When Sarah B. Withers died in 1897, she left her home at 305 West Locust Street in Bloomington, Illinois to the trustees of the Second Presbyterian Church of Bloomington for use as a home for aged and indigent women, naming it “The Jessamine Withers Home” in honor of her adopted daughter, who had died in 1892. A statement by the Board of Lady Managers in 1932 specified that the home was meant to be “a home in the true sense of the word” and that they intended to avoid allowing the home to “become at all institutional.”
The Withers Home Collection consists of one box containing 6 folders and one book of minutes. Items in the collection include informational booklets, leaflets, meeting minutes, reports, newspaper clippings, correspondence, receipts, lists of rules, stationary, and some miscellaneous notes.