100 Things You (Possibly) Didn’t Know about Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare

On June 23rd, Methodist Le BonheurHealthcare had quite a birthday. The combined hospital system was officially 100 years old. As part of the celebration, Contemporary Media — publishers of this magazine — produced The Power of One: Methodist Le Bonheur Healhcare: Our First Century, tracing the full history of the organization that has had such an impact on the quality of life throughout the Mid-South. Over the years, the two hospitals, which merged in 1995, have experienced important events and “firsts.” On these pages, we present a century’s worth of highlights.

Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare can trace its origins to one person — and he wasn’t even a doctor. John H. Sherard Sr., a wealthy cotton planter from Mississippi, journeyed to Memphis in 1899 to visit his ailing pastor. He was dismayed to find the cleric in a charity ward, and that was the impetus for his lifelong dream. A devout Methodist, he wondered, “Why doesn’t Memphis have a Methodist hospital?”

Sherard visited church groups, pushing his idea for a new hospital. It took five years before he gained his first endorsement, when the Women’s Missionary Society of the North Mississippi Methodist Conference “voiced support for the proposed hospital and joined Sherard in his appeal to other groups.”

Five years passed, and in 1909 a commission studied the feasibility of a Methodist hospital. On November 18, 1910, the Memphis Conference Journal reported that Methodist conferences in the Mid-South “agreed to build a hospital in the City of Memphis, to cost not less than $250,000, and the work to begin when $75,000 is secured.”

Although most Memphians associate Methodist Hospital with Union Avenue, the committee chose an eight-acre site on Lamar, owned by a former Confederate officer, W.B. Mallory, a successful dry-goods merchant after the Civil War. They would erect a brick building and also use the Mallory mansion “for hospital purposes.” The new site was “met with universal appeal.”

The building was to be called the Tri-State Hospital. The name was changed to Methodist Hospital in 1913, while construction was still under way.

A citywide “Hospital Rally Day” was set aside for January 28, 1912. “On this day, let every Sunday School, every Epworth League, every Woman’s Home Missionary Society, as well as every congregation, hold appropriate services and make liberal offerings for the hospital.”

The architect for the first Methodist Hospital wasn’t a Memphian. Instead, the building committee hired Samuel Hannaford & Son of Cincinnati as designer and architect, with the instructions to “get busy and break ground as soon as possible.”

In the early 1900s, successful businessman Hu L. Brinkley donated $80,000 to erect the Lucy Brinkley Hospital at 855 Union Avenue. Named in honor of his wife, this was one of the first women’s hospitals in the region. In 1918, this small facility was given to Methodist Hospital, and the date of this gift — June 23, 1918 — is considered the “birthday” of the present-day Methodist Hospital system.

The new hospital on Lamar would have a unique feature “that will commend itself to every sympathetic soul having the mind of Christ.” Patients unable to pay for medical care would receive the same treatment as paying patients, but their rooms “would be scattered throughout the hospital and there will be nothing to indicate the fact that they are charity patients.” Even the nurses didn’t know who those patients were.

The first patient was admitted to the “magnificent new” Methodist Hospital on Lamar on November 2, 1921. Others quickly followed.

Methodist used the brand-new facility on Lamar only briefly. After Armistice Day, November 11, 1921, the property was deeded to the U.S. government as a veterans hospital for soldiers injured during World War I. Methodist doctors, nurses, and the rest of the staff reluctantly moved back to the only facility they had — the tiny Lucy Brinkley Hospital on Union, which held only 65 beds.

Yet again, a building committee was formed, and the members quickly selected the former Watkins Overton property on Union, several blocks to the east of the Brinkley Hospital, and in 1923 began construction of an all-new Methodist Hospital, along with a Nurses Home.

The new four-story hospital opened in 1924, with 125 beds. The Lucy Brinkley Hospital closed, and the building was converted to the Blackstone Hotel. It became the George Vincent Hotel before being demolished for the University of Tennessee College of Dentistry. 

By the end of Methodist’s first full year on Union, the hospital had treated 3,438 patients and had delivered 280 babies — this accomplished with a staff of 57 physicians and only 10 graduate nurses and some 60 student nurses.

Meanwhile, Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital can trace its beginnings to a sewing club. In the early 1920s, volunteers were distressed at the conditions they found at Leath Orphanage and gathered friends together to sew and mend clothing and linens for the children there.

One member of the sewing circle, Elizabeth Gilliland, gave the group its distinctive name, calling it the Le Bonheur Club, literally translated as “the good hour” club.

