Virginia Gardhouse’s employee number at Queensway General Hospital was 10. In July 1956, she was hired as operating room supervisor before there was an operating room to supervise.

Unpacking equipment and setting up the operating room, the first employees took breaks by walking down the service road to a gas station with a lunch counter.

“It was such a nice, friendly place to work,” she remembers. “It was almost like a family because it was so small.”

“I was always addressed formally as Miss Gardhouse and I always addressed the doctors and nurses in the same way,” she says. “At least in professional situations.”

In August, the hospital was ready for patients and, along with others, Virginia Gardhouse anticipated the first surgery scheduled for 8 a.m.

“Then I received a call in the middle of the night before –- an emergency appendectomy had been brought in.”

Queensway General Hospital opened for business three hours early.

In 1992, Miss Gardhouse retired after 36 years service.