Chasing The Cure

Through the efforts of Seraphine Pisko, the Hofheimer Preventorium was built and opened in 1920. The Preventorium was a place where healthy but impoverished children could receive medically supervised nutritious food, exercise, and love. Both Christmas and Chanukah were celebrated.

 The establishment of the Hofheimer Preventorium created a need for regularized instruction. Mayme Smith Schoenwald, who began working at National Jewish in 1920, established an accredited education program for children at the hospital. Classes at National Jewish continued through the eighth grade and followed the Denver Public Schools syllabus. When Mayme Smith Schoenwald stopped teaching in 1944, Anne Slager Niblock took over the school. The Denver Public School continued when National Jewish began treating asthma and other respiratory diseases. The hospital evolved into the National Jewish Medical and Research Center and became the number one respiratory hospital in the United States. The oral history interviews of both Mayme Smith Schoenwald and Anne Slager Niblock are in the Rocky Mountain Jewish Historical Society Oral Histories, B098 in the Beck Archives.