A Memorial to an Illustrious Inventor

Charles F. Kettering, the father, passed away, and the world lost one of its great inventive geniuses. The only son and daughter-in-law desired to erect a memorial to the illustrious father. The first thought was that the most fitting monument would be a hospital dedicated to his memory and located in the suburb of Dayton in which he resided and which bore his name.SHM 420.1

An architect was engaged and instructed to draw the plans for a hundred-bed hospital. A public health survey of the community needs, however, revealed that a hundred-bed hospital would be quite inadequate. A much larger institution was needed. The Ketterings counseled with close friends and decided that if their immediate friends and the community leaders would contribute funds sufficient to increase the project by one hundred beds, they would increase their contribution sufficiently to add a third block of one hundred beds, and thus a three-hundred-bed institution would be erected.SHM 420.2

In the meantime serious thought was being given by Mr. and Mrs. Kettering to the organization and operation of this institution, now to be born. Admittedly they did not have the time, the experience, the inclination, nor the resources to successfully operate such a medical institution. Their minds immediately turned to their Seventh-day Adventist friends in Hinsdale. Why not erect the institution and give it in total to the Seventh-day Adventist Church to own and operate in similar fashion to the sanitarium and hospital with which they were acquainted in Hinsdale?SHM 420.3

Contact was made, first with the administration of the Hinsdale Sanitarium, and through them, with the leadership of the Columbia Union Conference and the General Conference. These negotiations resulted in an agreement that the Church would assume the responsibility of ownership and operation of the institution if this could be without restricting qualifications and without encumbrances. This was willingly agreed upon.SHM 420.4