During the Battle of San Juan Hill, Stanley Hollister was standing at the side of Colonel Theodore Roosevelt himself when a fragment of Spanish shrapnel grazed Roosevelt’s writst and embedded itself in Stanley’s chest. Although gravely wounded, Stanley informed Roosevelt that he could make it back to the aid station. While crawiling along the base of San Juan Hill where the Rough Riders achieved their undying fame, young Stanley Hollister was shot in the left hip by a sniper. Medical corpsmen carried Stanley on a litter to the nearest port of embarcation for the States and in a few days he was at Fortress Monroe infirmary in Virginia, where he seemed to be making an excellent recovery. Back in Santa Barbara his mother, Hannah (Annie) James Hollister, wanting her son to have the best care available, dispatched the family doctor, R. F. Winchester, to Stanley’s bedside; Dr. Winchester remained with his patient several days and pronounced him well on the road to recovery, so much so that there was no further need for his remaining away from his own practice in California.
When Dr. Winchester alighted from the train at Santa Barbara, he was greeted with dire news: Stanley Hollister had contracted typhoid fever and had died August 8, 1898. Coincidentally the date was the twelfth anniverary of the death of William Welles Hollister, “the Colonel“
Drake Station 