In the 1920s, Methodist acquired other properties nearby. In 1921, the hospital purchased the Crisler Clinic, a private surgical clinic operated by James A. Crisler Sr. and James A. Crisler Jr. They were obviously a close-knit family; in the 1930s, father and son purchased homes practically side by side in the brand-new subdivision of Chickasaw Gardens.

Elizabeth Gilliland’s brother was treated at the Crippled Children’s Hospital for polio, and she persuaded the Le Bonheur Club to make clothes and dolls for patients there, as well as the children at Leath. “As a result,” writes Dale Berryhill in the hospital history, Whatever It Takes, “the club began working with sick children from its earliest days.”

In 1925, the sewing club began “adopting” individual children “with extraordinary needs” and placing some of them in homes of members. One of those girls was Mollie Milligan, whom the club assisted for most of her life, and even raised funds to send her to college.

The Le Bonheur Club, composed of “young ladies prominent in Memphis society,” attained such status that members were initially asked to sponsor the Children’s Bureau, which coordinated the needs of underprivileged boys and girls across the country. They were so successful they were presented the Community Fund Silver Cup for several years in a row.

In 1926, the first Methodist Hospital support group was formed, known as the Golden Cross Society, “as a practical demonstration of how Christianity could meet the needs of humanity.”

A 1927 report revealed the extent of supplies used by the hospital throughout the year. Among them: 40,000 loaves of bread, 10,000 pounds of butter, 600 bushels of potatoes, 70,000 quarts of milk, and 10,000 pounds of sugar.

In 1930, the Le Bonheur Club opened a toy store at 1543 Union Avenue called the Doll House, with “profits used to care for needy children.” The store remained in business as an important fundraiser until 1937. The building has survived; today it is home to the Donati law firm.

During the Depression, Methodist Hospital offered one of the nation’s first health insurance plans. Conceived by longtime supervisor Dr. Henry Hedden, the plan required members to pay less than a dollar a month, which would cover all hospital expenses except for the doctor’s fee

Contributions to Methodist’s building fund sometimes came from unlikely sources. In 1931, the hospital received a $5,000 gift from the Rev. W.C. Sellers of Martin, Tennessee, at age 85 the oldest active minister in the Methodist Conference, in memory of his wife.

A tragedy was behind the formation of the hospital’s largest and longest-surviving support group. Mrs. Casa Collier, the wife of a Methodist physician, had encountered a patient who had given birth to triplets. The babies died, and the family couldn’t afford the funeral costs. Collier met with friends who arranged to have the children buried and then formed the Methodist Hospital Auxiliary “as an ongoing means for providing aid to patients in need.”

The new hospital focused on innovations that enhanced the safety and well-being of its patients. New safety lights were installed in operating rooms, with mercury switches replacing the older arc-type units, which could spark an explosion from the flammable anesthesia gases used at the time.

Methodist became one of the few public buildings in Memphis (others being the downtown movie theatres and large department stores) to provide air-conditioning to some patient rooms. Hospital records show these rooms had a special price: $7.50 a day.

When the building committee purchased the property along Union, the site was shaded by ancient oaks. The committee revised its plans to save as many of the trees as possible, and the oak grove was a hallmark of the Methodist campus for decades.

Like most hospitals in the country, Methodist didn’t provide its own ambulance service. Instead, it relied on ambulances operated by funeral homes to rush (living) patients to the hospital.

In 1939, Mrs. J. Everett Pidgeon, whose family owned the Coca-Cola franchise here, came up with a new fund-raising event that earned Le Bonheur national and international recognition. She and other community leaders organized the first Le Bonheur Charity Horse Show.

The first horse show in 1940 featured Bob Hope as the master of ceremonies. Other celebrities who took the reins over the years included actor Dick Powell and comedian Andy Devine.

Held at the Mid-South Fairgrounds, the horse shows attracted entries from across the country, and by its third year, the 1943 event was declared the number-one horse show in the United States.

The night before the 1943 show, the grandstand burned to the ground, but volunteers using donated lumber rebuilt the entire grandstand overnight. By 1948, Encyclopedia Americana

With funds raised by the horse shows, the Le Bonheur Club opened the “Well Baby Clinic” at Methodist Hospital — the city’s first medical clinic for underprivileged children. In those segregated times, white children were treated by physicians on certain days of the week; black children were seen at other times.

In 1943, Methodist purchased the Eye, Ear, Nose, and Throat Hospital on Madison. Although the building would eventually be used for medical purposes, during World War II it served as apartments for defense workers.

During the war, hospital superintendent Dr. Henry Hedden maintained daily correspondence with members of his staff stationed overseas. For reasons lost to history, this large collection of letters was called “The Knobby Finger.”

