THURSDAY, JULY 22, 2021

The Cora Anderson Hospital provided medical care to Temple blacks and other minorities for more than a decade.

Donations built Temple’s black hospital

By DAVID STONE, Our Town Temple exclusive

Plans for Temple may have started on a railroad company drawing board, but the thriving community quickly became a center for medicine. Since the late 1800s, most medical needs have been met locally — at least for some of the town’s residents.

Temple’s past — like most of the South and some states up north — was rooted in segregation and restrictive Jim Crow laws. Blacks and other minorities didn’t have access to the many medical advances in practice just a short distance away.

In the early 1900s, Temple was the home to three hospitals — Temple Sanitarium (later Scott & White), Kings Daughters and the Santa Fe Railroad hospital. For the most part, these institutions focused on white populations. 

A fourth hospital, Graves Hospital — Chartered in September 1917 as the Colored Memorial Hospital Association — began to address the medical needs of a growing and underserved population.

But Graves was tiny compared to the larger established white-only hospitals, and the five-room house at the corner of Avenue D and South 20th quickly became overcrowded. It struggled to meet the needs of Temple’s minority populations.

In the early 1950s, Temple’s business and medical communities teamed up to address the problem of treating the area’s minority populations with quality health care. 

Dr. Arthur C. Scott Jr., son of Scott & White’s co-founder and hospital board chairman, enlisted the help of U.S. Sen. Lyndon Baines Johnson, then a member of the Scott & White board of trustees. A rising star in Democratic politics, Johnson became Senate majority whip in 1951 and gained a reputation for helping the poor and disenfranchised.

The entire town — black and white — pitched in to make Cora Anderson Hospital a reality.

Scott and other Scott & White staff members rallied the medical community to build the facility, and Johnson made personal requests to supporters for donations. The united effort allowed Scott & White to build the $75,000 structure.

Donations from $1 to thousands were received for the project, and the facility was named after Cora Anderson, a black entrepreneur who sold real estate and owned much of the rental properties on Temple’s east side. Anderson donated $2,600 to the hospital fund, and Annie Branford, a black businesswoman, contributed about $1,000.

“Annie Branford was my aunt,” said Roscoe Harrison, a former journalist and a minister at 8th Street Baptist Church in Temple. “She used to say, ‘If I knew they were going to name it after Cora I would have given more money.’”  

Scott & White owned, maintained and administered the new hospital, but an interracial advisory board provided guidance.

Cora Anderson Hospital had 16 patient rooms and a surgical suite. Scott & White physicians provided medical care and were assisted by a nursing staff that was overwhelmingly black.

“The hospital meant a lot to the black community,” Harrison said. “Back then, black folks couldn’t stay at Scott & White. Scott & White surgeons would operate, but black patients recovered from an operation at Cora Anderson Hospital.”

The hospital provided care for a decade, until December 1963, when Scott & White moved into its expanded location on South 31st Street.

The Bell County Public Health District acquired the Cora Anderson Hospital property in the late 1960s and still provides health care to the poor.

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“In her day, Cora was a very prominent black woman and one of the wealthiest in town,” Harrison said. “In addition to being a businesswoman, she also was listed in the Green Book.”

The Green Book was a guide prominent blacks used to find a place to stay while traveling. 

“It was kind of like a modern day bed and breakfast,” Harrison said. “Blacks weren’t allowed to stay in hotels in the south, so they would look in the Green Book to find a place. Temple and Belton both had Green Book houses.”

One of the prominent guests to stay in Anderson’s 5th Street home was composer Scott Joplin, the King of Ragtime.

Joplin didn’t spend a lot of time in Temple. Probably about two weeks at most. But, during his short stay he published three songs, one of which immortalized the most bizarre publicity stunt in Texas history.

In 1896, Missouri-Kansas & Texas Railroad agent George Crush decided the railroad needed a little publicity to boost sagging ticket sales. He devised a plan to crash two 35-ton steam locomotives head on while traveling at 60 miles per hour. Railroad officials liked the idea so much they named a new station and town after Mr. Crush.

The railroad sold round-trip tickets to the spectacle at reduced prices to ensure a large crowd, and on Sept. 15, 1896, about 50,000 people showed up at a secluded MK&T track near Waco. 

A carnival-like atmosphere greeted those in attendance and prevailed up to the moment of impact. A boiler from one of the trains shot high into the air and exploded. Shrapnel from the crash sliced off a man’s chin and put out a photographer’s eye.

When smoke cleared and debris settled, three people were dead and many more seriously injured.

