Jennie Edmundson Hospital

Jennie Edmundson hospital was the very first hospital in Council Bluffs, IA, and has been in the same location since 1905. The hospital is also the first nursing school in Council Bluffs and has been around since 1889. It had had a significant impact on Council Bluffs and the small towns around it. They keep with the fundamental ideas that the original group of women had when they created the Hospital.  

 When the Hospital first opened it was known as The Cottage Home Hospital in 1886. The faith Band was the one that started the Hospital and the Women’s Christian Association. The names of some of these women were Mrs. Helen Montgomery, Mrs. Green, and Mrs. J. H. Carse. All three of these women were also a part of the Women’s Christian Association. The W.C.A was used as the accountant for the hospital for over fifty years. When it came time for the hospital to be in its current location, they bought the land and set up the architects who later built it. They gained an official hospital staff in 1893 when they elected people to the Board of Physicians. 

Nursing schools started to pick up traction in the 1870s across America and this of the Civil War. Although in the United States there had been some nurses none of them had been trained in a school, they learned on the job making it so the care could be very inconsistent. Though before the war there were even fewer nurses because the women in a family care for the sick and those who had infirmities. So, there was not much-skilled care for people. The reason the Civil War sparked the need for female nurses was the fact there were too many men to take care of. This led to some women being taught how to be nurses. The first nursing school in America was established in 1873 and by 1923 there were 6,836 hospitals one in every four had a nursing school and Jennie Edmundson was one of them. They started their school of nursing in 1889 and stayed open until 1997. The Jennie Edmundson school of nursing was a pillar for women in Iowa. They had room and board for women that did not live in council Bluffs allowing for them to start a career. The first male student at the Jennie Edmundson School of nursing was in 1956. 

The reason that Jennie Edmunson Hospital has the name it does today is because of a man named J.D. Edmundson. He gave a loan to the W.C.A at a 5% interest rate to build the new hospital though it did come with a stipulation. The stipulation was that the hospital was to be named after his late first wife Jennie Hart Edmundson who had died in 1890 and had been taken care of by the Cottage Home Hospital till her death. He in total donated $275,000 in current inflation he donated in total $6,128,961.24. With his last donation, it also came with one more stipulation that on Jennie Hart Edmundson's birthday on October 24 that there is a banquet of roses in front of her painting. 

The Original building that J.D. Edmundson donated to was opened on February 12, 1907. By 1923 there was a need to expand the hospital that J.D. Edmunson also donated to, and it opened wing F then once again in 1952 they built another wing. The hospital has had to keep on expanding with the population growth because they also take in patients from the small towns around it. Though one of the biggest changes that came to Jennie Edmundson was when they joined the Nebraska Methodist Health System in 1994. 

Over the years Jennie Edmundson has taken care of the communities around them. They had many opportunities for people in the community to help others. They have kept their mission the same which was to care, educate and innovate. 

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