In 1946, Dr. Barton Etter penned a letter to “the Ladies of Le Bonheur,” urging them to establish a full-scale hospital for children here: “There are 22 pediatricians in Memphis and there is not one of us who has not at some time had to send a patient to Nashville, St. Louis, Chicago, Baltimore, or Boston for diagnosis or treatment. Frankly, we resent this …”

By 1947, Methodist had become so overcrowded that it couldn’t provide a room for its own superintendent, James Crews, when he became ill. Instead, he was confined to a cot in his own office, and complained later, “Couldn’t even get a bed in my own hospital.” The solution was more plans for expansion, which included the 10-story East Wing, opened in 1958.

In place of the standard bedside call button, Methodist Hospital installed intercoms in patient rooms, allowing direct communication with the nurses’ station. Memphis Press-Scimitar

The Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital Capital Fund Drive kicked off on December 29, 1949, headed by Allen Morgan, president of First National Bank. Within two months it had exceeded its goal by more than $50,000. The bulk of the funding for the new facility came from state and local government.

The building committee selected a location at Adams and Dunlap for the children’s hospital, and the City of Memphis agreed to lease the property to Le Bonheur for just $1 per year.

The architect chosen for Le Bonheur was Memphian J. Frazer Smith, known for creating Lauderdale Courts, Foote Homes, and Dixie Homes public housing projects here. His modern design for Le Bonheur was honored by the American Institute of Architects.

Construction of the 89-bed facility took two years. Dedication ceremonies were held June 15, 1952, and included an unusual ceremony. Elise Pritchard, president of the Le Bonheur Club, tied the front door keys to balloons and released them into the sky, symbolizing that the new hospital’s doors would never be closed to any child.

Patty Lynn Bowden, a 3-year-old girl from Philadelphia, Mississippi, was Le Bonheur’s first patient, taken to the hospital for treatment of kidney disease.

A few months later, Jerry Smith, a 13-year-old boy from Booneville, Mississippi, was Le Bonheur Hospital’s first cardiovascular surgery patient (both Patty and Jerry did well).

Le Bonheur Children’s Hospital was the first hospital in Tennessee expressly designed for children.

The year 1954 was a year of “firsts” for Le Bonheur: The staff established the first poison control center in Tennessee, Mary Kathryn Taylor became the first medical social worker at a private hospital here, and Dr. Chet Lloyd set up shop as the region’s first pediatric dentist.

A special feature of the children’s hospital was the “bunny room,” where children headed for surgery could pick out a doll or stuffed toy. “The Bunny Room was a brilliant thought on the part of the Le Bonheur Ladies,” said Dr. Ray N. Paul, a pediatric cardiologist. “It did a whole lot to ease children.”

Meanwhile, just blocks away, in 1958, another Methodist support group was formed, the Volunteer Personal Hostess Service, better known as the “Pink Ladies” because of their distinctly colored uniforms. Initially composed of 25 members drawn from the Methodist Hospital Auxiliary, membership quadrupled in only six months. Among their many duties as “your hospital friends”: providing photographs of newborn babies for the happy parents.

When the East Wing opened in 1958, among its modern features was the first escalator installed in any hospital in the world. According to the Otis Elevator Company, the one-flight escalator could carry as many as 3,000 visitors an hour.

Our city’s population topped the half-million mark in 1959, when Thomas Edward Maupin was born at Methodist Hospital, becoming the 500,001st citizen of Memphis.

Medical innovations became the hallmark of Methodist Hospital. Jerry Cook, an 8-year-old boy from Arkansas, was admitted with a quarter-sized hole in a chamber of his heart. Doctors gave him less than two years to live. On August 27, 1962, the first open-heart surgery was successfully performed at Methodist. The hospital staff donated their services, and the University of Tennessee loaned a heart-lung machine at no charge.

Doctors knew it was difficult for children to remain still for x-rays. Jalmer Pigg, a Le Bonheur radiation technologist, came up with a metal and plexiglass device that could comfortably hold children in place. A version of the “Pigg-o-Stat” is still in use today.

In 1959, hospital chaplain William O’Donnell donated $45,000 towards the construction of a 12-bed recovery room in honor of his two sons, James and Henry. It was the largest single gift made to Methodist at the time.

The top floor of Methodist’s new Thomas Wing was reserved for patients ages 13-18 in 1965, making it the first “adolescent unit” of its kind in Memphis.