Joplin’s song, “The Great Crush Collision March,” is based on the accident and dedicated to the MK&T Railroad. The song was published by John R. Fuller of Temple.

During his Temple stay, Joplin also wrote “The Combination March” and “Harmony Club Waltz.” 

Joplin was in Temple with a touring group called the Texas Medley Quartette, which played mostly brothels and saloons. Apparently there was no shortage of either at that time in Temple.

Joplin wasn’t widely known when he died in 1917 of syphilis, but soon after his passing his music became highly appreciated. In 1974, long after his death, Joplin’s “The Entertainer” hit the top spot on pop charts after serving as the theme song for “The Sting.”

The nursing staff at Cora Anderson Hospital was predominantly black. Scott & White doctors staffed the facility and the two hospitals often worked together to meet the growing health-care needs of a growing and underserved population.

Dr. Arthur Scott, co-founder of Scott & White Hospital, relaxes in his log cabin at Hospital Dairy Farm, located in what is now the Western Hills subdivision.

Surgeon was modern dairy pioneer

By DAVID STONE, Our Town Temple exclusive

Dr. Arthur Carroll Scott was a dreamer. And a doer.

The Temple doctor was always seeking new and innovative ways to improve patient care at Scott & White Hospital, the hospital he co-founded with Dr. Raleigh R. White.

He improved and developed new surgical procedures for cancer and revolutionized in-hospital education programs nationwide. He also developed some pretty cool standards for the dairy industry.

In 1926, Scott & White purchased Jersey cows from the Isle of Jersey in the British Isles and brought them to Temple. Tuberculosis was common in dairy cattle in the United States at the time, and to ensure a 100 percent tuberculin-free herd, Dr. Scott went overseas. The cattle were tested before making the trip west.

The order was placed, the cows arrived, and Hospital Dairy Farm was born.

The farm, located on a 440-acre tract in what is now Western Hills subdivision, featured barns with concrete floors and screened sides to keep cows cool while they were being milked. 

The farm produced milk, buttermilk and butter, and eventually chickens were added to provide eggs for hospital patients. For a time, hogs were also raised. Products were used at the hospital and sold throughout the community.

Pigs were fed scraps from the hospital dining room mixed with skim milk. There was no market for skim milk at the time so the product left over from making butter or cream was utilized as feed.

Dr. Scott was adamant about running a clean operation. The barn floors were flushed with hoses before every milking session. Dressing rooms were built for milkers, and they were required to wash and to put on clean white “milking” suits before tending the cows.

To ward against bacteria, he devised a system for removing flies from the cows prior to milking.

Cows had to pass through a dark corridor before entering the milking barns. Three sets of canvas curtains were hung and weighted at the bottom to scrape the back and sides of each cow as she passed through. There was one window in the corridor, which was the only source of light. The flies that had been scraped off were attracted to the light and trapped.

After the cows were milked, the milk was filtered through several layers of gauze into scalded cans. These practices were adopted by dairy farms around the world.

The log cabin that now sits on Baylor Scott & White’s 31st Street campus — near the Dermatology building — was located at the dairy farm for many years, according to information provided by Jeff Swindoll, librarian at Baylor Scott & White’s Richard D. Haines Medical Library. 

The cabin, known as the Keller homestead, was purchased by Dr. Scott along with the farm in the 1920s.

Although its location has changed several times since construction, the Scott cabin remains a prominent piece of Temple history.

Dr. Scott never allowed a telephone in the cabin, so when he was needed for an emergency at the hospital a bell was rung on the farm.

The original cabin was tiny, but Scott acquired two log structures used to store corn and attached them to the cabin to create a kitchen and a room he used for entertaining.

A renowned rock hound, Dr. Scott collected specimens while on vacations, and as word of his collection spread, he was often given rocks by friends on special occasions. He used these to build a fireplace and mantle in his getaway cabin.

The doctor used the cabin as a private study and retreat until his death in 1940. His son, Arthur Scott Jr., inherited the cabin, then it was passed to daughter Judy.  Dr. Scott’s grandson, Bill Childers, bought the cabin and planned to move it to Morgan’s Point as a lake house but that town’s restrictions wouldn’t allow the move.

In 1972, during the 75th anniversary of Scott & White, Childers — the man in the Santa suit at many of Temple’s Christmas parades — donated the cabin to the hospital and it was moved to the hospital’s 31st Street campus. 

In 2005, it was relocated northeast of the main hospital building to accommodate construction of the Center for Advanced Medicine.

