TRINITY HEALTH
St. Joseph Mercy Ann Arbor in Ann Arbor, Mich., celebrated its 100th anniversary with a Mass, a community gathering, a time capsule sealing and a successful fund-raising ball last year.
The summer centennial Mass celebrated the work of the hospital's foundresses, the Sisters of Mercy; a fall community party included an antique car show, food tastings and massages; and a December ball wrapped up a $1 million fund-raiser tied to the anniversary. The hospital also created a time capsule with photos, videos and information about the hospital — with much of this stored as files on a flash drive.
St. Joseph Mercy Ann Arbor also created a centennial blog to share historical tidbits.
Four Sisters of Mercy opened what was then St. Joseph's Sanitarium on Nov. 21, 1911. They had traveled to Ann Arbor from Dubuque, Iowa, at the invitation of Ann Arbor medical and religious leaders who said the town needed a community hospital. The sisters converted a donated three-floor student boarding house into a 17-bed hospital. Surgeons operated on the hospital's first floor and then carried the patients up the stairs to their rooms on the upper floors.
The hospital moved in 1914. In 1918, the U.S. government temporarily commandeered the facility to treat soldiers with the Spanish flu. The Sisters of Mercy signed on with the Red Cross so they could help care for the patients.
The facility moved to its present location in 1977. It now is a 537-bed teaching hospital with specialties in oncology, cardiovascular care, neurosciences and orthopedics.
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