A VA Christmas - Baths 136th Anniversary On Christmas Day in 1878, 136 years ago, the New York State Soldiers and Sailors Home located near Bath, New York, officially opened to admit veterans for the first time. That day twenty-five (25) disabled Civil War veterans shared in the home’s first Christmas dinner. In 1876, the Grand Army of the Republic (GAR), the largest fraternal organization of former Union soldiers, received a charter from the state of New York to establish a soldiers home in Steuben County near the town of Bath. At the time, nearly 700 disabled or destitute veterans were housed in various state poorhouses. The GAR sold subscriptions to purchase a 240-acre farm in Bath, then sought support from the state legislature for “removal from the Empire State of the disgrace attending the presence in the county poor-houses of so many hundred of her brave defenders.” The New York legislature agreed to accept the home and provide for its continued maintenance as one of the state’s charities. Almost from the moment that the New York Soldiers and Sailors Home’s opened, its managers sought to have it included as part of the Federal government’s system of Civil War soldiers’ homes --the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers (NHDVS), which was the origins of today’s Veteran’s Health Administration (VHA) in VA. In 1930, the NHDVS was merged with the Pension Bureau and Veterans Bureau to form the Veterans Administration. Bath and the other 10 National Homes were transferred to the Veterans Administration at that time. In 1988 President Reagan authorized elevation of the Veterans Administration to an Executive branch department and renamed it the Department of Veterans Affairs. Bath and all of the former National Homes continue to serve today’s veterans as Department of Veterans Affairs facilities. Please enjoy these menus to see what Christmas dinner was like for veterans at Bath in the early 20th century.
Posted on: Thu, 25 Dec 2014 15:01:01 +0000
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