Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia
The Episcopal Diocese of West Virginia is a diocese of the Episcopal Church in the United States of America (TEC). It encompasses all 55 counties of West Virginia. The diocese has 66 congregations, including 38 parishes, 26 missions, and 2 other c ...
opened the hospital in 1888, under the leadership of its first bishop, the Rt. Rev. George W. Peterkin. At the time, there was only one other hospital in the state; his sister Rebekah Dulaney Peterkin founded a similar hospital in Richmond. Among the West Virginia organizers were
William Nelson Page
William Nelson Page (January 6, 1854 – March 7, 1932) was an American civil engineer and industrialist. He was active in the Virginias following the U.S. Civil War. Page was widely known as a metallurgical expert by other industry leaders a ...
, a civil and mining engineer and
coal
Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen.
Coal is formed when ...
mine manager of
Ansted
The Ansted was an American automobile; successor to the Lexington and the Ansted-Lexington, it was manufactured from 1926 to 1927. Following the sale of the Lexington plant in Connersville, Indiana
Connersville is a city in Fayette Cou ...
and Major Thomas L. Broun of Kanawha County.
Sheltering Arms Hospital was supported by small payroll deductions, initially 10 cents a month, from coal miners and railroad workers. When a new building was opened in 1908, it contained 100 beds, and Sheltering Arms could care for 800 patients. The hospital had its own nursing school. Under hospital policy, "Persons with contagious diseases, or those caused by immoral habits, not received."
The Sheltering Arms Hospital in West Virginia closed in 1923 after its services were replaced by county hospitals.
Dr. Otis K. Rice donated papers from the hospital to the West Virginia state archives. He coauthored a book with Wayne Williams, ''A History of the Sheltering Arms Hospital''.