The Winkler Center was honored a few weeks ago to host Sherry Wasserman, her sister Naomi Hordes, and Naomi’s husband Jess who were here to donate a photo album which was presented as a gift to Sherry and Naomi’s father, Dr. Philip Wasserman, who for many years was the Director of the Clinical Laboratory at Jewish Hospital in Cincinnati
The book, which staffers had professionally bound and printed, primarily focuses on Dr. Wasserman, but also contains numerous images of the Jewish Hospital Clinical Laboratory before and after its expansion in the 1950s; it’s staff, doctors, and nurses; and activities that occurred at the lab primarily in the 1950s and early 1960s.
Dr. Philip Wasserman began work as a pathologist at the Jewish
From L to R, Naomi Hordes (nee Wasserman), Sherry Wasserman, and Lori Harris, Assistant Director of the Health Sciences Library and the Winkler Center.
Hospital in 1937. He was made Director of the Clinical Lab in 1941 and stayed in that position until he retired from it in 1979. Though officially retiring as Lab Director, Dr. Wasserman continued to work as a general pathologist.
During his tenure at the lab, Dr. Wasserman oversaw its expansion, development, and growth from a small department employing a “handful” of people to one which employed nearly 200. Wasserman was well-regarded also as a progressive thinker. He established a residency program bringing foreign physicians to Cincinnati for training and was far ahead of his time especially as it related to integration. He was noted for hiring people of any color, creed, or ethnicity, so long as they could accomplish the job, a somewhat novel idea in Cincinnati in the 1950s.
Images in the book were taken by Jane Hutzelman who worked at the lab as a clinical photographer. She created the photo history and presented it to Dr. Wasserman upon the completion of the new lab in the 1950s. The book is inscribed “To Dr. Wasserman: as a token of our appreciation for the wonderful laboratory.”
Not only will this photo history be a wonderful supplement to the Jewish Hospital Collection here at the Winkler Center, but so too will it be a testament to the work and career of Dr. Wasserman.
An image from the book–the Wasserman girls with their father at the old Clinical Laboratory, Jewish Hospital, c. 1955
We thank Sherry Wasserman, Naomi Hordes (nee Wasserman), and Carol Deanow (nee Wasserman) for considering the Winkler Center when it came time to find a home for this family treasure.
Works Used
“In Remembrance,” Cincinnati Medicine November, 1998.
In my previous blog I mentioned that the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company would be putting on free productions of Merry Wives of Windsor this summer as part of its Shakespeare in the Park series. If you’ve read the play or seen the show, you know a main plot point is about Sir John Falstaff and how he tries to seduce Mistress Page and her best friend, Mistress Ford—at the same time. Both women, faithful to their husbands, decide to create quite the fool out of Falstaff by feigning interest and arranging secret meetings between Falstaff and Mistress Ford. Those meetings are always interrupted by Master Ford coming home, thus putting Falstaff in precarious positions. One of the most notable scenes involves Falstaff donning a dress, pretending to be the fat aunt of the Fords’ servant so he can leave the house without being recognized. It’s been long thought of as one of the funniest scenes in the play…why? What is it about a man in a dress that gives us a big chuckle?