Santa Claus Brings Cheer to Ball Memorial Hospital

How lonely and scary to be a child in the hospital at Christmas time. For seventy-five years, the Ruth Lyons Children’s Fund has tried to make the stay a little bit better. As this photo taken at Ball Memorial Hospital shows, Santa Claus is getting ready to distribute gifts to children who were in the hospital at Christmas time. The gifts were paid for by the Ruth Lyons Children’s Fund. Ruth Lyons, a Cincinnati radio and television host, started the fund in 1939 after a visit to Children’s Hospital in Cincinnati just before Christmas. Dismayed that there were no Christmas decorations at the hospital, Lyons asked her listeners to send money so that hospitalized children in Ohio, Indiana and Kentucky could have a pleasant holiday. Miss Lyons died in 1988, but the children’s fund still exists, serving the greater Cincinnati area.

In 2004, Ball Memorial Hospital donated more than 80 boxes of archival material to the Minnetrista Heritage Collection. The photographs (including this one), documents, brochures, and other material record the hospital from its beginnings in the 1920s to the time of the donation. Many photos are available to view on Minnetrista’s website.

While you’re in the Minnetrista Heritage Collection on-line looking at the hospital photos, search for the keyword “Santa Claus.” You’ll find a few more images of the big guy.

Happy Holidays.