Emma sat to catch her breath. “Nothing wrong, Miss Katherine. Just came out to sit wid ya.” Katherine looked at her quizzically. “Just need to talk a bit.”
“Yes, Emma?”
“Well, Miss Katherine, I know you as long as my own chirren—and they be gone from home sometime. I been watchin’ you and I got some advice.” Katherine sat rapt. “You been lettin’ Mr. Patrick down. You draggin’ aroun’ for one whole year. Never go to the office. No friends. Just sad.”
“Emma. I don’t want to do anything. I don’t care anymore.”
“Miss Katherine, you are givin’ up a gift Mr. Patrick give you. He loved you. Love is a rare gift. Mos’ times men love you for your privates—‘scuse me—but Mr. Patrick loved you like you used to be.”
“But Emma, that is why I am suffering so much. The loss of that love has torn a large hole in me.”
“Miss Katherine, dat’s what’s wrong with you. True love never dies. You should honor Mr. Patrick by showing all Philadelphia what he left you. Not a ghost of Miss Katherine, but a lady who’s driven by her gift. To bring meanin’ to your love. To give meanin’ to your life.”
Katherine stammered. “How in the world ...” she started, but Emma interrupted.
“I’m black and I’m poor, but Pollard and me have that gift, too.”
“Emma, my dear.” Katherine stood. She looked out over the valley and saw one single bird circling in the air. She turned to Emma. “You were sent by God.”
Emma looked down. “Or by Mr. Patrick.”
Katherine took her by the arm. “Come on. It will be easier getting home riding my horse with me.”
Katherine began going into the office again and spent hours with Arthur learning what happened in the business for the past year. The Central Pacific Railroad was over the summit and now could win the race to Promontory Point in Utah. It was comforting to her that Patrick’s project was successful.
She went to the office three days every week and attended all Board meetings, but Emma had touched her soul and she was no longer the same. She had lost the greatest loves of her life to diabolical diseases, and decided to devote the rest of her life to finding cures. There must be a solution to disease, the playground of the Devil. She contacted Johns Hopkins, her grandfather’s good friend, who was dedicated to improving medical education and medicine. She became a Director on the Board of Pennsylvania Hospital. The Catholic Church welcomed her return and she spent time ministering to the poor and sick of the church.
In April 1869, after two years of mourning, Katherine packed away her black clothes. She played with or read to the boys, now five and three, for some time during each day. On the farm she taught them how to ride and care for their own Shetland ponies. The boys grew into teenagers, were healthy, and brought her joy. Jeffrey was the image of Patrick with his green eyes and strawberry-blonde hair, but personally he was rather shy and withdrawn. Katherine was convinced that the lack of a father had reduced his self-confidence. Jonathan had his mother’s facial features, but his father’s solid body and indomitable spirit. He played hard, took risks, and became a first-class flirt as he grew older. They were all the family she wanted. She had no interest in another man—none seemed man enough to match Patrick. She became skilled at politely refusing advances and offers. In the men’s clubs of Philadelphia, word circulated that Katherine Sullivan was not available.
Twice in the 1870s Katherine sailed to Europe with the boys, spending six months each trip at the Pasteur Institute. Louis Pasteur was the leading name in the world in medicine, and nowhere in the United States was there a comparable figure or a laboratory like his. He discovered that the “little critters” Patrick had worried about came in two types, bacteria and viruses. Bacteria he saw under a microscope, and though viruses were too small to be seen, the chemists had proven they were there. In 1867, Joseph Lister, a protégé of Pasteur, had discovered that carbolic acid could sterilize the skin, which made surgery infinitely safer.
Katherine wanted to bring the European style of medicine and research to the United States. It provided a better education and better laboratories. American medicine was so far behind that even a revolutionary discovery like Lister’s antisepsis was not accepted. In the late 1870s, Katherine met William Welch, who felt the same desire to revolutionize American medicine. He was convinced that European methods of medical education—notably its inclusion of laboratory science, instruction at the patient’s bedside, and four-year programs of study led by full-time professors—was the model to follow. She became confident, after knowing him, that medicine would change in the United States.
