Recently, George Detwiler, member and volunteer here at the Historical Society of Montgomery County, donated a collection of photographs of the River Crest Preventorium. This facility was an offshoot of the Kensington Dispensary for the treatment of tuberculosis located in Mont Clare, Upper Providence. The Kensington Dispensary was founded by St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in Germantown to treat the high rate of tuberculosis in Kensington’s immigrant community. The Mont Clare location was meant to provide a country retreat for children who had been exposed to tuberculosis, but did not have an active form of the disease.
According to the minutes of the Fourth Biennal Convention of the United Lutheran Church in America, in 1923 The Preventorium had space for 39 children. The demand was such that the children had be limited to only a two stay, and the report calls for an expansion of the facility. The minutes describe the method used at the preventorium as “Fresh air, sunshine, nourishing food, supervised play, exercise and rest….Another definite aim is to assist the child’s mental, moral and spiritual development.”
Along with the photographs, George donated a program for the 1929 dedication of a new administration building at River Crest and new dormitories for 100 children.
By the middle of the 20th century, tuberculosis was no longer the crisis it had decades earlier, and the Kensington Dispensary shifted focus to serving intellectually disabled adults and children, and River Crest became a residence and summer camp for those children.
In 1969, the organization changed its name to KenCrest. Today, the River Crest Preventorium is the RiverCrest Golf Club.
