The Place That Started It All, a guest post by Mindy Nichols Wendell

Some books start with a character, some with an image, some with a memory. Light and Air began with a place: the ruins of a real life tuberculosis sanatorium.

By the end of the nineteenth century, tuberculosis was the third leading cause of death in the United States. Physicians had begun to understand it was caused by a bacteria, but people were slow to catch on to what that meant: that they shouldn’t be sharing eating utensils with people who were coughing, that spitting was a dangerous practice, that washing hands before eating was important. The drugs we now use to treat TB hadn’t yet been discovered, so in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the tuberculosis epidemic was raging in cities across the country—everywhere people lived and worked in close quarters.

Sanatoriums, based on models used in Europe, began to open across the country as a means of treating sufferers of tuberculosis with a combination of good food, total rest, sunlight, and fresh air. In addition, separating those with active tuberculosis from close contact with family members helped curb the spread of the infectious disease. 

One day long ago, a detour took me down a country highway I’d never traveled on before. From Peck Hill Road, in the tiny town of Perrysburg, New York, I saw some tall red brick buildings adorned with white columns. Deep wide porches graced all three stories. The entire property was surrounded by a tall, padlocked fence. Eventually, I discovered that the buildings were part of the former J. N. Adam Memorial Hospital, originally called the Buffalo Municipal Hospital for Incipient Tuberculosis. I couldn’t get the place and the stories it held out of my mind. 

Perched high in the hills of western New York, the sanatorium—often called just J. N. Adam—served the people of Erie County, New York, from 1912 until 1960. The location, about 38 miles southwest of Buffalo, was selected because of its crisp air, its abundant sunshine, and its high altitude. Surrounded by forests yet accessible by roadways and railways, the property offered an ideal setting for nurturing fragile patients back to health. 

By the time I drove past by the sanatorium grounds in the early 2000s, the majestic red brick buildings with their terracotta-tiled roofs had already begun to crumble. But in its heyday, the J. N. Adam Hospital was an impressive, well-designed, and beautiful facility. The original 293-acre parcel of land was purchased and donated by James Noble Adam, mayor of Buffalo. Additional land purchases eventually increased the size of the property to a sprawling 685 acres. The facility had farmland for growing fruit and vegetables; animal barns that housed horses, cows, and hogs; a hennery that was home to 2000 leghorn hens; and nearly 3000 maple trees that were tapped to make maple syrup each year. For a time, there was even a zoo, complete with a lion and an elephant. 

The administrative building and the main dining room were probably the grandest parts of the entire campus. The domed dining room, painted a deep turquoise blue, had a golden stained glass window in the shape of a sunburst at the top of the dome. The beauty of the surroundings surely contributed to the peaceful, soothing atmosphere the sanatorium sought to provide for the patients confined there.

The light and air cure, known as heliotherapy, depended on patients spending as much time as possible out of doors. The adult patients slept outside on the deep verandas. On a clear day, patients on those porches could see for nearly fifty miles: all the way to Buffalo and the Canadian shore.

In 1915, a children’s facility opened on the opposite side of Peck Hill Road. The young patients spent many hours outdoors each day. They attended an open-air school—even in winter. They had their beds wheeled outside for “curing time” each day. And those who were well enough played outdoors year-round.

In my former life as a college lecturer, I used to tell my students that sometimes the setting of a novel is so important it seems almost like a character. That’s how I feel about J. N. Adam Hospital. It captured my attention the very first time I saw it, and it’s never let me go. Not only did it inspire the book, but it also helped create the story. In the days before antibiotics, tuberculosis was a killer disease. Yet,  sanatoriums, like J. N. Adam, offered hope. Because of their secluded locations, they became worlds unto themselves. 

In Light and Air, the main character, Hallelujah (Halle for short), and her mother are both patients at J. N. Adam. Although Halle recovers quickly, her mama does not. In fact, she seems to be getting weaker instead of stronger. Halle vows to do whatever it takes to save Mama. She leans on her new friends and discovers strength she didn’t know she had. Light and Air is a book about hope, about being brave, and about taking chances to save the people you love. 

Sometimes, like Halle, patients thrived in the makeshift communities of sanatorium life. They ended up being healed in more ways than one. Of course, this wasn’t true for everyone. Sanatoriums certainly saw more than their share of sorrow and tragedy. I tried to be true to all of this in my book. 

Although Halle and her family got their happy ending, the same cannot be said for the once-beautiful J. N. Adam Memorial Hospital. A dispute over ownership thwarted all attempts to sell the property when it was no longer in use. The gorgeous buildings now stand in ruins—victims of light, air, time, and vandalism. But the stories of that bygone era in that extraordinary place live on in memory, in the artifacts at the little museum in Perrysburg, and maybe now in the pages of Light and Air. 

Meet the author

Mindy Nichols Wendell, a retired university lecturer, writes historical fiction for young readers. Her debut novel, Light and Air, a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection, was just released by Holiday House. Mindy lives in western New York and is currently at work on a companion novel to Light and Air.

Website: https://mindynicholswendell.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mnwendell/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mnwendell/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mnwendell

About Light and Air

It’s 1935, and tuberculosis is ravaging the nation. Everyone is afraid of this deadly respiratory illness. But what happens when you actually have it?

When Halle and her mother both come down with TB, they are shunned—and then they are sent to the J.N. Adam Tuberculosis Hospital: far from home, far from family, far from the world.

Tucked away in the woods of upstate New York, the hospital is a closed and quiet place. But it is not, Halle learns, a prison. Free of her worried and difficult father for the first time in her life, she slowly discovers joy, family, and the healing power of honey on the children’s ward, where the girls on the floor become her confidantes and sisters. But when Mama suffers a lung hemorrhage, their entire future—and recovery—is thrown into question….

Light and Air deals tenderly and insightfully with isolation, quarantine, found family, and illness. Set in the fully realized world of a 1930s hospital, it offers a tender glimpse into a historical epidemic that has become more relatable than ever due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As Halle tries to warm her father’s coldness and learns to trust the girls and women of the hospital, and as she and her mother battle a disease that once paralyzed the country, a profound message of strength, hope, and healing emerges.

A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection

ISBN-13: 9780823454433
Publisher: Holiday House
Publication date: 01/02/2024
Age Range: 8 – 12 Years

Filed under: Guest Post