This lot is a vintage blotter advertising the Willows Maternity Sanitarium in Kansas City, Missouri. According to information from the Kansas City Times, May 7, 1982:

“The sanitarium was actually a home for unwed pregnant women in a day when the privacy of such an institution was sought. Such situations were not even discussed in polite society. The Willows was founded by Edwin and Cora May Haworth in their white frame home at 2929 Main.

They were fine upstanding people who ran the home and only the most socially prominent Midwestern women were taken in. It had a lot of snob appeal. It was like the Ritz or Waldorf of homes for unwed mothers. It cost more to go there than it did to attend a finishing school. Pregnant girls were met at the railroad station and escorted in limousines to the steps of the Willows and remained up to eight months.

Operation of the Willows was very strict. Not just every unwed mother could get in. They were recommended by prominent doctors throughout the U.S. At one time as many as 102 young women occupied the facility and as many as 125 babies were in the nursery, awaiting adoption. At the closing and razing of the Willows in 1969, records of its 64 years of operation were piled in the back yard and burned. It was the end of an era.”