Bellairsia: Oaklawn Hospital

Oaklawn Hospital

Oaklawn Hospital is a health care institution serving Calhoun County, located in Marshall, Michigan.

History

The original Oaklawn Hospital building in Marshall had been a private residence, the first brick house in the county. Built in 1837 along Mansion Street by town founder Sidney Ketchum, it was from this mansion the street took its name [1].

The “Mansion House” at 215 East Mansion was used a dormitory for the Young Ladies Institute until it was purchased by Charles P. Dibble in 1859 and remodeled in 1861 in the Italian villa style. It was Dibble who named the property Oaklawn because of the white oaks adorning the grounds. Ownership passed to Dibble’s son and then the Ella E. M. Brown Charitable Circle – named for the wife of Charles E. Brown. The Brown family had owned a house at the northwest corner of Prospect and High Streets (northeast of the Mansion House) which had been bequeathed for use as a hospital. While noble in thought, in subsequent years the house proved unworthy for use as a hospital and attention was turned to finding a location to fulfill the wishes of the Brown family. The Dibble family donated the Mansion House and their property for just such use and the former house was again remodeled into a twelve-bed hospital.

"When opened in 1925, Oaklawn [was] not even 5,000 square feet, with the third floor accommodating operating, emergency and maternity rooms, a baby's bath and a nursery. The building was furnished with draperies, sheets and pillowcases made by area churches."

Donors to the hospital grounds included the Kellogg Foundation and Miss Gertrude Smith, who willed the eastern portion of the ground in 1932. A decade later the hospital had become overcrowded and a new 47-bed hospital was constructed, the first of several new buildings at the current Oaklawn site. Construction began in March 1952, and was dedicated later in September. The complex again expanded in 1962 to 69 beds. In 1975 Oaklawn celebrated 50 years of service with the opening of the original 12,000-square-foot Wright Medical Building. The complex continues to expand into the 21 Century as Marshall's largest employer with a team of nearly 800 people.

Bellairs Corpus

After his encounter with the Moss ghost and being exposed to the wintry elements, Lewis Barnavelt spends the night in New Zebedee’s Oaklawn Hospital (The Figure in the Shadows, 131), an enormous mansion once owned by an old lady (144).