Sibley Hospital Certainly Cast a Big Shadow, Answer Man Finds

Iwas born Dec. 11, 1941, at Sibley Hospital. My father always said I was born "in the shadow of the Capitol." My father died before I asked specifically where the hospital was. Where was the original Sibley? I was also told that my mother had her bed in the hall because many women suddenly went into labor from the shock of Pearl Harbor.

-- Patricia Mountjoy, Hanover, Pa.

The sun would have to be quite low in the sky indeed to literally cast the Capitol's shadow all the way to the site of the original Sibley Hospital, but it certainly cast it figuratively. From 1895 to 1961, Sibley Memorial Hospital was at North Capitol and Pierce streets NE, about 10 blocks from the Capitol.

It was built thanks to the generosity of William J. Sibley, who had made money in the lumber business before becoming prominent in the Washington banking and insurance scene. He was also active in the Methodist church.

The church ran something called the Lucy Webb Hayes National Training School for Deaconesses and Missionaries. Students learned nursing skills and did good works in the community.

"What they discovered was that they really needed a hospital to take patients to," said Dorothy Hunt, the hospital's spokeswoman and herself an "old Sibley baby," Class of 1944.

Sibley came through with $10,000 to honor his late wife, Dorothy Lowndes Sibley, and the red-brick, 20-bed hospital was built.

The Post rhapsodized when the hospital opened. "The wards, with their snowy cots and dainty appointments, are so inviting as to rob suffering of much of its terror," wrote an unnamed reporter. "The operating room, dispensary, and even the room used for cooking on the second floor are so constructed that the fumes from the food will escape without being perceptible."

The hospital doubled in size in 1900; another building was added in 1913. Sibley continued to grow but was constrained by its location, and in the 1950s hospital administrators started looking for a new location. They settled on a site at American University, itself a Methodist-affiliated institution, and oversaw a merger with the old Hahnemann Hospital, a homeopathic institution.

The neighbors, however, were not happy. They battled Sibley for years, and in the end ground was broken for the hospital on Loughboro Road NW, near the Dalecarlia Reservoir.

On May 30, 1961, a fleet of ambulances moved 77 patients from the old hospital to the new one. The caravan included 10 babies, including the last baby to be born in the shadow of the Capitol, a 7-pound, 14-ounce boy. The hospital would not give out the newborn's name without permission from the parents. And the baby, The Post wrote, "wasn't talking."

Answer Man was unable to find any data that confirmed that the Pearl Harbor attack induced labor, but two studies suggest it's not so far-fetched. Researchers in Croatia noted an increase in premature babies in the Croatian town of Zadar between 1990 and 1992, during the war in the Balkans. And a 2007 paper published in the journal Human Reproduction found an increase in low-birth-weight babies among women in New York City the week after 9/11. "Stress may contribute to observed associations," wrote the authors.

What's in a Name?

More on "Truxtun" vs. "Truxton," the former being the spelling of a U.S. naval officer during the Revolutionary War, the latter the way a Washington traffic circle in his honor was spelled: Grover Hinds of Ellicott City pointed out that such switcheroos were not uncommon. The circle we know as Tenley Circle and the neighborhood we know as Tenleytown are named after the tavern keeper who spelled his name John Tennally. And Loughboro Road takes its name from Nathan Lufborough. Wrote Grover: "Lufborough was a Treasury official who moved to Washington with the federal government from Philadelphia in 1800. His home, Milton, was nearby in Maryland."

Drawn and Quartered

Still looking for a Duke Ellington commemorative D.C. quarter? The Industrial Bank of Washington has them at its seven area branches.

Send your questions about the Washington area to answerman@washpost.com.