Dr. Zakrzewska continued to serve on the board of directors as she had done since the beginning of the Hospital, but the added freedom gained by being released from work at the Dispensary and in being able to share her Hospital duties, gave her greater opportunity to elaborate and press forward her plans for building a hospital which should be more suitable for its purposes than any altered dwelling houses could possibly be. Writing of the successes achieved by the Hospital and of the satisfactions derived from its possession of the four houses in Warrenton and Pleasant streets, she continues:
But after a few years, we found that even these accommodations were becoming too small. Also, the character of the neighborhood was changing from private residences to retail trading stores, and it was easy to foresee that the time was coming when this location would be entirely unsuitable for the sick.
As it was neither my intention nor that of the Directors to carry on simply a charity, but rather to make this charity at the same time a school for educating women physicians on the European plan before mentioned and for the training of nurses for the benefit of the community, we felt that confidence in the value and need of our work had now been sufficiently established to warrant our erecting a building which would serve all these purposes and which in its arrangement might become a model hospital among the charitable institutions of the country.
About this time an especially interesting bequest of two thousand dollars was received by the Hospital from the estate of Mrs. Robert G. Shaw, the language of the bequest stating that the money was “to be used by Dr. Zakrzewska in aid of any Hospital or Infirmary for the poor and sick which may be under her superintendence in the City of Boston at the time of my decease.”
The accumulating demand for a children’s ward in the Hospital was so strongly felt this year that one of the physicians took into her own household for care and treatment a child patient whose case was particularly urgent.
This pressure for a children’s ward was an additional factor in making Dr. Zakrzewska and her associates begin a still more definite campaign for the erection of new hospital buildings which should be especially suitable for the varied demands made upon them. Alterations in the streets and increase of business in that part of the city had enhanced the pecuniary value of land in that vicinity, so it was hoped that the sale of the present property would supply the money needed for building the new structure. It was planned to hold a Fair in December in order to raise the money needed for the purchase of the new land.
And one may judge of the courage required to attempt to carry such ambitions into execution when it is noted that the institution had just held its own financially, the year closing with the same amount of debt as that with which it began.
The Fair in December, 1870, justified the ardent hopes which breathed through every detail of its preparation and completion, and over twelve thousand dollars was realized.
A committee was immediately appointed to select a site, and after much investigation this committee recommended the purchase of an estate in Boston Highlands (now Roxbury), on Codman Avenue (now Dimock Street), between Shawmut Avenue (now Washington Street) and Amory Street (now Columbus Avenue).
With the formation of a building committee (which included all the medical officers) the new venture was definitely launched. The skies were lifting, favoring breezes prevailed, and the year closed with all running expenses met, all debts paid, and only the new building expenses to confront the treasurer—but it must be admitted that these were formidable enough, since they were on such an expanded scale.
The report of the resident physician, Dr. Buckel, for the year of 1870-1871 reflects so clearly her association with Dr. Zakrzewska and contains such interesting pictures of some phases of the social life of the period that a few paragraphs may be quoted, especially as some of them bear upon variations of a question which to-day is still perplexing our community, and which has at last reached legislators all over the United States in a concrete and radical form.[16]