If a Methodist pastor wants a church, sometimes he builds it himself. Chaplain O’Donnell donated $50,000 for the construction of the Mary O’Donnell Chapel of the Praying Hands, in honor his wife. He conducted the first services there on Christmas Day, 1966.

Faith has always played a major role at Methodist. In the 1960s, the hospital provided on-call chaplains for any patients, and daily worship services were broadcast to all rooms by Muzak.

In 1969, Methodist Hospital became the first medical facility in Memphis to have a heliport — a helicopter landing area on the roof of the new Thomas Wing, which had previously served as a roof garden for hospital employees.

In 1969, Methodist opened the Methodist Hospital School of Nursing, complete with an eight-story dormitory. The building was named in honor of “Doll” Wilson, mother of Holiday Inns founder Kemmons Wilson.

When Methodist South / John R. Flippin Memorial Hospital opened on July 23, 1971, the expansion made Methodist the largest Methodist hospital complex in the U.S. Instead of the traditional ribbon-cutting ceremony, officials used surgical tools to snip a band of gauze stretched across the front doors.

In 1973, Dr. and Mrs. J.R. Shelton established the Sidney Shelton Hemo Dialysis Unit, named after their son. According to Whatever It Takes

Fifty years after their formation, in 1973 the Le Bonheur Club — still very active — celebrated their birthday with a $50,000 gift to the hospital building fund. “The Le Bonheur Club remained the organization of choice for young society women,” wrote Dale Berryhill in Whatever It Takes, “and its officer elections and new member inductions were dutifully covered in the local society pages.”

That same year, Jane Doles Jones, a former president of the Le Bonheur Club, was named the first female chairman of the board of Le Bonheur.

The 1970s saw major expansion on Methodist’s Union Avenue campus. The 150-bed James Crews Memorial Wing opened in 1971, and five years later, the Sherard Wing opened, home to the hospital’s new intensive-care center.

JC80 joined the “staff” of Methodist Hospital in 1971, but this worker wasn’t human. Instead, it was a “space-age computer system not unlike those in the Apollo flights” that would monitor everything from temperature controls to lighting throughout the main building.

Old photos show that in the early years, nurses’ skirts had to be a precise distance from the floor. Those rules were relaxed in 1972, the first year that nurses were allowed to wear “pants uniforms.”

In 1974, Le Bonheur joined other hospitals around the country in pioneering outpatient surgery for minor procedures, calling their process “Day Care.”

In the 1970s, Memphis hospitals were still segregated. Indigent patients were usually treated at Frank Tobey Memorial Hospital. “In practice, this meant that Le Bonheur served mainly white children,” wrote Berryhill, “while patients at Tobey were overwhelmingly children of color.” This would soon change.

Newly hired Le Bonheur Medical Director John E. Griffith, “a Canadian, did not have the patience of many Southerners for a slow end to segregation.” Within six months of coming to Memphis in July 1976, Tobey Hospital was closed, and those patients transferred to Le Bonheur. “The children were moved, Tobey was torn down, and what I would call the modern era of Le Bonheur was really born,” said Bill Rice, chancellor of UTHSC, in Whatever It Takes

That same year, Le Bonheur also embarked on a major expansion program, almost doubling the size of the hospital. For the groundbreaking ceremonies, two children wielded the same gold-painted shovel used at the original hospital groundbreaking in 1952.

Once again, the hospital keys (this time wooden replicas) were attached to balloons and released into the sky.

In those pre-internet days, Methodist embraced the latest technology. One service it offered in the mid-1970s was Tel-Med, a free telephone tape library. Users could dial a number, listen to a menu of more than 240 health topics, and select one to hear.

In 1977, Le Bonheur began further expansion, and plans called for the main building to include a 60-foot tower, resembling Cinderella’s Castle at Walt Disney World. “We kind of conceived a castle, like the Magic Kingdom … and thought it would be fun if the kids’ first point into the hospital was the gateway,” the architect explained. Those plans never left the drawing board.

Local artist Bill Womack, a design professor at Memphis College of Art, designed Le Bonheur’s distinctive heart-shaped logo that is still in use today.

In 1979, the board of directors voted to change the name to Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center.

Street names were changed around Le Bonheur to acknowledge the hospital’s impact on the area. Adams Avenue became Children’s Plaza.

When the Mall of Memphis held its grand opening ceremonies in 1981 ­— an event called “Fashion Magic in Memphis” and featuring an appearance by Olympic ice skater Dorothy Hamill — all proceeds went to Le Bonheur.