In the early 1950s, Hospital Dairy Farm was bought out by a large Waco dairy.

Today, Scott’s dairy farm cabin sits near the Dermatology Building at Baylor Scott & White Medical Center in Temple.

Pictured is a Hospital Dairy Farm milk bottle. A similar milk bottle from the farm recently sold on eBay for $40.

Dr. Taha Ansari, BSW pediatrics psychiatrist

Relieving back-to-school jitters

By DAVID STONE, Our Town Temple exclusive

Summer’s wrapping up and school is just around the corner. That means new classes, new friends and, in some cases, a few jitters.

“The end of summer can be a stressful time for children and parents,” said Dr. Taha Ansari, a pediatric psychiatrist at Baylor Scott & White McLane Children's Specialty Clinic in Temple.

“Some anxiety is normal,” he said. “But parents should know the difference between back-to-school jitters and anxiety that may require clinical attention. We would need to see why the behavior is continuing.”

According to Ansari, there are several signals that alert parents when a child’s anxiety is cause for concern.

“A few jitters and nervousness is to be expected,” he said. “But if the anxiety last more than a few days, or if it leads to anger, isolation and a decline in social function, there may be a need to consult an expert.”

Baylor Scott & White will hold a Town Hall meeting to discuss back-to-school anxiety and other concerns, said BSW spokesperson Tiya Searcy.

“We will have a panel of physicians and community members speaking on back-to-school topics such as anxiety, healthy routines and returning to play,” she said.

The Town Hall will be live at 6 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 12, on the Baylor Scott & White McLane Children's Medical Center Facebook page.

According to Ansari, many children have trouble separating from their families to attend school. That is common, but tantrums when separating, problems sleeping alone and anger issues may mean there is a greater problem, he said.

“If a child’s anxiety is causing a great deal of distress, a parent might want to consider an evaluation by a child psychologist or psychiatrist,” he said. Red flags could include irritability, headaches, anger, restlessness and lack of focus.”

Ansari recommended these tips for easing child anxiety:

• A week or so before school starts, prepare kids by getting back to school year routines, such as a school-night bedtime and choosing the next day’s clothes.

• Arrange playdates with one or more friends before school starts. Research shows that the presence of a familiar peer during school transitions can improve children's academic and emotional adjustment.

• Visit the school before the school year begins, rehearse the drop-off and spend time on the playground or inside the classroom if the building is open. Have the child practice walking into class while the parent waits outside or down the hall.

• Come up with a prize or a rewarding activity that the child could earn for separating from mom or dad to attend school.

• Validate the child's worry by acknowledging that, like any new activity, starting school can be hard but soon becomes easy and fun.

Backpack Buddies seek school supply donations

Temple Fire & Rescue is collecting donations for their annual Backpack Buddies Program, which provides backpacks and school supplies for children in need before going back to school.  

This year there are about 2,000 children in need. Those who want to participate are encouraged to donate new backpacks or school supplies to any Temple fire station.  

 Families are selected through Temple ISD. Backpacks and supplies will be distributed to families and school districts Aug. 13.   

If you are interested in sponsoring a child, please contact Carol Lynch at (254) 760-6107. 

Our Town Deals

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What’s Happening, Temple?

July 23, Friday - Hot Summer Sounds, Lions Park, 7:30 p.m

July 23 - August 7 - Salado Legends at Tablerock Festival of Salado.

July 24, Saturday - Name That Tune Bingo: Women Who Rock!, Fire Base Brewing Co., 7:30 p.m.

July 24, Saturday - The Art of Pat Coufal opening reception, CAC, 5 p.m.

July 24, Saturday - Earle Nelson & Morgan Lee Powers, O’Briens Irish Pub, 9 p.m.

August 7, Saturday - Dig It! Family Day. Will include a sand pit for unearthing treasures. Learn what it’s like to be an archeologist or a paleontologist and the difference between the two fields of science. Temple Railroad & Heritage Museum. 10 a.m.

Have an event you would like to promote? Email info to OurTownTemple@gmail.com with “What’s Happening” in the subject line. Keep it short and sweet — what, when and where. You may include a short description. You must include a phone number for verification purposes. The phone number will not be published unless requested by submitter.

Our Town Classifieds

40-POUND MEDICINE BALL — Rage Fitness soft-sided medicine ball. Great for Atlas drills. Like new. $40. (254) 624-4010

VITAMIX — Great condition. Comes with two pitchers. Great for salsas and smoothies. $200. (254) 624-4010

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