018, the Heritage Tour will be offered to any physicians, staff and volunteers in the Wisconsin region who would like to learn more about SSM Health's legacy of compassionate care in the Madison area.

Stacey Wendt-Kaisler  Madison, Wis. (11/15/2017)