April 16, 1924 meeting marked birth of local hospital
By Randy Arrington
LURAY, April 16 — While the Chamber’s monthly “Business After Hours” event is typically held on Thursdays, April’s rendition shifted to Tuesday this week to coincide with a major milestone being celebrated by Valley Health’s Page Memorial Hospital.
“We wanted to move things around because this is a special day for us,” said Travis Clark, Vice President of Operations for Shenandoah and Page Memorial Hospitals. “On April 16, 1924 … about 75 ladies got together at the old theater…and that was our beginning.”
That meeting between the Beahm Memorial Hospital Organization and the Massanutten Ladies Aid Society lead to the development of a charter, and the subsequent opening of an eight-bed facility known as Page Memorial Hospital four years later in 1928.
James Ambrose Beahm, who lived in the Kimball area, passed away in 1923 and left $3,500 to the effort of promoting and developing a hospital. That initial seed money ($65,000 in today’s dollars) would eventually lead to creating a healthcare facility who saw its first surgical unit open in 1939 and grow to become a 45-bed hospital on Memorial Drive in Luray by 1958.
Since then, ultrasound equipment was purchased for radiology services in 1986, pulmonary and cardiopulmonary rehabilitation was added in the early ’90s, and the Page Rural Health Clinic opened on the PMH campus in 1995. Since the turn of the millennium, Page Memorial has made the following advances:
“There have been tremendous investments in this community over the last 15 years,” Clark said during the Luray-Page County Chamber of Commerce event.
In addition to the list above, Valley Health has also recently purchased a mobile MRI unit, according to Clark, and five Valley Health hospitals were recognized as 2024 Top 100 Hospitals by The Chartis Center for Rural Health. To be included in the Top 100, puts these facilities — including Page Memorial — among the top 7 percent in the country.
As part of its centennial celebration, PMH is planning to construct the Centennial Trail, opening in summer 2025. This 1,000-foot walking trail will be located on the north side of the PMH campus and will be open to the public. Plans include a pavilion and a water fountain. Memorial bricks and plots will be available for purchase.
In addition, a memorial or monument is being planned by Valley Health near Skyview Springs Rehab and Nursing Center (formerly MontVue Nursing Home), where the Luray hospital shared some dark days with the nursing facility four years ago.
“We were in a bad place…we lost 25 to 30 percent of the residents at [Skyview] …that was ground zero in this county for COVID,” Clark recalled. “We want to provide a place for a COVID memorial.”
During Tuesday’s “Business After Hours,” Clark recognized Sue Sours, who has served Page Memorial Hospital for 54 years — longer than any of Valley Health’s 6,000-plus employees. Sours remembers taking calls for the hospital on CB radio.
On May 4, Page County will mark 10 years since Valley Health invested more than $35 million in building a new hospital in Luray. That followed a new health center in the Town of Shenandoah and a new medical building in Luray in the three years prior, as noted above.
“This hospital is a community treasure,” Clark told the group gathered on Tuesday. “We’ve been here through a depression, several wars…and COVID…If this community continues to support this hospital, maybe it will be here in another 100 years.”
For more information on Valley Health’s Page Memorial Hospital,
visit https://www.valleyhealthlink.com/page-memorial-hospital/
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