Erma and Richard Found lived in Bideford for 25 years from 1937 to 1962 while Mr. Found worked at the Ellerslie Biological Station. They were both very active community volunteers. Mr. Found was the first chairman of the Stewart Memorial Hospital board and drew up the plans for the hospital, while Mrs. Found was an active Auxiliary member.
Mrs. Found wrote her memoir entitled To Love and To Cherish in 1975. In it she related many of the challenges of living in rural Prince Edward Island, especially the precarious nature of healthcare available at that time.
The following excerpt from her book rings true today. Sadly, we no longer have a local board, but we certainly have the dedicated staff and volunteers!
“For a district without the services of a local doctor, there were mounting difficulties in times of emergency to bring medical aid from Summerside, some twenty-five miles away. We couldn’t expect a doctor to assume the responsibilities of an isolated community without a well-equipped small hospital, however small. Murmurings of concern came from every district, so it was finally decided to build our own hospital.
What does a community need to begin a hospital? A hospital cannot be built without hard work or without dedicated men and women.
A community needs leadership to draw together these men and women – someone who has enough faith and determination to see the project completed in spite of many discouragements that attend such an undertaking.
A community needs women. They’re the ones who have uncanny capacity for raising money for the hospital requirements.
In order to build a hospital, a community needs a Hospital Board of fine, farsighted people who have confidence and faith in their community.
The final requirement is a staff of dedicated nurses and a doctor with integrity, ideals and ambition, who support the hospital for what they can put into it and not for what they can get out of it.
When we decided to build a hospital in our district, we recognized that all these qualifications had to be in our community. We would name our hospital “The Stewart Memorial Health Center” in memory of a former doctor who had given his life for this community years ago."
Mrs. Found wrote her memoir entitled To Love and To Cherish in 1975. In it she related many of the challenges of living in rural Prince Edward Island, especially the precarious nature of healthcare available at that time.
The following excerpt from her book rings true today. Sadly, we no longer have a local board, but we certainly have the dedicated staff and volunteers!
“For a district without the services of a local doctor, there were mounting difficulties in times of emergency to bring medical aid from Summerside, some twenty-five miles away. We couldn’t expect a doctor to assume the responsibilities of an isolated community without a well-equipped small hospital, however small. Murmurings of concern came from every district, so it was finally decided to build our own hospital.
What does a community need to begin a hospital? A hospital cannot be built without hard work or without dedicated men and women.
A community needs leadership to draw together these men and women – someone who has enough faith and determination to see the project completed in spite of many discouragements that attend such an undertaking.
A community needs women. They’re the ones who have uncanny capacity for raising money for the hospital requirements.
In order to build a hospital, a community needs a Hospital Board of fine, farsighted people who have confidence and faith in their community.
The final requirement is a staff of dedicated nurses and a doctor with integrity, ideals and ambition, who support the hospital for what they can put into it and not for what they can get out of it.
When we decided to build a hospital in our district, we recognized that all these qualifications had to be in our community. We would name our hospital “The Stewart Memorial Health Center” in memory of a former doctor who had given his life for this community years ago."
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