9News in Denver featured a story yesterday about Aurora, its suburb to the east. The National Park Service has named Aurora as one of its World War II Heritage Cities. The story included mentions of Lowry AFB (my brother Pat trained there), Buckley National Guard base now a Space Force unit, and Fitzsimons Army Medical Center, closed in 1996.
Fitzsimons is the entity that I know best. My paternal grandmother served there as a nurse, 1919-1922, after returning from duty in France 1918-1919. She met my grandfather along the way. He was a cavalry officer who had returned from the trenches with pneumonia and the after-effects of poison gas.
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| Aerial view of Fitzsimons Army Medical Center circa 1973. Photo courtesy Wikipedia. |
The 9News story says that Fitzsimons opened just a few days before WW2. Not true. In a strange quirk of army planning, the hospital was begun before the U.S. entry into the Great War and completed in 1918. It was the center for tuberculosis treatment and also treated patients of the Spanish Flu which did not begin in Spain but most likely entered the world at a U.S. Army Base in west Kansas, Camp Funston.
Aurora's Army General Hospital 21 was renamed Fitzsimons Army Hospital in 1920 after Lt. Fitzsimons, the first U.S. medical officer to die in the Great War. It's specialty was lung patients, those with TB or had sustained lung damage during gas attacks.
I know a bit about era because I wrote the book, a historical novel titled Zeppelins Over Denver. I spent many hours reading about The Great War and its aftermath, especially in Colorado, my home place. I was born there in 1950 and have lived many other places since, but claim Denver as my home. It's terrific to see the World War 2 years celebrated by the National Park Service, an agency that's been under attack since January of 2023. Face it -- mistakes are made, facts sometimes can be wrong. As a writer and editor, I've made a few along the way.
In this age of lies and deceit from high places, the right stuff is important. I have fond memories of watching 9,7, and 4 news during my adult years in Denver, 1978-88, and later Fort Collins, 1988-1991. Those Denver channels used to reach me over the Wyoming border, courtesy of cable. Bad news travels fast. I'm talking about you, Rockies, on MLB.com. We hope new leadership gets you out of the cellar.
One other thing. As you read my novel and find mistakes, please let me know. Some things are facts and some are fiction.
