Advocate Lutheran General marks 50th anniversary
Advocate Lutheran General Hospital and Advocate Lutheran General Children's Hospital has seen many changes since opening its doors in Park Ridge in 1959.
But Sunday's 50th anniversary celebration revealed much continuity as well.
Among those attending was 93-year-old volunteer Fern Lewis, who drives every day from her Bensenville home to work for the hospital's public relations department.
Lewis was there when the hospital opened 50 years ago, working as a volunteer associated with the surgical waiting area, assisting families through difficult hours.
"We took care of the reception desk and receiving the flowers when we first started," she said.
She remembered the first day: "We were stepping over wheelbarrows and mortar and everything," Lewis said. "It wasn't quite finished, you know. But the patients came, and we did what we could."
Also on hand Sunday was one of the original doctors, Jerome Podgers, who still works there, specializing in geriatrics.
"I have to," he said. "My patients are as old as I am."
Podgers remembers a very different suburban landscape surrounding the hospital.
"I don't think there was anything north of Dempster except trailer parks," he said
Remarking on the hospital's growth, he said, "I don't think I have ever seen Lutheran General Hospital in all 50 years without a crane in front of it."
The event itself, "Celebrating 50 Years of Faith and Healing," heavily emphasized the faith aspect, with several hospital officials reading prayers.
Also reading a psalm was the first baby born at the hospital, Mary Beth Bank.
The ceremony was piped into the hospital patients' rooms through their televisions.
The hospital was dedicated on Christmas Eve 1959. The event was broadcast on WGN-TV at the time.
The original 326-bed facility, including land and a building for a School of Nursing, cost $7.6 million.
Over its 50-year history, the hospital has earned such honors as being selected for 10 years by U.S. News & World Report magazine as one of the nation's best hospitals.
This year, the hospital opened a 192-private-room, eight-story patient tower, featuring advanced facilities for intensive care, oncology, neurology/stroke, surgical, pediatric and obstetric patients.
During the ceremony, hospital officials paid tribute to the vision of the hospital's first president, Naurice M. Nesset, and former Vice President Fredric M. Norstad. It was a vision of not just treating illness, but the whole person.
As Ronald Mallicoat, chairman of the hospital's governing council, said, "We're not just a health care provider. We're a health care ministry."