Remember When From the Past--December 6, 2007

Remember When
Thursday, December 06, 2007
 Kenna Holm 

Payson’s Hospitals

    I just received a hospital bill (and it was staggering) for my husband's stay in the hospital a couple of weeks ago and it got me to thinking about the hospitals we have had here in Payson.
    The George Patten home located just east of Main Street on 300 North  was turned into Payson’s first hospital in 1901. The doctor was ParleyPratt Musser. His nurses were his wife, Jennie Patten, and a Miss Provstgaard. The parlor was his office. The kitchen was used as a kitchen and an operating room. The two front bedrooms upstairs each had two hospital beds.  

   The second hospital was located in rooms above the Modern Pharmacy located on corner of today's  Main Street and Utah Avenue.  Dr. A. L. Curtis located to Payson after graduating from Medical School.  He opened the hospital in 1914.

    The next hospital was the old Curtis Hospital. It stood where Dix and Joan Grace's home (and former Mt. Fuel building) is now.  Dr. A.L. Curtis opened the hospital in 1922.  The new hospital was the old John Huish home.  It was a 9 bed hospital and later increased to15 beds.
    The building burned to the ground one cold winter night in 1950. It was sad to see it go but as I recall it was not used an awfully lot after the new hospital was built where the City Offices are now. Dr. Curtis, Dr. Lynn Stewart, and Dr. Merrill Oldroyd wereth e first doctors to use these hospitals.

   Payson City Hospital at 439 West Utah Ave was opened in 1938. My parents had moved
here to Payson in 1936 and I was the only one of our family to be born in Payson, although I did not get to be born in the new hospital. I was born at home with Dr. Oldroyd delivering me.    The hospital had 35 beds and I'm sure everyone thought it was large at that time. I do remember going into the waiting room and waiting for my mom to visit someone. Children were not allowed to go in the hospital to visit unless they were 12 years of age.

   The entrance to the hospital was on the east side of the building with double doors going into a tiny waiting room. In 1952, they remodeled and added a larger waiting room and office on the east side. At this time, a laundry was built in a separate building to the south of the hospital. The laundry had been done in the basement of the hospital before.
    The kitchen was located in the south side of the hospital and then when later the laundry was sent out, the kitchen was moved to that building. They built a canopy between that building and the hospital so when they took the carts with the trays of food on from the kitchen to the hospital it was covered.
    Nola Heaps, my dear aunt, was the head cook there. Along with my aunt a few I remember working in the kitchen were Alice Reynolds, Twila McCellan, Clovis Jones, and Lilly Cloward.
    My aunt was a wonderful cook and every tome I had a baby and was a patient in the hospital, she would spoil me and whoever was in the ward with me. (the maternity ward held 6 beds) The ladies that were in the ward would all put in orders for me to ask Aunt Nola to make. I do remember asking her to make my favorite chocolate cake. Yum! She could make the menus and do as she liked and she really loved to spoil everyone including the nurses and doctors.
    Things were so different then. They had very few private rooms. They had a children's ward in one hall, a men's ward in another hall, a woman's ward in another hall and the maternity ward was in the northwest side of the hospital. They had a few private rooms scattered in between. The x-rays were taken by the manager of the hospital in a small x-ray room on the south side of the hospital. The first manager I remember was George Cheever. Sr.
    They had a lot of good nurses working at that hospital also., I remember Peg Butler, Jerry Wilson, Jeanne Lofgran, Florence Wride, who worked in the nursery and was like a loving grandma to all the babies,  Ruth Walton and I know there were many more but those are the few I remember.
    In 1960 they remodeled and constructed a new maternity wing on the west side of the hospital. My second daughter was born in that new wing. The manager was now called the administrator.

   In 1969 they took on a major renovation and changed the entire appearance of the hospital, with the exception of the maternity wing which was left as it was. The hospital now held 96 beds. The entrance was then moved to the west side of the building. The switch board was in the main entrance hall along with the waiting room. The gift shop and snack bar was also in that area.

    In 1979 they built the new Mountain View Hospital that is now standing out east of town.
Everyone was so thrilled to see this beautiful building being built.
    I worked at the old hospital startingin 1976 or 77 as Director of Volunteer Services. I moved with them to the new building in 1979 which would be named Mountain View Hospital. It was so fun to have a large gift shop and an office that wasn't in a closet, which is where it had been in the old hospital.
    My twin grandsons, Jeremy and Jeffrey Witham were the first set of twins born in the new hospital and on different days no less. Jeremy was born at 11:55 p.m. and Jeff was born at 12:30 a.m. the next morning.   Harold Harmer was now the  administrator.
    Mountain View has had many changes and as we look now we see morecoming with all the construction that is going on. It is now 130 beds and the administrator is Kevin Johnson.  The
hospital takes care of many, many patients everyday from all over the state and we are fortunate to have such a wonderful facility in our town. But it is fun to look back and remember when......