About this collection:

➤ Raymond A. Tomassene, prominent Wheeling ear, nose and throat physician, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio on November 3, 1891 to Charles F. and Elizabeth Anderson Tomassene. He obtained his undergraduate degree from the University of Cincinnati in 1912 and his medical degree from the Jefferson Medical College in 1916. Later that year, Tomassene went overseas with a Pennsylvania unit to serve at the American Ambulance Hospital in Neuilly, France during World War I. The hospital operated in the newly built Lycee Pasteur school in the Paris suburb. After the war, Tomassene returned to the states and did his graduate work in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1921 he and his wife, Lucy Shaw, moved to Wheeling and Tomassene established his practice in the Laconia Building.

The collection consists of a scrapbook compiled by Tomassene while in service at the American Ambulance Hospital in Neuilly, France from 1916-1917. The scrapbook contains photographs, postcards, tickets, drawings, and clippings. Photographs include images of the Lycee Pastuer building, interior scenes of doctors and nurses, as well as patients and operating rooms. Also included are photographs taken outside of the hospital, such as Alsace and other areas of the Northeastern French countryside. Notable photographs include images of Prince Albert visiting troops, a French dirigible that was later captured, and soldiers in the trenches. There are also several graphic images of patients and their facial injuries.

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