While several local physicians periodically visited the hospital, the full-time staff of the Kaspare Cohn Hospital remained quite small and composed primarily of women. In its original location on Carroll Avenue, Dr. Sarah Vassen [HYPERLINK TO KEY PEOPLE PAGE] lived in the hospital with the patients. She had two nurses to assist her during the day, as well as one night nurse, a janitor and a cook. She also worked closely with Rabbi Sigmund Hecht, leader of Congregation B’nai B’rith, who made frequent visits to the hospital to attend to the spiritual needs of its patients. Dr. Vassen and the nurses managed all of the hospitals’ day-to-day affairs. Because they lacked antiviral and/or antibiotic medicines, the bulk of the nurses’ care focused on pain management, treating wounds and sores associated with the disease and maintaining clean and sanitary conditions in the hospital. Nurses administered heart and respiratory stimulants as well as sedatives, most of which were oil, herb or alcohol based tonics and salves, as well as daily sponge baths and clean wound dressings. They provided healthy meals, based on emergent nutrition science, and provided as much comfort as possible to their patients. These tasks conformed to prevailing notions of “women’s work,” caregiving considered an extension of women’s domestic duties in the home. Nursing was considered a noble and respectable profession for young women and was a crucial component of the health care system.

Dr. Vassen left her post shortly after the hospital moved to its new location in Boyle Heights in 1910, and later established her own private maternity practice on Temple Street, offering her services free of charge to those who were fortunate enough to be recommended by the Hebrew Benevolent Society. Despite Dr. Vassen’s departure, the role of women at Kaspare Cohn hospital expanded in the 1910s and 1920s. The hospital’s administrators recruited another gynecologist from the Jewish Maternity Home to serve as superintendant, Miss Blumenthal, who established a training school for nurses at the hospital because of the shortage of Jewish women nurses in the city. With the help of local attorney Edwin Loeb, the Hospital amended its charter and by-laws so that it could issue the nurses-in-training diplomas, certify them with the state Board of Health, and create a professional nursing staff. Miss Blumenthal was succeeded by a young nurse, Miss Nettie Sher, whose mother served as secretary of the local Federation of Jewish Charities. Miss Sher was trained at Angelus Hospital, the largest local nursing school, and brought her skill and experience to the Hospital. Unfortunately, during the influenza epidemic of 1918-1919, which at its peak infected some 800 city residents per day, Miss Sher herself fell ill. She died of the disease days later, having given her life to the patients at Kaspare Cohn Hospital. [HYPERLINK “influenza epidemic” to page on Mt. Sinai]

In an effort to expand their nursing school, the administrators at the hospital next recruited Mrs. Kathryn K. Meitzler, who had been one of Nettie Sher’s instructors at the school for nursing at Angelus Hospital. Meitzler was born in Indiana and had moved to California with her husband in the first decade of the twentieth century where she gave birth to their son, Billie, and became an instructor at Angelus Hospital. She became an officer in the California State Nurses’ Association and helped to bring the training program at Kaspare Cohn Hospital into line with prevailing professional standards in the field. After the death of her husband, she and her son lived at the hospital along with the nine nurses and nurses-in-training, the resident physician Orion C. Jones, the hospital’s cook Bertha Washburn, its Belgian gardener Joe Baeyans, and its Japanese Porter, Mr. Kawoguchi. [18] [HYPERLINK TO CITATIONS PAGE] Mrs. Meitzler stayed at Kaspare Cohn Hospital as it expanded and moved to a new facility on Fountain Avenue in Hollywood. She retired in the late 1930s and returned to Indiana to live with her sister-in-law, who was also a widow. Like Dr. Vassen and Miss Sher before her, Mrs. Meitzler and her female colleagues played significant roles in the early development of Kaspare Cohn Hospital.

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