ANNUAL REPORT OF Board of Directors and Officers Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1923 Location of Home: Veterans' Home Postoffice, Napa County, California LETTER OF TRANSMITTAL. VETERANS' HOME, CALIFORNIA, To the Honorable FRIEND WM. RICHARDSON, Governor of California, Sacramento, California. SIR: I have the honor to address to you this, my twenty-second annual report as president of the Board of Directors of the Veterans' Home of California, covering the seventy-fourth fiscal year. The personnel of the directorate and of the officers of the home has remained unchanged during the fiscal year. I hand you herewith reports of the commandant, secretary-treasurer, chief surgeon, engineer and adjutant. On August 1st the directors elected Captain J. P. Edmunds as quartermaster-commissary of the home, a post he is eminently fitted to fill. Due to the change in this position there is no report covering the department as the former incumbent failed to file one. Owing to lack of funds we have not been able to give the veterans under our care the small luxuries and comforts we would like to furnish them; but, on the whole, they have been well cared for and everything possible done to meet their needs. We are endeavoring to give to these men who offered their lives in the hours of the country's need every care and to do everything possible to make them happy and contented. The needs of the hospital are increasing, due to the infirmities of advancing years and illness incident to service for the country. The Civil War veterans grow more feeble as time passes and the younger men in our care are, as a rule, very sick and need the best of food and attention. We feel that this home is unique in the state and is not to be classed with the institutions. Therefore, it should have special consideration. It is not a penal institute and it is not a hospital for insane, but is a home earned by those who were brave and self sacrificing enough to answe their country's call in the dark days of war. Respectfully submitted. SAMUEL W. BACKUS, President, Board of Directors. |