User:Psyche1948

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Regarding your information on Mercyville Sanitarium in Aurora, Illinois. You erroneously report that it was destructed or demolished in 1970. This is not correct. The original 1926 building with the 1959 attachment stands today and is still functional as a psychiatric hospital. It is now called Mercy Center For Healthcare Services, Behavioral Health Department. In the 1970's the large grounds were used to accommodate the addition of St. Joseph Mercy hospital's new inpatient medical surgical facility. The old sanitarium and the new medical hospital are considered one hospital and are connected underground via tunnels that the employees easily pass through all the time. The original name "Mercyville Sanitarium" was taken off the front of the building during the 1980's remodeling however they wisely left the beautiful cornerstone on the eastern front of the building. The basement of the old structure used to house the hydrotherapy department on the south side, the radiology department and the medical electroshock services were in that part, too. The first floor of the 1926 building used to house the southern and northern wards of the hospital and the patients were segregated by gender; women on the south side and men on the north side. The original second floor of the original 1926 building housed offices while the third floor had a chapel as large as any parish church and just as beautiful. Third floor also housed the convent on the south side. When the building was dedicated in 1926, a beautiful life size statue of Our Lady of Mercy was placed in the lobby, a creation of the Deprado Statue Works in Chicago. Today, that statue is repaired and renovated and still graces the lobby of the original sanitarium. I worked for this hospital for many decades doing intake work on the first floor in the admitting office. We would occaisionally receive phone calls from people who had relatives with us during the 1920's, the Second World War and even later. The callers always wanted to know if this was the same place where their relatives got such good care and we assurred them that it was. Not many private psychiatric hospitals have been in business this long. 85 years of service under the same management is almost unheard of. The hospital's main phone number is area code 630 859-2222. You can ask for psychiatric admissions to access their programs and services. Yes, it's still there...just as it was built in 1926 but very modern for today's standards.