The Jersey City news. (Jersey City [N.J.]) 1889-1906, 1897-05-17
HER SAVINGS FOR INSANE.
New Chapel Now Gives Room for
Book Request of a Nurse,

Especial to The Jersey City News."1
TRENTON, May II, 1897.-The New Jer-
sey Hospital for the Insane has now an
elegant chapel, which was formally dedi-
Gated yesterday afternoon by exercises
conducted by Rev. DR.. James Buckley,
editor of the christian Advocate who
is a member of the Board of Managers
Of the State Hospital and on that ac-
count was selected to preach the dedi-
catory sermon.
The chapel will seat $50 people and oc-
cupies the third floor of the new annex.
which cost $22, 1000. h old chapel room
will now be transformed into an amuse-
ment hall, and the amusement hall will
pc mace a library. By this addition the
lnstitut1on secures an admirable chape
ana n a me reading room. This asylum
VIII Inen be the only one in the United
library room.
II, There is =. romantic story in connection
nearly 5000 volumes. DIR. John Ward. the
resident physician of the asylum has been
a euah be ts1,s WITH tha f It for over thirty years.
ABOUT how a servant girl founded the
largest library in any insane hospital in
Anne Robinson came to this country
when quite small from Scotland said
tne Doctor Her parents preceded her
s sppmnaee consaderabie time. perhaps two or
aSA NlAlJ OpldlllC
money sufficient to pay her passage she
was sent for and landed in New York.
to n that both her parents were
DEAD md buried, perhaps in Potter's
Fleld. The place of their burial she
While she was stopping in Castle Car
of Trenton, visited that institution In
quest OF some one to act as a sort of
nurse and companion to his children. He
heard the story of Anne Robinson and
selected her and brought her with him
to Trenton.
She lived with DR.. Hall a number of
years; l do not know for what length
of time. He did not need her services
any longer and applied to DR.. Buttolph,
then superintendent of this institution,
asking him to give her a place here,
which the Doctor did,. She was employ,
ed at first at general work, and finally
was placed on the wards as an attendant
and nurse.
while in the regular line of duty as
nurse she was knocked down by a vio-
lent patient and both thigh bones were
fractured. After these had healed she
was quite lame and nab to do ward
duty, and was transferred to the ewing
ROOM, which position she occupied init
the close of her life.
During her service here She saved
every penny which she could, in order. as
she afterward stated to me, to prevent
her going to the 'p%oorhouse' should she
other circumstances, be incapacitated
for work. She could do her work very
well in the sewing-room, although she
was very lame from the accident already
referred to.
"a little before her death she asked me
to make her will, which / did, she leav-
ing her property, which amounted, to my
great surprise, after all funeral expenses
were paid, to about $1,000. She asked to
have the sum left invested. and the in
terest of it be spent IN books in per-
petutity for the benefit of those, as she
also expressed it, to whom 1 / nave endeav-
ored to minister
This money has been ju~diciously in
vested, and the interest of 1t, until with
in the past three or four years, has been
spent in purchase of books. During
the last three or four or more years it
has been allowed to accumulate, because
we had no suitable place for shelving the
books.
1T is now proposed by our Board Of
Managers to use the old amusement room
as a library room, in which to centralize
the several libraries now located in the
various wards Of the institution. This
room will be fitted up as a library, and
the volumes that we now have and those
which we have money IN hand to pur-
chase will probably make a handsome
library of 1900 or 5000.