Fifty years ago on Sept. 2, 1958, the Carroll Hospital Center Auxiliary was officially formed. Its first president was Gladys Wimert.

Other community leaders such as Atlee Wampler Jr., F. Kale Mathias, Howard E. Koontz Jr., J. Ralph Bonsack, Scott S. Bair, Nathan Weinstock, A. Earl Shipley, Charles O. Fisher and Dr. Charles L. Billingslea were among the 39-member board of directors who started in the 1950s to make the Carroll Hospital Center a reality.

In addition to the need for a local emergency room, one of the leading reasons cited in the 1940s for a hospital was to provide adequate maternity care and childbirth facilities in the county.

In a January 1947 letter to the editor, Dr. Billingslea stressed the "difficulty of obtaining beds for patients in nearby hospitals (Frederick, Hanover and Baltimore). ... One of the large hospitals in Baltimore has notified a Carroll county physician that he may have only one maternity bed a month in that hospital.

"All of the other nearby hospitals are just as jam packed. The (proposed) Maternity Hospital would aid in keeping up this fight against 'death at birth' by providing proper facilities for childbirth and trained personnel to take care of the new born baby."

Wimert, along with Mabel Reese, Katheryn Diffendal and Darthean Fox, were among the early pioneers who formed the auxiliary and helped raise money for the new Carroll County General Hospital -- now known as Carroll Hospital Center -- that was dedicated on a blistering hot day on Aug. 27, 1961.

As the 50th anniversary of CHC approaches in 2011, the hospital continues to be the center of a great deal of excitement as new approaches to health care delivery continue to come on line.

To try and keep up with the latest news from CHC, I recently got together with Sherri Hosfeld Joseph, director of Development for the Carroll Hospital Center Foundation over sushi at Sakura restaurant in the Westminster Shopping Center.

One of the first items discussed was the 49th Silvery Moon Ball slated for this Saturday, Nov. 1, at Martin's Westminster.

According to the CHC publication Hospital News, the auxiliary has raised more than $3 million since it was founded, primarily through special events such as the Silvery Moon Ball.

According to "From Our Front Porch" by Jim Lee, one of the auxiliary's main goals was to furnish gowns for patients -- so now we know whom to blame for those indecent X-rated, drafty, hospital gowns. Actually, hospital gowns were probably designed by Voltaire, who noted in the 18th century that the "art of medicine consists of keeping the patient amused while nature heals the disease."

The first Silvery Moon Ball was held at the Westminster Armory on Sept. 11, 1959.

(By the way, Friday marks the anniversary of the Oct. 31, 1959, groundbreaking ceremony that was held for the hospital construction.)

The theme for Saturday's Silvery Moon Ball is "Puttin' on the Ritz -- A Night of Glamour and Glitz." For information call 410-871-7280. Wearing a glitzy hospital gown to the ball would be glamorous -- but is optional.

Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster. E-mail him at kdayhoff@carr.org.

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