Beebe Medical Foundation celebrates historical marker
Over the past 25 years, Beebe Medical Foundation has raised more than $45 million to support the growth and services of the nonprofit and community-owned Beebe Healthcare system. Drs. James and Richard Beebe, surgeons and brothers, established the original three-room Beebe Hospital in 1916.
During the intervening years Beebe has been known as Beebe Hospital, Beebe Medical Center and now Beebe Healthcare, but the mission of the foundation founded in 1989 remains the same: to help fulfill Beebe Healthcare's mission to encourage healthy living, prevent illness, and restore optimal health to the people residing, working, or visiting in the communities it serves.
Foundation, healthcare and state officials gathered at the Savannah Road home of Beebe Medical Foundation Wednesday, Nov. 19, to unveil an historical marker commemorating the foundation’s first 25 years. Delaware’s Speaker of the House Rep. Pete Schwartzkopf, D-Rehoboth; Rep. Steve Smyk, R-Milton; and Sen. Ernesto Lopez, R-Lewes, pooled funds from their districts to pay for the marker in honor of the volunteers and staff of Beebe Medical Foundation. The marker details the history of the foundation, the hospital’s founders and the foundation headquarters, once home to Dr. Richard Beebe. The 1940s-era home once stood on ground next to Beebe Hospital’s historic Shaw building, fronting on Savannah Road. In 1992, the house was moved to a vacant lot at the corner of Sussex Drive and Savannah Road near Lewes School and restored as headquarters for the foundation.
Anna Beebe Moore, daughter of Dr. Richard Beebe, said she never lived in the home - she and her siblings were raised in a nearby house on Beebe Avenue - but remembers her wedding reception in her mother and father’s new home Nov. 15, 1941, when she married Ed Moore. “That was a hot fall day," she said.
Moore said her father met her mother - Edna Thomson from New Jersey - at a roller skating rink in Rehoboth Beach. “She fell down; my father picked her up and that was the beginning of their romance,” she said. Moore said her father was in medical school at Jefferson in Philadelphia and her mother was in the Combs Conservatory, also in Philadelphia. “That’s why they were able to continue their relationship.”
Jeffrey Fried, president and CEO of Beebe Healthcare, thanked the staff and volunteers of the foundation for all they do to support Beebe. “We started in 1916 and have grown to a community hospital with national prominence,” said Fried. He noted that the first substantial gift received by the hospital was from the Benjamin Shaw family to pay for construction of the 35-room, white-pillared Shaw building.
Tom Cooper, chairman of Beebe Medical Foundation, used the occasion to announce receipt that day of a $750,000 grant from the Longwood Foundation. The grant will help fund purchase of a three-dimensional mammography device to improve detection of breast cancer. “For us to be deserving of a gift of this size is amazing,” said Cooper. ‘It attests to the hard work and professionalism of our staff and to the amazing vision and foresight of Drs. James and Richard Beebe.”
Delaware’s General Assembly established the Delaware historical marker program in 1931. Since then, more than 570 historical markers have been erected to document the history of Delaware and its people.
HISTORICAL MARKER LANGUAGE
Beebe Medical Foundation
As a community-owned, not-for-profit hospital, Beebe Healthcare depends on the generous support of individuals, foundations, and businesses. In 1921, Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin F. Shaw were responsible for the first major philanthropic gift to Beebe Healthcare which supported the construction and furnishing of a 35-bed medical facility, modern for its time. Beebe Medical Foundation was established on September 14, 1989, with the sole mission of raising philanthropic support for Beebe Healthcare. Donations and endowment gifts, which provide income in perpetuity, ensure the continuance and availability of Beebe Healthcare to the community. New and continuing programs, equipment purchases, and the larger Beebe mission to encourage healthy living and restore optimal health for the people residing, working, or visiting in Sussex County are supported by this funding. The Foundation is located in the historic home of Dr. Richard Beebe who, with his brother Dr. James Beebe, founded Beebe Hospital in 1916. Originally situated on hospital property, the home was moved to its current location on Savannah Road in 1992.
Delaware Public Archives – 2014
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