Excerpts from Oral History Interview with Ben and Bess Glass (for Slide Show), 1978 October

"Ben and Bessie Glass, a couple who met while young patients of the Jewish Consumptives' Relief Society (JCRS) in the 1930s, recount their memories of living at the institution while recovering from tuberculosis. They discuss the somewhat unsuccessful attempts of the staff to segregate the younger boys and girls who were patients there. They also describe the institution's efforts to provide rehabilitation in all aspects of the patients' lives, for... example by providing the opportunity to work in the facility's bookbindery, an operation founded by a former patient.

The Jewish Consumptives' Relief Society (JCRS) was founded in Denver, Colo. in 1904 as a non-sectarian sanatorium to treat tuberculosis (TB) patients in all stages of the disease. The society was founded by a group of immigrant Eastern European Jewish men, many of whom were themselves victims of TB. For decades patients flocked to Denver from all over the country and were admitted free of charge. In the early years, the sanatorium was headed by Dr. Charles Spivak as Secretary (1904-1927) and by Philip Hillkowitz as President (1904-1948), and catered primarily to Jewish patients in a distinctively Jewish environment."