By 1885 both boys were in college, Jeffrey at Yale and Jonathan at Harvard, and Arthur Hampton was running the company, profitably every year. Katherine had little interest in running the company and was driven only to elevate American medicine to a new level.
Every night, she spoke to Patrick, as had been their habit before sleep. She assured him that she was using the energy from their rare and valuable gift to bring meaning to their lives. “Medicine will rise, Patrick. Rise out of your ashes, like the phoenix, lifting us out of disease for five hundred years.”
Chapter Fourteen
CRUSADE
—1888—
It was at this table I first ate lunch with Patrick. He loved my Paris perfume. I still miss him after all these years. Katherine sat at one end of the long table while Arthur Hampton and lawyers from America’s largest corporations, including Rockefeller’s Standard Oil, Morgan’s US Steel, Vanderbilt’s New York Central Railroad and the Pennsylvania Rail Works, here at Andrew Carnegie’s urging, were in discussion to buy Donovan & Sullivan. The conversation was technical and she was uninterested, but she hoped Carnegie’s friends would win, because Andrew was a generous donor to hospitals.
He gave me my greatest heartache and my greatest years. Patrick wouldn’t believe I am selling, but the boys don’t want the company. With this money they will be able to finance my dream. She glanced at them as they stared off into space, as bored with the negotiations as she. Jonathan was a senior at Harvard, and admitted to medical school at Harvard in the next year. He was a quick study in his schoolwork and loved girls and sports. A strapping six foot two, he had dark hair, sparkling blue eyes and a full mouth almost always in a wide grin. If the girls in Boston knew how much money he was about to be worth, the skirts would be flying. They already were.
Jeffrey was another matter entirely. Katherine had tried to help him become more comfortable socially, but his shyness held him back. He was handsome, like the Sullivans before him, but his eyes didn’t always shine and at times he seemed sullen. He was a likeable loner who had made only a few new friends at Yale, where he was an assistant professor in chemistry. Jeffrey thought medicine was a waste of time because it could do nothing for people but hold their hands.
“Yes,” she said in answer to a question from Arthur. “Yes, I want two seats on the board of any company that acquires us. I want my two sons to have some oversight on the fate of their grandfathers’ legacies.” Jonathan’s attention returned to the room and he smiled absently. Jeffrey frowned.
“Katherine,” Arthur turned to her, “do you have any questions or comments for these gentlemen?”
“No. I believe we have given you a full accounting of our organization and our businesses. I can tell you our Board does not want a sale, but this is a private company with three-quarters of the stock in the hands of our family members. If you present an acceptable plan for purchase, we will sell. We await your offers.”
Arthur gave them all one last opportunity to query, and when none was forthcoming, he adjourned the meeting. He advised both parties that Katherine would be traveling for the next two weeks and would respond to their bids at the end of that time. If there were any questions they could telegraph them to this office and Arthur would respond.
A week later, Katherine and Jeffrey were traveling from Philadelphia to Baltimore in a railroad car as comfortable as a parlo
r in a well-appointed home. Connected to a separate sleeper and dining car, it belonged to Mary Garrett, the unmarried thirty-four-year-old daughter of John W. Garrett, founder of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Having met because of their passionate interest in medical philanthropy, the elfin Mary and Katherine became fast friends. The fourth traveler was Katherine’s old friend Doctor William Welch, a bald, thin man with a pleasant face, full mustache, and piercing eyes behind pince-nez glasses. Like Mary, he had never married, having dedicated his life to medicine. Now he wanted to build a medical school model at Johns Hopkins University.
