Langley Memorial Hospital is celebrating 75 years of service in this community. In a series of stories over the coming months, the Langley Advance Times, in conjunction with the hospital foundation, takes a look at the past, present, and future of health care in Langley from a few different perspectives.
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Laurie Carlson’s family goes back so far in Langley that some of them remember the hospitals before Langley Memorial.
Those buildings were seldom officially hospitals. Some were doctors offices or homes, and others were dubbed “rest homes.” His late wife, Gerry, was born in one of them in 1936, on 248th Street.
Laurie himself moved to Langley with his family in 1948, the same year that Langley Memorial Hospital opened, in what was later to be dubbed the “cottage hospital,” a relatively small structure that had been moved from Delta, where it had served veterans of the Second World War.
Laurie recalled that the first time one of his own children needed to go to the hospital, it was for a skin condition – that particular child, his second son, was six at that first visit, and is now 60.
The family had a good relationship with the doctors there, Laurie recalled.
After that, they were back over and over again, for medical emergencies, minor surgeries, and births. Plenty of births.
Through the years, Laurie and Gerry had four children, three of them born at LMH, 20 grandchildren, and 24 great-grandchildren. Before Gerry passed away in 2019, she was keeping track of all the birthdays on a computer.
It’s a big family, and about half of them still live in the Lower Mainland, most in Langley. More than half of their grandchildren were born at Langley’s hospital.
READ MORE: Old-time Langley people donate $500K to hospital ER expansion
While raising his family, Laurie and his brother Mel were going into business. Mel had started as a plumber, and Laurie had become an accountant.
They put their heads together and formed a company doing sand dredging, and later moved on to gravel extraction.
Eventually, they founded Mainland Sand and Gravel, which has provided the raw materials for a huge amount of road building and construction across the Lower Mainland. The company’s biggest quarry is on the north side of Sumas Mountain. Although Laurie sold the company some years ago, he still drops by to see what the new owners are doing with the land, which his family’s holding company still owns.
Success in the gravel business led the family to wonder what to do with all their good fortune.
The family had supported overseas missions, doing good work in other parts of the world.
“But that doesn’t help at home,” said Laurie. “So we came up with a plan to help hospitals in the communities where our employees lived.”
They began close to home, where they had raised their own families.
“This was our very first one, Langley Memorial,” Laurie said.
Over the next few decades, the family would regularly donate to hospitals around the region – from Peace Arch in White Rock to Royal Columbian in New Westminster, to the cancer centre in Abbotsford.
The family donated $500,000 towards the construction of the new ER that was finished during the pandemic.
“We gave annually before that, for a long time,” Laurie noted. “It was rewarding for us, as a family.”
RELATED – Paramedic evolution: From ‘grab and go’ to high-tech lifesaving services
READ ALSO: Retired doctors and nurses help preserve medical history in Langley
MORE: Welcome to a health-care world 75 years in the making
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Langley Memorial Hospital Foundation fundraises throughout the year to support health-care workers and allow them to keep providing life-saving care. To this end, the foundation is preparing for its annual hospital gala. This year’s event, dubbed Hot Havana Nights, is being held Oct. 21 at the Coast Hotel & Convention Centre. It’s the 32nd year. Money raised will support the urgent need to expand cardiac care at the Langley Hospital. For info: https://lmhfoundation.com/events/gala
• And, for more LMH history check out this special publication.
Have a story tip? Email: matthew.claxton@langleyadvancetimes.com
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