Collection context
Background
- Scope and content:
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The Mason (Wilton M.) Lodi Memorial Hospital Collection contains clippings pertaining to the activities of Lodi (Calif.) physician, Dr. Mason (1894-1914). It also contains narrative information about Lodi's first hospital, Mason Memorial, as well as correspondence, minutes, budgets, reports and a narrative history pertaining to the establishment of Lodi Memorial Hospital, successor to Mason Memorial.
- Biographical / historical:
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Dr. Wilton M. Mason (1864-1914) was a native of New York state. Coming with his family from Nebraska to California (1889), Mason graduated from the State Normal School, San Jose and the Eclectic College Medical School, San Francisco. He located in Lodi shortly after being licensed to practice medicine (1894). With two of his brothers, Herschel and Lewis, he started the Mason Fruit Co., which manufactured ice and packed and shipped grapes and other fruit to eastern markets. Dr. Mason acquired the first automobile in San Joaquin County (1900). Although not the first physician in town, Mason was a particularly popular and successful doctor and was much mourned when he died of an aneurism at age forty-nine.
It is believed that Dr. Mason had planned to open a hospital in his substantial home. A year after the doctor's death, Scott and Margaret Slauson, purchased the home and converted it into Mason Hospital, Lodi's first (1915). The Slausons operated Mason Hospital until 1921 when they sold it to Thirza Cole and Nellie Yates. These two sisters enlarged the facility to twenty-five beds (1928) and later remodelled the aging structure (1941). They sold Mason Hospital to Elsie Rivinius and Signe Schenkenberger (1949), who operated it until it closed (1966). It is said that more than 20,000 residents of the Lodi area were born in Mason Hospital.
- Physical description:
- 0.5 linear ft.
Indexed terms
Access and use
- Location of this collection:
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11793 North Micke Grove RoadLodi, CA 95241, US
- Contact:
- (209) 331-2055