208. First Baby Born at Old Sacred Heart Hospital 1915

Updated: Mar 29, 2022

Janice Fanny Gundersheimer was born on September 17, 1915 in the old Pensacola Hospital at 1016 North 12th Avenue that was run by the Sisters of Charity. The name was later changed to Sacred Heart Hospital. She was the daughter of Isabelle "Belle" Berlin and David Gundersheimer who were married in 1914. According to her sister Ann Gundersheimer Schops, at the time of Janice's birth, the construction workers were still working down the hall trying to complete the finishing touches to Pensacola's first modern hospital. Ironically, my grandfather James Oscar Ward worked loading gravel into a mule drawn wagon in Flomaton where he hauled it to the train station. This gravel was loaded up and transported to Pensacola by rail where it was used to mix the concrete to build the new hospital.

By 1920, David was the Secretary/Treasure of the "M&O Clothing Store" at 319 South Palafox Street, which handled men's clothing, shoes, and furnishings. David's brother Bernhardt Leon Gundersheimer Sr. was the President and his brother Ralph Gundersheimer Sr. was the Vice-President of the company. David and Belle rented a house at 318 West Belmont Street where their daughter Anne was added to the family in 1922. However, her father died prematurely at 50-years old in 1929 and things changed for the family.

By 1930, Belle and her two daughters were renting a house at 422 West DeSoto Street when she became the proprietor of a clothing store. By the next year, the M&O was gone and Belle was living at 1739 North Palafox Street and earning a living as a milliner. In the meantime, the first baby born in the Pensacola Hospital graduated from Pensacola High School in 1933 and three years later she married John O'Donovan Sanchez in 1936. Her new husband supported his family by working for the Pensacola News Journal before he passed away in 1983. Janice would remarry Aubrey Brewton in 1989 before she too passed away in Pensacola on November 1, 2002.