Appoline Alexander Blair

Appoline Agatha Alexander Blair (September 14, 1828 – Sep. 5, 1908) was a Missouri philanthropist, hospital founder, and wife of Senator (and Civil War general) Francis Preston Blair, Jr. In 1878, after losing two children to illness, Blair gathered a group of 20 prominent women and organized the St. Louis Children's Hospital, for which she served as the first president of the Board of Managers. In addition to the St. Louis Children's Hospital, she is sometimes credited with the creation of the St. John's Medical Center in Joplin, Missouri, in 1896.