They could have been forgiven if they had decided their work was done.
After all, the women of western St. Tammany Parish – many of them members of the Women’s Progressive Union of Covington – had worked as hard as anyone, and longer than anyone, to establish a hospital in rural St. Tammany Parish.
So, when St. Tammany Parish Hospital finally opened its doors in December 1954 after years of grassroots advocacy work, it would have been perfectly understandable if they retired to a quieter existence and let the doctors and nurses assume the load.
The thing is, they weren’t done. They were just getting started.
Which brings us to today’s installment in our weekly 70 for 70 history series, chronicling the evolution of the hospital into the multi-faceted health system it is today.
Installment No. 21: A team of champions
Today’s artifact: A paper tea napkin embossed with the words “Hospital Guild” and believed to date to 1955, the year the St. Tammany Hospital Guild was founded.
Why they are significant: On a cold and rainy day in February 1955 – just two months after St. Tammany Parish Hospital opened its doors – a group of local women met in the Colonial Room of the Southern Hotel.
Many, if not most, had been part of the sustained local push to establish a local hospital. Now that it was up and running, the team of hospital champions at the meeting were interested in figuring a way to continue supporting its healing mission.
It was then and there that the-all volunteer St. Tammany Hospital Guild – originally formed as the St. Tammany Hospital Women’s Auxiliary – was conceived.
Its first official meeting would be held the next month, on March 25. Soon after, the group formed and adopted its official bylaws and official mission: “To offer the services of the membership on a strictly voluntary basis, non-professional and non-administrative to the Director of the Hospital, such services to be accepted at his discretion.”
Over the years, that mission has seen guild members do everything from preparing surgical dressings and delivering newspapers to patients’ rooms in those early days to all manner of services today.
“Oh, they do everything,” STHS Volunteer Coordinator Shirley Primes said in 2021. “They’re up in endoscopy, where they greet patients. They prepare files for nurses upstairs. I have one in ambulatory care, where they give patients gowns and tell them, ‘They’ll be with you shortly.’ They’re in the surgery waiting area, they’re at the front desk. They’re at the Parenting Center and St. Tammany Hospice. They’re everywhere – and we’re lucky to have them.”
Additionally, the guild operates the hospital gift shop, proceeds from which are donated to St. Tammany Hospital Foundation in support of various projects – nearly a half-million dollars’ in total over the past 20 years – as well as to fund scholarships for STHS colleagues interested in furthering their medical education.
We can’t be sure if our napkin – a dainty, scalloped-edge number collected in a scrapbook assembled by charter guild member Cecile Hebert – is from either of those original meetings. Chances are it wasn’t, given that the guild’s name was unsettled early on. But, given the dates on the newspaper articles sharing a page with it in Mrs. Hebert’s scrapbook, we can be fairly certain it is from that first year.
In addition to being a quaint touchstone to a past era, when white-gloved women gathered regularly over tea and cookies to find ways to better their communities, that little napkin – yellowed by time – is a reminder of the decades of invaluable contributions the guild has made, and continues to make, to the hospital.