JLSA HISTORY The Children’s Free Clinic & Sunshine Cottage
Many are aware of the Junior League of San Antonio’s signature project—a partnership with Clarity Child Guidance Center with the shared goal of improving children’s mental health. But, what a lot of people do not know is that JLSA has played a role in improving children’s health care from the earliest years of the League.
On October 6, 1924, the JLSA undertook complete financing of the San Antonio Children’s Free Clinic with Mrs. Lyda King as the director. The following text is from a brief history of the League that was found in the archives. The author is unnamed, but it may have been written in the mid-1980s. “The Junior League wants to use the basement of the church for a children’s free clinic. 'What is the Junior League, Margaret?' These were the questions Dr. P. B. Hill of the First Presbyterian Church asked Mrs. Ike Kampmann in 1924 when the newly-founded JLSA was seeking a space to set up its first project—the Children’s Free Clinic. Like Dr. Hill, few people in San Antonio were familiar with the goals or work of the League. Today, in looking back over 60 years of steadily expanding community service, it is evident that JLSA has created path through which young women have recognized the needs of the community and done something about them.
elsewhere. The equipment, which was mostly second hand, was sold or given away. In 1946, Dela White came to the Junior League requesting help to build a school for the deaf. Such a facility did not exist in our city, a void Dela realized because of her daughter, Tuleta, who was hearing impaired. Mrs. White and Tuleta had to travel to California for quality training at the John Tracy Clinic. Rather than move the family to California, the White family decided to start a school for deaf children here in town. With the infectious and spontaneous enthusiasm of the community at large, Sunshine Cottage was born. The League was the catalyst behind this school established to teach the children to speak, lip read, and develop what hearing possibilities each possessed. The city gave the caretaker’s cottage on the Hannah Landa Memorial Library grounds to JLSA rent-free. It also made a gift of the utilities. Local merchants donated equipment and labor and even fruit juice and crackers for the young students. League members and parents hammered, papered, and painted away, and on June 16, 1947, Sunshine Cottage opened with six pupils, one teacher, and 10 volunteers. Each year, the project grew until it finally moved to its present location on Stadium Drive in 1952.
Dr. Hill did agree to let the League use the church’s basement, and the Children’s Free Clinic became a reality. From 1924 until 1942, it was the JLSA’s major project. It provided medical and dental care for children of families who could not qualify for existing health care programs. Doctors and dentists generously contributed their time and services, and the Clinic, with League funds, took care of eyeglasses, lab tests, hospital bills, and even provided free toothbrushes. Volunteers assisted the doctors, did the clerical work, and formed a motor corps in order to serve more clients. Mrs. Robert Mickler recalled those early days when new members operated the motor pool; a task later assigned to sustainers and eventually discontinued on the advice of an insurance company. The need for this facility was tremendous; however, after 18 years, the Children’s Free Clinic was closed. World War II began, causing most of the doctors and dentists to leave to join the service, and many of the indigent could now receive health care services Winter 2020
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