1891, at the request of the board of directors, three hundred 
women met in the Odd Fellows Hall, and organized the La- 
dies Aid Society of the South Side Hospital and this organi- 
zation has been one of the greatest factors in the financial de- 
velopment 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 Ne- 
ville 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 An- 
nex 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