Elliot Hospital’s Associates are embarking, in collaboration with the Manchester Historic Association, on cataloguing the hospital’s images and artifacts. This is just one of the photos the Associates are looking for identification help with.

MANCHESTER – Since 1890, Elliot Hospital’s Associates have supported the community, the hospital’s centers of care and the staff with their charitable activities.

In the beginning, most Associates members were the wives of physicians, and spent hours on sewing machines, tailoring surgeons’ caps and gowns, as well as sheets and pillowcases for hospital beds.

Today, the membership comes from all backgrounds, and some continue the sewing tradition – now creating face masks that the coronavirus has mandated for health care workers and the general public.

With such a storied history, the Associates are embarking, in collaboration with the Manchester Historic Association, on cataloguing the hospital’s images and artifacts that are being unearthed from storage.

Many of the items are degrading under the weight of time, and others are being rejuvenated, thanks to the mastery of digital photography. Photographs are among the cache yet to be identified.

Associates President Dottie Kelley is asking for the public’s help in identifying individuals in some of the photographs the group has found, hoping the subjects depicted will be recognized as ancestors or acquaintances.

“We want to preserve the history of the hospital as well as the Elliot Associates and hope the community will help us identify the individuals in the photos,” Kelley said. “Because the community has always been so involved in our hospital, we know we can count on them now to make sure a century from now, this part of our history will be captured accurately.”

Matt Gendron, an active Associates member and the hospital’s current director of respiratory services, digitally photographed the original images first taken by Philadelphia-based photographer William Rittase (1887-1968). It is believed Rittase took the photos in the 1950s.

Gendron, who also is a photographic artist, seldom has enjoyed time off during the pandemic, and on that rare occasion when he did, devoted his time to this project.

He serves on the Associates’ History Committee, led by Sara Kellogg Meade, a retired nurse of 40 years.

The Associates, a 501(c) (3) body, have a roster of 278 members and meet regularly at the hospital. They raise funds through events and receive proceeds from the onsite gift shop. On a yearly basis, they provide scholarships to deserving staff members and contribute to the hospital’s capital campaigns, most recently to the new cancer center under construction.

Elliot Health System, a member of SolutionHealth, is a nonprofit organization serving the health care needs of the community since 1890. The largest provider of comprehensive health care services in Southern New Hampshire, Elliot Hospital, a 296-bed acute care facility and the first community hospital in the state, serves as the cornerstone of the health system.

For more information about any of Elliot’s services, call 603-669-5300 or visit www.elliothospital.org.