The Sheltering Arms Hospital, located in
Athens, Ohio, started as a two-room home-based maternity ward in 1921 and grew into a medical and surgical facility as the original facility was expanded. In operation at 19 Clarke Street from 1921 until 1970, Sheltering Arms moved into a new facility in 1970 named the Charles G. O’Bleness Memorial Hospital, and was renamed the OhioHealth O’Bleness Hospital when it became part of
OhioHealth
OhioHealth is a not-for-profit system of hospitals and healthcare providers located in Columbus, Ohio and surrounding areas. The system consists of 12 hospitals, 200+ ambulatory sites, hospice, home health, medical equipment and other health serv ...
(
Columbus, OH
Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and ...
) in 2014.
History
In the early 1920s, Charles Breinig, a contractor, and his wife Delia used their home as a
lying-in
Lying-in is the term given to the European forms of postpartum confinement, the traditional practice involving long bed rest before and after giving birth. The term and the practice it describes are old-fashioned or archaic, but it used to be c ...
facility,
where women gave birth and rested for several days. Encouraged by Dr. John E. Rollings Sprague, the Breinings built a four-room addition in 1921 and became the Sheltering Arms Hospital.
It was one of the first such facilities in
Athens County, Ohio
Athens County is a county in southeastern Ohio. As of the 2020 census, the population was 62,431. Its county seat is Athens. The county was formed in 1805 from Washington County. Because the original state university (Ohio University) was fo ...
and Sheltering Arms became a magnet for medical care in Athens.
The hospital continued to grow in size and services. Diagnostic x-ray imaging was added in 1924, and a clinical laboratory in 1937.
[ The Breinings continued to expand and operate the facility until 1947 when they sold it to Dr. Theron H. Morgan. Morgan later donated the facility to the community through The Sheltering Arms Foundation, which was started in 1949. The Foundation became the sole owner of the facility in 1959, after Morgan's death in 1957.][
Having outgrown the Clarke Street building, local doctors asked the community to build a new facility. Funds were raised, with $1 million of the eventual $1.7 million coming from
Charles G. O'Bleness, a local banker. Groundbreaking for the new building, about a half mile away, was in December 1967. It opened in 1970, named the Charles G. O’Bleness Memorial Hospital, O'Bleness having died in 1969.]
Building
The original Sheltering Arms building is a two-story, irregular shaped brick structure built in 1911, with several additions through 1939.[ It was added to the ]National Register of Historic Places
The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic ...
in 1982.[ The building now provides Senior/Disabled Low Income Subsidized Housing.]
References
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National Register of Historic Places in Athens County, Ohio
Buildings and structures in Athens, Ohio
Hospitals in Ohio