A wealthy businessman and financier, Johns Hopkins had been one of the early investors in the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, but was best known for his generous and careful philanthropic work. When he died on Christmas Eve, 1873, he bequeathed seven million dollars to establish a university and the hospital in his name, the largest gift ever made to an American educational institution. Katherine and Mary diligently raised additional money for the “teaching hospital” he had envisioned. Welch was now recruiting them for $500,000 to begin construction of the medical school, but he was frustrated with the conversation.
“William, I know your dilemma,” Mary said, “and you know mine. That university president, Daniel Coit Gilman, has been in touch with me.”
“A Yale man,” Jeffrey pointed out. Katherine shushed him.
“Your board wants my money,” Mary continued, “but not my stipulations. I will give you $400,000 to build the Johns Hopkins Medical School, and I know Katherine will donate whatever else you need, but the school must admit women as medical students.”
“Mary, I appreciate your stance,” Welch huffed, “but can’t you relent on this issue until we get the school opened? The board is against this. They strongly believe that admitting women sacrifices a place for a male student who will spend his life dedicated to his career. A woman will get married, have children, and at best work part-time. Her primary focus will be her family.”
“There is no reason a woman can’t be as dedicated to her profession as a man. If I had dedicated my life to a family, you wouldn’t be talking to me here right now. There is no reason a woman can’t continue to practice once she has children. How many of your doctors actually know how a woman’s anatomy works? If you want my money, you must take my principles. Tell your board I will not compromise.”
With the conversation at a pause, Jeffrey leaned forward. “Why do you want to build a four-year medical school?” he asked. “Doctors can do nothing to cure disease, so the time of study need only be short.”
Welch turned to him. “We can only cure disease by studying it, Jeffrey. We must train students in laboratory science to fill research institutions where the cures for disease will be found. In four-year schools the students can treat patients and learn clinical medicine, how disease manifests itself. By requiring a college education we will have smart students who have developed disciplined study habits.”
“Doctor Welch, I am an academician. What place would I have in your new medical paradigm?” Jeffrey asked.
“Why Jeffrey, I’m like that myself. Men like you and me are needed to build the educational program. Gregarious men make better clinical doctors. Men like William Osler, who will lead the Department of Internal Medicine, and William Halsted, who is the genius of surgery. Come see me when we are in Baltimore, and I will show you our facilities. I think you’ll find they are as good as anything at Yale. And newer.” He turned back to Mary Garrett and Katherine. “I will speak privately to some of the board members who may be sympathetic to your ideas, but I can’t promise anything. But affirm to me that admitting women is the only stipulation you have.”
“I do.” Katherine seconded her.
“I’ll see what can be done. Well, I certainly look forward to seeing you all at the dedication of the hospital tomorrow night. But Jeffrey, I’m quite serious that you need to come see me. Let’s make it three o’clock tomorrow afternoon, shall we?”
Jeffrey, taken aback at Welch’s insistence, looked at his mother. Katherine nodded and Jeffrey looked back at Welch. “Yes, all right. Three o’clock tomorrow.”
The next day, Katherine was in her hotel suite in Baltimore, awaiting Jonathan’s arrival from Harvard and Jeffrey’s return from his meeting with Doctor Welch. There was a knock at the door, and she said, “Come in.”
Jeffrey strolled in, looking pensive, and closed the door behind him. “Well,” Katherine said expectantly. “How did it go?”
“I can’t say anything definite at this time,” Jeffrey said a little pompously. “But I must say your Doctor Welch is quite eloquent. A real visionary.”
Katherine smiled. “I have to agree with you there. And he’s brought in a number of quite brilliant colleagues. I wouldn’t be surprised if Johns Hopkins becomes the most outstanding medical research center in the country.”
Jeffrey raised an eyebrow. “Are you lobbying me, Mother?”
“I know such an effort would only be counterproductive, dear. But I can’t say that I would be unhappy if you were to work at Johns Hopkins.”
“Are you going to give him the money? I’m not sure I should be working in a place that my mother has supported so heavily. People might feel that I had bought my way in.”
Katherine frowned. “Then you had better accept Doctor Welch’s offer quickly, so that you can say you were hired before I gave any money to the medical school.”
