1891, at the request of the board of directors, three hundred
women met in the Odd Fellows Hall, and organized the Ladies
 Aid Society of the South Side Hospital and this organization
 has been one of the greatest factors in the financial development
 of the institution.
The work of the hospital grew so rapidly that in 1892 it
was necessary to plan for a new building. The present site
at South Twentieth, Mary and Jane streets, was selected and
purchased for $20,000 and a $100,000 hospital built. The
new hospital was ready for occupancy on December 1, 1893,
and the description of it in the fifth annual report describes it
as “the finest and most complete hospital in the State.” The
bed capacity was seventy. In 1895 a training school for
nurses was opened.
In the report of Dr. A. J. Barchfeld, president of the
board in 1903, he made an appeal to the public to help the
hospital build a new wing and home for nurses. He says in
this report, “The South Side Hospital is recognized as the
only institution of its kind south of the Monongahela and
Ohio rivers in Allegheny county, which territory contains a
population of over 200,000 souls.” His appeal was answered
by Mrs. Amelia N.S. Oliver and her children, Mrs. Amelia Neville
 Crittenden, Mrs. Frances Oliver Johnson, Mrs. Edith
Oliver Dusmet and D. Leet Oliver, as a memorial to husband
and father, the late James Brown Oliver. This building was
opened in March, 1909. The old building now became the
administration building, while the new Oliver Memorial Annex
 made it possible to care for over two hundred patients.
With increased accommodations for patients, the need for
a nurses’ home and pathological research laboratory was
greater. The Laboratory, the gift of Nathaniel Holmes, was
opened in 1910. In 1918 a nurses’ home at a cost of $63,000
was built. In 1914 the horse-drawn ambulance was replaced
with an automobile ambulance. In 1917 a large solarium was
arected on the roof of the Oliver Memorial Building by Mrs.
Amelia N. S. Oliver and furnished by Mr. and Mrs. W. J.
Crittenden.
The first officers of the Ladies’ Aid Society were: Mrs. J.
S. McMillin, president; Mrs. J. W. Riddle, vice president;
Miss E. J. Wallace, vice president: Mrs. G. B. Sweeney, re