In honor of National Nurses Week, today we are sharing the story of the Cambridge Visiting Nursing Association (CVNA), once headquartered at 35 Bigelow Street. The CVNA was established in 1904 by twelve Cambridge women in response to the community’s dire need for skilled home nursing care. As cities like Cambridge grew rapidly during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and with neighborhoods becoming denser, it became even more necessary for nurses to travel to individuals to provide healthcare – especially at a time when most healthcare was provided in the home. An article in the Cambridge Chronicle states that the CVNA started when “a few ladies of old Cambridge supported a nurse who visited the very poor.”
During the CVNA’s first year, $5000 was raised to provide for the salary of three visiting nurses to make house calls to Cambridge residents, and for the fitting up of a nurses residence. From 1904-1908, the CVNA took quarters at 35 and 48 Bigelow Street, where the first two or three nurses employed were housed. By 1906 there were seven or eight nurses in residence, and in 1908, the CVNA purchased the entire home at 35 Bigelow for their official use. They remained headquartered there until 1987, when they relocated to 186 Alewife Brook Parkway. In 1995 the CVNA merged with VNA North Shore and the parent companies of Visiting Nurse Associates to create the VNA Care Network, “a nonprofit home health care, palliative care, hospice, and wellness provider serving more than 200 communities in Eastern and Central Massachusetts.”
From the beginning, the CVNA worked with people of all ages, though in its earlier days the nurses were chiefly involved with pre-natal care and home-births, instruction in infant care, and the treatment of tuberculosis, as well as polio and influenza. The CVNA supervisor would assign each nurse to a different case or neighborhood, discussing cases and patient plans with them.
By the 1920s the CVNA collaborated with the Cambridge Anti-Tuberculosis Association in maintaining a health center at the Thorndike School in East Cambridge. The center offered a wide range of services, including “a nurse who gives all of her time to the district, a children’s clinic…a posture clinic…and an evening health clinic for adults.” The center also offered nutrition and hygiene classes, “training girls in the care of their younger brothers and sisters,” classes in physical exercise, mothers’ meetings, “and moving pictures and lantern-slide lectures on health subjects.”
The CVNA also participated in numerous citywide activities and programs, such as educational health exhibits at the YMCA and plays put on by local school children centered around health lessons.
As the needs of the community and healthcare delivery changed, the CVNA expanded their services to aid with the elderly and hospice services, and later added therapists, home health aides, social workers, and office personnel to their staff as well as the visiting nurses.
In 1971 it was reported that the CVNA made 19,647 visits to 987 patients of all ages that year. They had 29 nurses on staff and worked alongside doctors and 35 other health services, including the Boston Visiting Nursing Association. The CVNA also provided disaster nursing relief alongside the Red Cross and were major caregivers during the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Thank you to all nurses and caregivers!
About 35 Bigelow Street:
A three-story mansard style house with a handsome side porch/piazza, built in 1869. In 1908 there was a first-floor addition built for the CVNA, followed by a second-floor addition in 1916 by the firm of Howe & Manning. In 1927 the brick garage was built for the CVNA and was changed to a two-story dwelling in 1985, now 35r Bigelow. Today the home is divided into condos.
Sources:
VNA Care, vnacare.org as well as their Twitter and Facebook accounts
CHS Proceedings, v. 18, 1925
Numerous articles from the Cambridge Chronicle, particularly 7/17/1920 and 3/28/1991
For photographs of other Cambridge community nurses, check out the Benedict Daniels Scrapbook on our Flickr page.
I’m late to the party, but I wanted to comment on the scrapbook images. They were taken by Miriam Benedict, a Cambridge district nurse. Her youngest sister donated the images to the CHC, “because someone might … recognize some of these lovely faces. I could not bear to just throw them away.” Isn’t that sweet?