A favorite project we worked on was the history book for the 75th anniversary of Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth. 

With our stellar research and writing team led by Ashley Antle, APR and Gina Best, we published the book in 2005, at the request of then hospital president Barclay Berdan.

Here’s a peek at the special acknowledgments published in the book we wrote:

“This project is intended to give  you readers a glimpse into the mystique, culture and fabric that makes Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital what it is today: an award-winning “high-tech, high-touch” nationally recognized sprawling medical campus. Those of us who feel especially close to the Hospital often say Harris is a like a family. It’s almost impossible to pinpoint just what makes it such a magical place to be a part of, you just know you’re drawn to it.

While every painstaking effort has been made to check and recheck the facts told inside these pages to ensure accuracy, much of the information detailed is from personal interviews and recollections of those who remember Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital’s founder, Dr. Charles Harris, as well as those who were part of key milestones in the Hospital’s history. This publication is not meant to be a comprehensive encyclopedia of history. This book would not have been possible without the unending encouragement, support, dedication and commitment from Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital’s current president Barclay E. Berdan, who had the vision and passion for the project many years ago. He consistently nurtured, fostered and supported project leader Laura Van Hoosier throughout this journey, which quickly became a heartfelt labor of love. Many of the stories, recollections and warm reflections here are fitting to be shared because they embody the philosophies and the leadership gifts Berdan and his predecessors ingrained into the Harris culture, making it what it is today.

A debt of special gratitude and public acknowledgment is offered to the Hospital’s Volunteer Auxiliary, whose membership gave a valuable grant to fund the production costs for this project. (Please see page 101 for a complete list of members’ names, and offer them a word of thanks when you see them next.)

To Carrie Cothrum who, while a graduate student of Dr. Clayton Brown at TCU, logged countless hours researching this project from its humble beginnings. She wrote the initial outline and timeline, and helped lay the foundation for what you see before you. As she is scheduled to be awarded her doctorate in history in 2006, we hope we’ve made her proud.

A word of praise is offered to Gwin Grimes who offered her journalistic talents conducting interviews and crafting a first working draft of the book. With the heart and soul of a seasoned storyteller, Ashley Wesson Antle wove many of the stories together with the necessary facts and figures. Numerous hours were spent fact checking the stories told here, and this project would not be what it is without her involvement.

The master writing and editing skills of Gina Augustini Best also should be applauded, as she, too, helped flesh out many of the stories and chapters within these pages. She pondered and probed to find just the right word or phrase to illustrate a special point, and her talents, dedication and attention to detail have made this book a reality.

To Doug Hawthorne, Elaine Gwaltney, Doug White, Balcom Agency, Mark Lefler, Kent Best, Dr. Lucile Estell, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Aline McKenzie, TCU and UTA Archives, the photographers, and the numerous other individuals who were involved in this project, we thank you for your time, talents and gifts of service, and please understand that space constraints limit mentioning each person by name.

To the nurses, doctors, patients, families, volunteers, chaplains and others who allowed us a glimpse into their lives, we are thankful.

We dedicate this book to every patient who has been cared for at Harris Methodist Fort Worth Hospital, and we offer a prayer of hope and comfort to those we’ll serve in the future.

Here’s to the future promises and commitments we make to patients.

Laura Van Hoosier”

Some projects stay with you for a long time. The 75th anniversary of Texas Health Harris Methodist Hospital Fort Worth is one of them. We are sharing this story today, on Memorial Day, with both gratitude and a heavy heart.

When we took on this milestone in 2005, we knew we wanted to do more than celebrate 75 years of healthcare in Fort Worth. We wanted to honor it, which meant finding the people and stories that made that history real. One question kept surfacing: who was the first baby born at this hospital when it opened in 1930?

We started with the birth records. From there, we thought we might need a private investigator. Instead, a single Google search pointed us to a woman still living on the family land in Rockdale, Texas. We picked up the phone, dialed the number, and she answered. Yes, she said, she was the first baby.

She was Dr. Lucile Estell, born March 3, 1930, at Harris Fort Worth Methodist Hospital, the very first baby to arrive within those walls.

She had already returned for the hospital’s 50th anniversary, and she came back again for the 75th, joining us to share remarks with the audience gathered for the celebration. As the event unfolded, the chairman of the board of trustees presented her with a diamond heart necklace, a fitting tribute given that the diamond is the traditional anniversary stone for a 75th.

The afternoon was something to behold. We staged a fashion show featuring members of the public relations team modeling styles from each decade of the hospital’s history, from 1930s suits and gloves through go-go boots, shoulder pads, and into the fashions of the 2000s. We served a celebration cake for 5,000 guests. It was the kind of event people still talk about.

But the detail that made the whole thing resonate was this: Dr. Estell had become a history teacher and a historian. Of all the lives she could have built, she built one devoted to preserving the stories of the past. She understood, perhaps better than anyone in that room, why the afternoon mattered.

That relationship did not end with the event. She wrote the opening pages of the commemorative history book we produced, a project covered in a previous post. A signed copy sits with us today, and it means even more now. She returned again when Texas Health dedicated its senior health and wellness center, where she had the chance to meet a baby born on March 3, her own birthday. That moment said everything about who she was.

Over the years, what began as a search through birth records became something far more meaningful. Dr. Estell became a friend, a collaborator, and a living reminder of why the work of honoring history matters. We had the privilege of speaking with her not long before she passed. When we learned of her passing in December 2024, it was hard. It is still hard. It felt right to sit with that on this Memorial Day and put these words down, because she deserves to be remembered, and this is one small way we can do that.

She was 94 years old and she lived every one of those years with grace, purpose, and a deep devotion to the stories that connect us to one another.

The 100th anniversary will arrive in 2030, closer than it sounds. She will not be there in person, but her words open the history book, her presence shaped that celebration, and her legacy is woven into the story of that hospital in a way that will not fade.

This post is for her.

Relationships are the work. History is worth preserving. And sometimes, the person you are looking for is already waiting for your call.

In memory of Dr. Lucile Estell, March 3, 1930 — December 14, 2024.