Gates Hospital Recalls Memories Of Old Family Doctor

(Editor's note: The follo ing is another in a series on the buildings scheduled to be torn down to make room for t h e n e w Federal Building planned for Ann Arbor.) The days of the old family doctor wh'o held office hours regularly without appointments and went out on house calis at all hours seems but a faded memory in the modern world. I The dust was shaken from that memory recently when longtime Ann Arborites realized that the old Gates Hospital at 314 S. Fifth Ave. was one of those buildings that would be demolished to make way f o r the new Federal Building when that contract is approved. The proposed Federal Building site being negotiated includes property on Liberty and the north ends of S. Fifth and S. Fouth Avenue, including such landmarks as the Masonic Temple, the Eberbach Building and the Varsity Laundry. Three rooming houses are also in the parcel. During the two decades from 1926 to 1945 when Dr. Neil Gates operated his private hospital on Fifth Avenue, many Ann Arborites were born there, including his grandsons. Many others went to the hospital for surgery or illness, most of them Dr. Gates' own patients. The Gates Hospital was one of several small privately owned and operated hospitals typical of the period. The building was painted gleaming white on the exterior which was of narrow siding in the late 19th century Victorian style of the original house. A gracious veranda, where visitors and ambulatory patients sat to catch the breeze, graced the front of the building. The most distinctive features were the tower, its roof painted copper color, and a tubular metal fire escape slide from the ward annex at the back. The tower housed ' two especially nice private rooms and a service elevator. The iire escape, modern for its day, was designed so that patients could be evacuated in case of fire by sliding them dnwn on mattresses. Today, the slide is sometimes used in a playful way by the youthful. occupants of the rooming house. Occasionally they slide down on the seats of their pants to their cars in the parking lot adjacent to the fire escape. "It's fun," said one young man, "but you don't really go very fast. And," he added almost regretfully, "you come to a gentle stop well before exit." When Dr. Gates Private Hospital was in full operation there were four to five nurses working daily and two at night; the full capacity was about 28 patients in two wards and eight private rooms. The building contained a surgery and a delivery room for babies. The wards and an x-ray room were added by Dr. Gates when he took over, rec.i.U.s his son. Dr. Neil Gates, but the surgery room was in the building which had been j used as a private hospital since 1907. "Work really kept Dad going," recalls Mrs. Edwin D. Rentschler. "I don't remember a night when he ever got a full night's sleep. He went out on every call, often two or three in one night." She recalls that her father had no time for vacations although he took a firm hand in rearing the two children. She once asked her father why be never took an afternoon off each week. "Daughter," he replied, "I'il tell you this. If I took Thursday afternoon off, just as many people would still get sick on that day. I'm needed here." His routine was rigorous, she recalls. Mornings he reserved for operations and rural calis; he had an extensive rural practice which stemmed partly from his earlier practice in Dexter. Every afternoon he had open office hours from 3 to 5 followed by city calls from 5:30 to 6 p.m. He returned to the office after dinner from 7 to 8 and made house calis er that. Sunday was just another day for him. "People get sick every day," he was fond of replying when asked why he worked every day. Mrs. Gates was a "retiring type," recalls her daughter. She took care of the house and made sure that the doctor got regular and nourishing meals. In the fall of 1918 one of the county's worst influenz e epidemics struck and spread rypids, especially among the young men in a Students Army Training Corps program, similar to ROTC, squeezed together in makeshift housing, partly in the Michigan Union. More than 1,200 of these young men fell ill. The Union became a temporary hospital and the U-M's Newberry Hall became the infirmary, says Howard H. Peckham in his history of the University. Ann Arbor citizenry pitched in to help, especially with nursing and medical services. All the local doctors took on some of the students as patients. Dr. Gates usually spent a couple of hours at the University's temporary influenza hospital during the day and checked back again at night. The epidemie only lasted for a few weeks in I tober, but that winter har another test in store, I ly for rural doctors. Severe cold and deep snow paralyzed the area, and the rural patients continued to get sick, just as Dr. Gates said they would. Roads were impassable for cars, so Dr. Gates asked the nearest farmer to drive into town with his horse and sleigh. The doctor would bed down in the hay, cover up with a blunket and sleep until he reached the first patient's house. By the time he had finished with the first patiënt, the next farmer was waiting at the door to take him to his next stop. In this manner Dr. Gates got his forty winks between calis. He would return home sometime between midnight and 2 a.m. "All his patients were his íriends," says his daughter "They all adored him and remarked about his wonderful way of working with people.?' Dr. Gates was born in Ann Arbor in 1873 and attended tha local schools. He completed his medical degree at the U-M in 1897, and that summer located his practice in Dexter. There he built the Gates Block building in 1900 and established a sanitarium. He moved his practice to Ann Arbor in 1905. His first office was at 117 E. Liberty St. His son, Nei1, became a doctor and worked with his father until joining the service in World War II. Dr. Gates carried on alone for a few years until he died in 1945. Shortly after that the building was sold. Although most Ann Arborites recall the hospital from its association with Dr. Gates, it was Dr. Cyrenus G. Darling who first converted the large wooden house into a private hospital. Dr. Darling, who was appointed assistant to the chair of surgery in the University in 1889, taught in the University's medical department and served as dean of the dental college. He was Ann Arbor's mayor in 1894-1895. According to old city directories, he opeñéc nns private hospital in 1907. Some time after 1912 it was called Maplehurst Hospital, but it still belonged to the Darling family when the Gates family purchased it in 1915. The original house was probably built in the 1880s or 1890s says Prof. Emeritus of Architecture, Ralph W. Hammett, an authority on local architectural history. "Many such large woodén Victorian houses with towers and cupolas were built in Ann Arbor in that time. It was a period of rapid expansión," he said. The present exterior of the house, grey, wide siding with blue trim, dates from the 1946 when the hospital was turned. into a rooming house. Mrs. Delia Selent, its new owner, began a flourishing beauty parlor business there. Most of the present roomers in the house are young working people in their 20s and 30s, including a group of musicians who practice in the basement. A lew ot the rooms retain unique reminders of the building's hospital past. The entry and front room that served as the doctor's office are wood paneled. Doors to the apartments, once had window glass in them. Wooden panels have replaced the glass. Two new bathrooms were placed in a former elevator shaft. And one apartment, at the top floor rear of the old building, has a large skylight in the ceiling. lts present occupant figures that it i must have been the old operating room. It was. "It's pretty sad to think that they're going to tear the old place down,?' he remarked. "We . have a nice bunch of people livitig here. Where else can you find a place to live right in the heart of the city?." As he sauntered off with a young lady friend, he added, "I only hope they pu; up a nice building."