Another major expansion at the Methodist Union Avenue campus took place in 1981. The groundbreaking ceremonies included planting three trees — a tulip poplar, magnolia, and pine — to represent the Methodist Conferences from the states of Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas that had always supported the hospital. In addition, bricks from older buildings on the campus, demolished to make way for new construction, were laid in the shape of a large cross, which was later moved inside.

Methodist Health Systems, Inc., was established in 1981 to serve as an umbrella organization overseeing the hospital operations as well as real estate, insurance, and information management services.

In 1984, Le Bonheur took part in its first Children’s Miracle Network telethon, raising more than $230,000. Within a few years, the proceeds topped one million dollars.

Shelby County Public Defender A C Wharton joined the Methodist board in 1989. A few years later, he was named the first African-American chairman of the Methodist Hospital Board, stepping down in 2002 when he was elected Shelby County mayor.

In the late 1980s, Baptist and Methodist hospitals — though normally considered rivals — partnered to form the Memphis Medical Center Air Ambulance service, today known as Hospital Wing.

The two medical giants worked together again in 1994, along with the renowned Semmes Murphey neurology clinic, to open the Medical Education Research Institute (MERI).

With space always at a premium in the Medical District, hospitals like Le Bonheur and Methodist came up with innovative solutions to their expansion plans. In 1988, Le Bonheur transformed a former car dealership on Poplar into modern new administrative offices.

In 1993, Methodist purchased Germantown Community Hospital, and began a major expansion on property once owned by Richard Trippeer, president of Union Planters National Bank.

In 1995, Methodist Health Systems merged with Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center. The new organization — the name was changed to Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare in 2007 — became the largest healthcare employer in Memphis. “With that, a loop was closed that began in 1941,” wrote Berryhill, “when the Le Bonheur Club opened the city’s first free medical clinic for children in the old Methodist Hospital building.”

The initials for Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare (MLH) also represent its mission: Make a connection; Listen to understand needs; Honor commitments.

Beginning in 2002, the Methodist system embarked on a merger with the University of Tennessee Health Science Center, and two years later, the teaching programs at both institutions merged.

Another Mid-South “first” took place on the afternoon of May 20, 2004, when an hour-long procedure to repair a patient’s rotator cuff (shoulder tendons) was broadcast live on the internet from the Methodist North Surgery Center.

In 2009, Methodist made world news when Steve Jobs, iconic founder of Apple, came to Memphis for a liver transplant, performed by Dr. James Eason, head of the Methodist Transplant Institute.

In recent years, hospitals across America have acquired smaller, private practices. In Memphis, Sutherland Cardiology Group was the first medical practice to align with Methodist Hospital, in 2010.

The Methodist Hospice Residence opened in 2011 in East Memphis, a specialized facility designed to meet the social, emotional, and even spiritual needs of patients facing a terminal illness.

Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare expanded into Mississippi in 2013 when it opened a community hospital in Olive Branch, Mississippi — the first in-patient facility in the country to earn the LEED Gold Certificate for energy efficiency.

Descendants of John H. Sherard Sr. have remained involved in the hospital that he is credited with establishing. In 2015, the family donated funds to renovate the Sherard Chapel, just off the lobby of the main building on Union Avenue.

Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center was designated a “Magnet” institution by the American Nurses Credentialing Center in 2016, recognizing the hospital’s commitment to nursing excellence and innovations. Only 7 percent of hospitals in the U.S. have earned that honor.

In 2016, a remarkable and complex medical procedure was performed at Le Bonheur. Conjoined twins from Nigeria, Miracle and Testimony Ayani, linked at the lower body, were separated during an 18-hour surgery.

In 2017, the Methodist board approved the largest expansion in the hospital’s history — a $275 million project that will include the Shorb Tower, named for longtime CEO Gary Shorp. The new complex will move the West Cancer Center, the Methodist Transplant Institute, and other key facilities into a central location on the main campus on Union.

Thanks to a $40 million gift from an anonymous donor, Methodist has been able to expand its transplant center significantly and has also given it a new name. The James D. Eason Transplant Institute is scheduled to open in 2019.

The $100 million fundraising campaign to build the new 12-story patient tower at Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center is considered the largest private fundraising effort ever done in Memphis. The total cost of the 610,000-square-foot facility came to $327 million, making it one of the largest construction projects in Memphis. 

The Power of One: Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare: Our First Century is available at novel. bookstore in Laurelwood. Sources for this article: Whatever It Takes: Le Bonheur Children’s Medical Center: The First Fifty Years, by Dale Berryhill (2006); Building a Dream: The Story of Methodist Hospitals of Memphis (written by the hospital staff, 1986); and Memphis Press-Scimitar and Commercial Appeal articles archived in the Memphis and Shelby County Room of the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library.