Sara T. Mayo
[5] The original location of the hospital was in a modest building at 1823 Annunciation Street in the Irish Channel of New Orleans, with just $25 in start-up capital (worth approximately $759 in inflation-adjusted 2021 dollars[6]).
The building was a converted four story house which was donated by fellow female physician and founder Susanna Otis.
From its inception, the hospital was staffed exclusively by women, with Mayo and the other founding physicians providing services in internal medicine, surgery, pediatrics, dermatology, obstetrics / gynecology, neurology, and dentistry.
The hospital moved to a larger two story building in March 1908, enabled by a fund-raising effort that included a contribution of the receipts of one day's newspaper sales by the New Orleans Daily Delta [Wikidata].
[7] Mayo was generally regarded as the leader of the founding group at the New Orleans Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children.
Mayo typically provided clinical services in obstetrics and gynecology, in addition to her administrative responsibilities to the hospital.
Among her contributions, Mayo obtained financing from the Sickles Fund of Pennsylvania to offset the cost of drugs for patients at the hospital and clinic.
New Orleans Mayor Martin Behrman appointed Mayo to the board of directors of the Sickles Commission.
In this post, Mayo influenced the fund to provide significant financing for prescription drugs to underprivileged people in the New Orleans area.
[15] Mayo was active in the Era Club of New Orleans in its efforts to advanced social reform and feminist causes, led at the time by suffragist Kate M.
[7] Mayo was a mentor to Dr. Linda Coleman who worked as an intern at the New Orleans Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children and who was the first woman to graduate from the Tulane University School of Medicine (1917).
[5] Mayo died in 1930 of heart disease related to angina pectoris[16] and was interred at Metairie Cemetery.
[18] Mayo was the winner of the New Orleans Times-Picayune Loving Cup Award in 1910 in recognition of her charitable work.
[2] Shortly after Mayo's death in 1930, the Board of Directors of the New Orleans Hospital and Dispensary for Women and Children issued a resolution stating: "Her cheery smile, hopeful words, great skill and greater heart have proved a boon to untold thousands of women who, through her ministrations, have been lifted out of a condition of pain and disease into health again.
