Garvey, James W

English

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84Roselia Founding Asylum and Maternity Hospital operated on this site – 1635 Bedford Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania – and out of  this build-ing before the House of  Hospitality moved to this location in 1974.The work of  Roselia Foundling Asylum and Maternity Hospital was begun on July 16, 1891 at 3935 Forbes Avenue (Oakland), Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15213 – approximately on the site of  the present Schenley Hall-William Pitt Student Union building on the campus of  the University of  Pittsburgh. The services the Foundling Asylum provided to unwed expectant mothers were much in demand. After a few months, the Sisters of  Charity discovered that the small building they had rented in Oakland was inadequate. The Sisters began to search for a larger building in another neighborhood which would be large enough to meet the increased demand. Mr. Charles Donnelly was a promi-nent businessman in the Pittsburgh community. Through his good offices, the former Ursuline Academy building at the corner of  Cliff  and Manila Streets (Hill District) was secured as a permanent home for Roselia.Thanksgiving Day, november 26, 1891: The Sisters of  Charity, who were in charge of  Roselia Asylum, transferred the children to the former Academy. The Roselia Foundling Asylum and Maternity Hospital was incorporated in 1892. Roselia was purchased from Charles Donnelly for $41 and the assumption of  the existing mortgage of  $20,000 – nine lots and the former Ursuline Academy building on Cliff  Street – on Septem-ber 1, 1893.1 October 28, 1908: Roselia purchased from Daniel Nee all of  lot #26 and a brick dwelling house known as 1617 Cliff  Street for $6,600.00.2 There was a continuing demand for services that were offered by Roselia to pregnant women, and a further need to expand.May 11, 1920: Two lots and a three-story brick building at 1608 Cliff  Street were purchased from John Harper for $10,700.3 Roselia enlarged the hospital buildings to twice their original size over several decades, so that the buildings extended from Cliff  Street to Bedford Avenue. From the beginning, the Sisters of  Charity and the staff  at Roselia were concerned with foundlings. However, they soon began to provide for unmarried pregnant women and their children, and in subsequent years offered adop-tion services as well.After sixty-three years of  continuous service using the several buildings on the Cliff  Street property, the authorities at Roselia made the decision to tear down the older buildings on that site and erect a modern four-story brick/steel/concrete building with an elevator, modern patient rooms, delivery rooms and the latest equipment.Ground was broken for the “new” Roselia Hospital on July 16, History of the Location of St. Joseph’s House of HospitalityRev. James W. GarveyRoselia Foundling and Maternity Home 1891 Source: Pittsburgh CatholicLittle Roselia Asylum Charges and their CaretakersSource: Pittsburgh Daily Post (July 15, 1912)85Sr. Margaret Teresa McConaughy helps at St. Joseph House of Hospitality Sister Mary Kieran and Childat Roselia 1940s Ray O’Neil, Sr. Elizabeth Ann Stock, and Sr. Marie Teresa Rishel playing shuffleboard at St. Joseph House of Hospitality, Summer 1982 Nursery at Roselia 1940sPlaytime at Roselia 1950A day in the life...at RoseliaSource: Courtesy of the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill Archives861954. The Most Rev. John F. Dearden, bishop of  Pittsburgh, officiated at the dedication and blessing service for the new Rose-lia Hospital on Sunday, September 8, 1956. The “old” Roselia buildings wer demolished. These old buildings had faced Cliff  Street on the brow of  the hill overlooking Bigelow Boulevard and the Pennsylvania R.R. Yards. The “new” Roselia Hospital was de-signed to face Bedford Avenue. This design provided ample room for a large fenced-in yard at the back of  the hospital that would assure privacy for the girls who came to Roselia.For eighty years the Sisters of  Charity faithfully staffed Roselia and provided for the unwed mothers and their children who came seeking help. Roselia was a model hospital and child caring agency with a fully trained skilled staff. Hundreds and hundreds of  young women who were enrolled in various hospital-spon-sored nurses training programs also received a part of  their edu-cation and training at Roselia. Because of  its excellent reputation in the wider community, many married women elected to come to Roselia and there give birth to their babies.4 With the change in mores in our society in recent decades there was less demand for institutions like Roselia. The Asylum and Hospital at 1635 Bedford Avenue was equipped to provide for sixty expectant mothers. Fewer and fewer women came to Roselia in the decade of  the 1960s. The decision was made to close the hospital on Bedford Avenue and provide services on a smaller scale in Oakland.August 7, 1971: Roselia Foundling Asylum and Maternity Hos-pital sold the land and the building at 1635 Bedford Avenue (Hill District), Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15219, to the Sisters of  Charity of  Seton Hill, Greensburg, Pennsylvania, for $1.5 In the years between 1971 and 1974 several tenants used part of  the Bedford Avenue building. Among these were the City of  Pittsburgh Board of  Public Education and the Sisters of  Mercy. The Sisters of  Mercy used part of  the building to house their infirm sisters after a fire destroyed their infirmary (St. Xavier) in Latrobe, Pennsylvania.St. Joseph’s House of  Hospitality had occupied the former St. Paul Orphanage, 61 Tannehill Street (Hill District), Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15219 since 1938. After some repairs were made to the Roselia Hospital building, St. Joseph’s House of  Hospitality – a program operated at that time by the St. Vincent de Paul Society (Central Council) – leased the building. The House of  Hospitality began to use the former Roselia Hospital on September 5, 1974 as a residence for fifty-eight men and twelve low-income women between 50 and 80 years of  age. When the Diocese of  Pittsburgh took over the St. Joseph’s House of  Hospitality Program, on May 3, 1982, a new lease between the Catholic Institute of  Pittsburgh and the Sisters of  Charity was negotiated and signed.Each low-income resident at the House of  Hospitality is provided a private room and three meals a day. Applications are accepted from men and women 50 years of  age and over. The residents are asked to pay a portion of  the actual operating cost and each pays a service fee based on a sliding scale according to income. Each resident must be capable of  independent living (i.e., keep his/her own room for meals, etc.). St. Joseph’s House of  Hospitality is a residence; it is not a personal care home, nor is it a nursing home. The House of  Hospitality does not provide therapy of  any kind.Today the House of  Hospitality continues a long-standing tradi-tion of  providing charitable service – food, clothing, and shelter – to needy men and women that began when St. Joseph’s House of  Hospitality was founded by Rev. Charles O. Rice and the Cath-olic Radical Alliance on July 20, 1937.Note: The author prepared this article in 1992 in connection with the 100th anniversary of Roselia Founding Asylum and Maternity Hospi-tal. This is the first publication of his research, and now appears as a sequel to Father Joseph Scheib’s article on Roselia in the 2016 issue of Gathered Fragments.Endnotes: 1  Office of the Recorder of Deeds of Allegheny County [now Department of Real Estate of Allegheny County, hereinafter cited as DREAC], Deed Book Vol. 944, p. 511.2  DREAC, Deed Book Vol. 1582, p. 523.3  DREAC, Deed Book Vol. 2046, p. 282.4  Sister Mary Electa Boyle, S.C., Mother Seton’s Sisters of Charity in Western Pennsylvania (Greensburg, PA: Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill, 1946), 136-141 passim.5  DREAC, Deed Book Vol. 5009, p. 744.HOUSE OF HOSPITALITY (continued)Roselia Foundling and Maternity Hospital 1950sSource: Courtesy of the Sisters of Charity of Seton Hill Archives

History of the Location of St. Joseph’s House of Hospitality

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History of the Location of St. Joseph’s House of Hospitality

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