Has anyone heard of the "Bemis Sanitarium"? The reference below is from an undated letter written on a July 28, between 1886 and 1895, from Naugatuck. I have no idea where the sanitarium was located. It would help immensely to know what "ailment" this sanitarium treated - mental or physical.. "Alice has been and got back she says it is the biggest humbug she ever struck she made up her mind there was no help for her there she would get home as soon as she could it's 6 or 10 dollars a week for board and $10 a week for treatment people are staying hoping against hope that they will be benefited after a while" >From an 1895 letter: "Alice complains about her feet thinks she shant be able to use them by and bye". Whether that is anything but a coincidence is uncertain. We have surmised that "Alice" had a "problem", but have had no luck determining what it was. Does the following ring a bell with anyone? Perhaps it was notable enough to be recorded? I would really like to date this letter... "We have had two freshets in two weeks and they have raised the mischief with Chimneys and gardens the streets in Waterbury were washed to peices they said it would take twenty thousand dollars to put it back in shape again we have got a northeast storm now when will it end" (Excerpt later in the letter says now 3 freshets in 3 weeks..) Thanks... Pat Kane New Haven names: Bateman, Kane, O'Kane, Mulligan, Porter, Bronson __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? Yahoo! Greetings - Send FREE e-cards for every occasion! http://greetings.yahoo.com

...Just a guess on these...(please see below ellipses...) ----- Original Message ----- From: Pat Kane <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Wednesday, February 27, 2002 10:04 AM Subject: [CTNEWHAV] Bemis Sanitarium? Bad weather in Waterbury.. > Has anyone heard of the "Bemis Sanitarium"? The > reference below is from an undated letter written on a > July 28, between 1886 and 1895, from Naugatuck. I have > no idea where the sanitarium was located. It would > help immensely to know what "ailment" this sanitarium > treated - mental or physical.. > > "Alice has been and got back she says it is the > biggest humbug she ever struck she made up her mind > there was no help for her there she would get home as > soon as she could it's 6 or 10 dollars a week for > board and $10 a week for treatment people are staying > hoping against hope that they will be benefited after > a while" ....It's a stretch, but...1895....this was the great era of the health sanitoriums run by the (7th day) Adventists, among others...perhaps the most famous, right in this timeframe, was the Kellogg Sanitarium in Battle Creek, MI, where the originally-healthy, now filled with sugar-and-chaff-for-an-outrageous-profit....breakfast cereals were first developed. Those were the days before allopathic medicine won an almost total victory over homeopathy in this country, and the allopaths managed to confiscate the proceeds from Henry Ford's estate, which were clearly left for homeopathy...but that's another story... In this same timeframe, I know that in Wallingford-Cheshire CT was the then-well-known tuberculosis sanitarium Gaylord Farms...as my Tuttle ancestors were involved in its operation. Before antibiotics, the only chance at a TB cure was rest, fresh air and country food...not that your relative had TB, but it was a not infrequent medical problem back then Best regards, Barry Browning > > >From an 1895 letter: "Alice complains about her feet > thinks she shant be able to use them by and bye". > Whether that is anything but a coincidence is > uncertain. We have surmised that "Alice" had a > "problem", but have had no luck determining what it > was. ...Anybody with a med degree and clinical experience want to comment? Sounds like foot complications from...diabetes, again a dreadful disease then, before insulin had been isolated in Canada, for use as a treatment.... > > Does the following ring a bell with anyone? Perhaps > it was notable enough to be recorded? I would really > like to date this letter... > > "We have had two freshets in two weeks and they have > raised the mischief with Chimneys and gardens the > streets in Waterbury were washed to peices ...that's the best "clew" to me....occurs to me that "freshets" were that type of rainstorm where it rains cats and dogs...just buckets...and in 1895, there was still not much, if any, asphalt on roads anywhere...hence they had to be re-packed after the winter and the spring floods...they had horse-drawn road scrapers back then, and horse-drawn heavy rollers...primitive for today, but basically they looked like steamrollers and road scrapers of the present. We have to remember that road conditions were treacherous back then...particularly in winter, when about the best anyone could do was drive a team of huge draft horses around with a roller, to pack the snow for sleds...my late dad recalled walking to school in Cheshire by following the tops of stone walls...there was that much snow... (p.s. "raining cats and dogs"...that expression comes from England, where the domestic pets actually found themselves nests up on the roof...in the ample thatch...and when a heavy rainstorm hit, it would literally wash them out from their roof "perch", and it would literally..."rain cats and dogs") Best regards, Barry Browning they said > it would take twenty thousand dollars to put it back > in shape again we have got a northeast storm now > when will it end" (Excerpt later in the letter says > now 3 freshets in 3 weeks..) ...Boy, doesn't that just sound like a New England spring! I'm eight states away right now, but to hear it described that way just makes me homesick! > > Thanks... > > Pat Kane > > New Haven names: Bateman, Kane, O'Kane, Mulligan, > Porter, Bronson > > > __________________________________________________ > Do You Yahoo!? > Yahoo! Greetings - Send FREE e-cards for every occasion! > http://greetings.yahoo.com > > > ==== CTNEWHAV Mailing List ==== > To post messages to the New Haven County, CT discussion list, send them to > [email protected] > > > ============================== > To join Ancestry.com and access our 1.2 billion online genealogy records, go to: > http://www.ancestry.com/rd/redir.asp?targetid=571&sourceid=1237 > >