Dr. Devitt’s Dream – Part IV

By the mid-1950s, the services provided at Devitt’s Camp had become obsolete due to the advent of successful medical treatment for tuberculosis. The 14 buildings and 220 acres of land were appraised at more than $160,000 but, on the verge of bankruptcy, the Devitt family was forced to sell the camp for $1 with a pledge from the new owners to retain the Devitt name. Early in 1956, ownership of the camp was transferred to the United Church of Christ, operator of Phoebe Home, a facility for the elderly located over a hundred miles away in Allentown. Phoebe planned to expand their services by opening another home at the Devitt Camp location.  

Devitt’s Camp Becomes Devitt Home
Dedication of the new Devitt Home took place on June 17, 1956 before a crowd of 2,200 people. Renovations on the old, neglected camp buildings were begun immediately and, by 1960, 109 residents were enjoying the pleasant rural surroundings in central Pennsylvania.

The policy of staff residing in on-site cottages and dormitories was continued after the opening of the Devitt Home. One of the registered nurses hired by Phoebe-Devitt in 1958 was a local girl named Anne Isobel Foresman. Known by her middle name, Isobel was born in 1908 on one of the farms located in nearby Alvira.  

Isobel obtained her nurse’s training at the Presbyterian Hospital in Philadelphia and served as First Lieutenant in the Army Air Force Nurse’s Corps during WWII, tending to patients at the Regional Station Hospital at Langley Field in Virginia between January 1944 and December 1945.

Military Nurse Returns Home
Following her discharge from the army in 1945, Isobel worked as a private duty nurse in Philadelphia. She then moved to Hughesville and worked at the former Muncy Home for Women. By 1958, Isobel was hired as a registered nurse at the Devitt Home, where she was offered housing in a private cottage. She lived there with her younger sister, Martha, who also worked at the home as a nurse’s aide, and their parents, who had since been displaced from their home in Alvira.  

According to their nephew, Bill Foresman of Hughesville, neither Isobel nor Martha were married. As a young boy, Foresman spent many weekends visiting his aunts and exploring the Sunanday farm, which was located at the edge of the Devitt Home property. He fondly recalls his Aunt Isobel, who was known to send young nurses home who came to work with skirts that were too short! Isobel worked at Devitt Home until 1968, when she moved to Allentown and continued working at the Phoebe Home until her retirement in 1973.  

After operating the Devitt Home for more than 10 years, Phoebe decided to close the facility instead of investing in major renovations. In 1968, 85 elderly patients were moved to the Allentown location and the Devitt Home was auctioned for less than $100,000 in 1969.  

The Devitt Name Remains
Since the early 1970s, an alcohol and drug rehabilitation facility, White Deer Run (http://www.whitedeerrun.com/location.wdr.allenwood.asp), has operated on the old Devitt property, which is accessed from Route 15 in Allenwood by Devitt Camp Road. A senior housing complex in nearby Lewisburg was opened in 1991 and was named Devitt House (http://www.phoebe.org/retirement/sa_devitt_house.html); and the Phoebe-Devitt Homes Foundation continues its fundraising efforts to provide long-term care, housing, and services to seniors (http://www.phoebe.org/about/foundation.html). So the Devitt name continues, nearly 100 years after Dr. William Devitt purchased 60 acres of land near Allenwood to build his dream.