Jeffrey threw up his hands, knowing he would get no further. “If anything comes of it, you’ll be the first to know. Any word on the sale of the company?”
“We have offers of 100 million dollars. Two offers. We’ll choose between them, and then it’s just a matter of drawing up the contracts.”
“That shouldn’t take more than a year, with all those lawyers involved.”
The heavy thud of the hotel suite door commanded their attention. They turned to see that Jonathan had come in and was leaning back against its wood. “Good heavens, Jonathan!” Katherine gasped. “Whatever happened to your face? Were you in a fight?” The right side of Jonathan’s face was black and purple and there was a small cut across the bridge of his nose. Laughing and shaking his head, he leaned over and kissed his mother.
“Did you at least score?” Jeffrey sniffed.
“Football,” Katherine groaned. “How do you plan to be a surgeon with a disfigured face and an injured brain?”
“Mother, please. It was an elbow to the face, not a bayonet. I could be hurt much worse walking around the Donovan & Sullivan’s shipyards on any given night. I love to play the game and the exercise is great.” He patted his flat stomach.
“Oh all right, but you look a mess. I suppose I will have to make excuses for you all night. Jeffrey, at least you look like a successful student. Please tell those you meet that your brother is not a hooligan.” Katherine smiled. “Now let us get ready and go.”
Eleven long years after breaking ground in 1877, the world was now celebrating the historic completion of Hopkins’ dream. The lobby of the new Johns Hopkins Hospital was already crowded with perhaps a hundred of the founding donors and community supporters when the Sullivans arrived. Everyone attending would be given a tour of the hospital by Colonel John Shaw Billings, the architect and Chairman of the Board. Doctor Welch was greeting guests at the door, though Katherine knew this social occasion was painful for him.
“Jeffrey, a word with you. Katherine, we have an appointment tomorrow?” Katherine nodded yes. Welch took Jeffrey by the arm and the two walked to a corner.
Katherine stayed to chat with Billings while Jonathan disappeared into the crowd of people in search of refreshment. “When this first crush of people has passed,” Billings said to her after a few minutes, “I’ll take you around the place. Now I’ve got to be the host.” Katherine nodded and began to work her way through the crowded lobby, but was stopped abruptly by a sea of men pooled around Jonathan, who stood nearly a head above most of them. Once it was known that her son’
s bruises were a result of playing football for Harvard he became the center of attention and the recipient of hearty handshakes and admiration. Her heart caught in her throat because he seemed so much like Patrick at the Ball where they had met, shining with youth and confidence. Jonathan caught his mother’s eye and gave her a triumphant smile. She wrinkled her nose and grinned. He likes it! His father’s son.
Billings caught up with Katherine and took her on a tour of one of the wards. His experience was evident in every detail. Having witnessed thousands of soldiers die from diseases during the war, Billings applied stringent antiseptic principles to the architecture. Each room contained its own ventilation system that pulled warm air through it from heating coils in the cellar. There was no direct passage from one room to the other, which helped to quarantine diseases. Square corners were replaced by curves—even the junction of the floor and the wall was curved—to prevent dust or insects from collecting in corners. “John, your creation will be a model for all future hospitals,” Katherine said. “You must feel great satisfaction at seeing this structure completed.”
“Katherine, a compliment from you means a great deal. Now I hope we can get medical students roaming the hallways. A Johns Hopkins Medical School would be the culmination of our efforts.”
Katherine wouldn’t take the bait. “I think you can expect that to happen if you’ll just let women become medical students.”
“How about we promise to take your boys, Katherine?” Billings riposted.
“They can get in on their own merit.”
Katherine gathered her sons and they returned to the hotel for dinner.
The conversation buzzed about the genius of the new hospital structure and the potential for a medical school. Even Jonathan, a rabid Harvard man already accepted into the two-year Harvard medical school class beginning in 1889, mused, “Maybe I’ll come work in this hospital after medical school.”
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