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Edwin H. and Cynthia Wendover Van Deusen
Unless the
thousands of patrons that stream through the doors of the Central
Library in downtown Kalamazoo make their way to the third floor,
they are unlikely to know of Dr. Edwin and Mrs. Cynthia Van Deusen.
Even if they use the auditorium named in honor of the couple,
they might easily pass by the oil portraits of the elegant pair that
hang on the wall just outside without reading the accompanying
plaque and might never realize that the two were responsible
for the public library building being on this site since 1893. And
that’s just how Dr. and Mrs. Van Deusen would have liked it. Their
philanthropic contributions to Kalamazoo were always made with an
eye to avoiding the limelight and quietly improving the quality of
the community in which they lived. Dr. Van Deusen was
born in Livingston, New York in 1828. At the age of 20, he enrolled
in the College of Physicians and Surgeons at New York and graduated
two years later. His medical specialty turned to the diagnosis and
treatment of the mentally ill when he was appointed as the first
assistant physician at the New York State Lunatic Asylum in Utica in
1855. He held this position for three years. In July of 1858, he
married Cynthia A. Wendover, a marriage that formed a partnership
that would last for fifty years. After the State of
Michigan had enacted legislation to establish the Michigan Asylum
for the Insane in Kalamazoo, Dr. Van Deusen made several trips to
the city to superintend the erection of the Kalamazoo Asylum and to
form public opinion favorable to the institution. He was appointed
superintendent of the asylum and moved here with his wife in the
fall of 1858. Even though legislation had been passed to establish
the facility, financial appropriation in sufficient amount to run
the institution had not followed. Dr. Van Deusen helped secure
$100,000 to do so. Building expansion quickly followed, as well as
new techniques for the treatment of its patients. As was later said
of his tenure, Dr. Van Deusen’s studies in neurasthenia paved the
way for the establishment of preventive medicine that would leave
practitioners of diagnosis and treatment of the insane forever in
his debt. During his years in
Kalamazoo, Dr. Van Deusen also served on commissions that oversaw
the site locations and construction of the Eastern Michigan Asylum
for the Insane at Pontiac and the Northern Michigan Asylum for the
Insane at Traverse City. After 20 years in
his post of superintendent, Dr. Van Deusen retired in 1878 because
of ill health. His retirement, however, proved an impetus for
continued philanthropic contributions to the city by him and his
wife until their deaths, his in 1909 and his wife’s in 1914. For
36 years the Van Deusens shared their substantial means in quiet
acts of community improvement. Probably their
biggest gift to the community was the public library building
erected in 1893 on the southeast corner of Rose and South Streets.
For years the library, under the governance of the public school
board, had problems finding a permanent home. For a time, it was
located in the old Corporation Hall
on South Burdick Street, and that was
the breaking point for Dr. and Mrs. Van Deusen. The thought of
school children and library patrons using the same stairway as
criminals led them to make an offer of $50,000 for a new library
building if the board would furnish the land. The money was for
construction, and only two stipulations accompanied the offer. One was that a
suitable room be arranged for the Academy of Medicine. Dr. Van
Deusen felt the library could better afford to buy medical books
than many doctors could for their own medical libraries. The second
stipulation was that reading rooms be open to the public on Sunday
in order that workers who toiled throughout the week could have a
day to enjoy the library. The initial
donation for the library grew to something nearer $75,000, primarily
because the Van Deusens chose expensive interior
decorations. Their taste helped make the library a place that
is still fondly remembered by its patrons, more than At the same time
the library was being constructed, a movement was taking place on
the East Coast to establish separate, special reading rooms for
children. This idea was taken up in Kalamazoo, so a pleasant and
well lighted room in the basement of the new building became one of
the first children’s rooms in Michigan. The Van Deusens had
declined to have the whole library named for them; instead, the new
children's room was named in their honor. They were pleased
and often visited the room to see the children. In addition to the
library, the Van Deusens helped raise money for the erection of St.
Luke’s Episcopal Church and donated funds for the building of the
church rectory. They also
contributed heavily to the building fund for Bronson Methodist
Hospital. This particular gift lives on, not only in the
hospital itself, but fittingly enough, in the Hospital Hospitality
House of Southwest Michigan. It was established in 1985 as a vision
of the Junior League of Kalamazoo, in collaboration with Borgess
Medical Center and Bronson Methodist Hospital, in response to a need
for a place to stay for pre/post admission patients and their families. This refuge is located in the Van
Deusen’s beautiful former home on South
Street.
After Dr. Van
Deusen’s death, Mrs. Van Deusen continued her practice of helping
the poor and downtrodden in Kalamazoo until her own death. She did
so personally, without relying on a foundation to perform the work
for her. Though both of them died at the same medical institution in New York, the Van Deusens are buried in Mountain Home Cemetery in Kalamazoo, the city they loved and so quietly changed forever. Written by Fred Peppel, former Kalamazoo Public Library staff member, in January 2005, with thanks to Martha Lohrstorfer for research that she contributed to this sketch. Last updated 18 November 2005.
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forty years
after it was finally demolished. Three of the beautiful 
return to the 
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