Summer 2009  

Happy 60th Birthday!

The entrance to the original Grace Cottage Hospital
is now the entrance to Grace Cottage Family Health.

Thanks to an incredibly supportive and generous community, which includes devoted patients, committed volunteers, an amazingly talented, compassionate and hard- working staff, and wonderful benefactors who have given $1.00 to $1.7 million, Grace Cottage Hospital is celebrating six decades of patient care. Sixty years of saving lives, caring for the sick, helping those who are dying, and encouraging those who are well to stay that way!

When Dr. Carlos Otis and his wife, Ruth, opened Grace Cottage Hospital's doors on Sunday afternoon, August 7, 1949, 830 people "from far and wide" signed the guest book and toured the hospital rooms with nurses Bessie Leonard, Eunice Bills, Valerie Streeter and Lillian Lyons, while cook Emma Castle showed off the new kitchen. Refreshments were served on the front lawn of the hospital. The first baby, Hollis Wright, was delivered that night, at 1:08 a.m. on August 8. During the past 60 years, there have been many changes, but patient care has always, and will always, come first.

Everyone and anyone who has anything to do with Grace Cottage's past, present and future is invited to join the 60th Birthday Party at Fair Day this year, Saturday, August 1. The party will last throughout the day, with Nimble Arts circus performers on the Common, a birthday cake to be cut at 11:15 a.m., a commemorative postal stamp available on the Common, and birthday gifts to be given out while supplies last. For those who can't get to Fair Day, there will be a Grace Cottage 60th Birthday float in the Wardsboro 4th of July parade - all are welcome to join in the celebrations of patient care second to none!

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