Identity area
Type of entity
Corporate body
Authorized form of name
Live Oak Friends Meeting
Parallel form(s) of name
Standardized form(s) of name according to other rules
Other form(s) of name
Identifiers for corporate bodies
Description area
Dates of existence
1954-
History
Live Oak Friends Meeting was founded in 1954 and met in congregants’ homes and in several temporary locations before settling in first to an adapted house on Alexander Street. In 2000 they moved into a building on W. 26th Street in the Heights, designed for them, that includes an installation by light artist James Turrell.
Jan and Marjorie De Hartog were longtime residents of Houston and members of Live Oak Friends Meeting, and personal friends of the donors. The original video was recorded by Warren, Ph.D., and Marsha Holleman, M.D., also members of Live Oak and faculty at Baylor College of Medicine.
Jefferson Davis Hospital opened originally in 1924; a second building was constructed in 1939 (razed 1999). By the 1950s, disputes between the city and county over who was responsible for its costs had left it underfunded, understaffed, and plagued by appalling conditions. The De Hartogs’ expose The Hospital prompted the formation of the Harris County Hospital District (Harris Health), the reform of public hospital conditions in Houston, and the development of Ben Taub Hospital in 1963.