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.
My brother and I were put in RiverCrest Preventorium in December 1939 and since I’m going to be 90 in a few months I often think about my childhood adventures and wonder if there are any grown up children who were at RCP when I was there. I remember the search lights at night and we had to turn out all the lights because war started in Europe. I remember the large pavilion where all the toys and outside equipment were kept in the wooden hinged seats that surrounded the whole area. I remember there was a little girl whose first name was Marion and I called her Marion glamour puss and she was my friend. I remember my father bringing me shoes which didn’t fit and I cried when he left. My mother contracted TB when she was in the hospital having her third child. I remember Sister Margarita and Sister Josephine with their grey long skirts, white aprons and hat with black shoes. They were so nice to all of us. Sister would read us Bible stories every night and we learned prayers and went outside every morning to see the flag being raised and said the Pledge of Allegiance. My youngest brother has passed but my brother who is sixteen months younger then me is still alive. He is in Colorado and I’m in Virginia and we talk to each other a few times a week sometimes recounting some of our escapades in our childhood. Thank you for allowing me to reminisce for awhile.
Thank you so much for sharing your memories with us, Diana!
Thank you for sharing your memories 😳 my uncle spent time there as well and we were reminiscing hearing your memories
We are visited with someone who used to play on the swings and teetertotter when the houses children were inside.
When my husbands cousin played there, her uncle was a caretaker and his name was Raymond Texter and he worked with Oscar the hired hand. We think that might be him in the truck picture, driving the truck. .
Is there anyone that was there between 1958 – 1961 that would share memories ? I’d love to hear from you.
I was looking for information on River Crest for background information. My grandmother, along with my father and aunt came to the USA from Germany in in 1929. Granddad was going into a business on Oriana St in Philadelphia with someone. My grandmother was a cook at River Crest until March of 1949. There are so many more details that I am missing but I have many, many photos of my grandmother and grandfather, as well as my father and aunt at River Crest, along with countless number of the children that were there. Remember my Dad and Mom taking me there to visit with the Lutheran sisters (I believe they were) when I was young. As were lived in nearby Norristown, until his death in 1999, Dad still liked to visit and eventually just ride by the property after it eventually became a luxury housing development and golf course. Think when we no longer saw the big flag pole that stood in front we realized it (River Crest) was really gone!!
On reading other comments, I remember the name Texter so now wonder if it could have been the same person mentioned in earlier comment. I am in my early 80’s so maybe it might be in about the same time period.
My mother, Margaret Ann Haas was at Rivercrest as a child, between 1944 and 1950with three of her siblings. I would love to see the pictures that you have, maybe they are in some of them!
I would love to see pictures also as I was there in the 40’s