CHI Health St. Elizabeth celebrates 125 years

By: Lauren Fabrizi
lfabrizi@klkntv.com

From a building surrounded by nothing but cornfields to what it is now, Mary Jean Volkmer remembers CHI Health St. Elizabeth‘s first patient at its location near 70th and O Streets.

“We were sure to give him the best room with the most windows so he could have the best view,” Volkmer said.

Volkmer, a former St. Elizabeth nurse, graduated from the nursing school in 1968. The hospital was originally located near 11th and South Streets. Around 1970, the nursing school closed and the hospital moved to where it is now.

Volkmer remembers that transition.

“We had to get used to so many new things like monorails and pocket pagers and all kinds of things,” she recalled. “We had no idea what we were getting into. It was a wonderful journey.”

That journey dates back 125 years. Started up by four nuns, St. Elizabeth served just 26 patients in 1889. It was the first hospital to open in Lincoln.

125 years later, St. Elizabeth is celebrating how far it’s come. 

Sr. Rose Marie Imig of St. Francis of Perpetual Adoration out of Colorado Springs worked for St. Elizabeth the last 14 years. She’s part of the chapter of nuns who started up the hospital.

She said the mission– to never refuse anyone care– is something still important to St. Elizabeth.

“To know that it’s endured 125 years and we’re still meeting the needs of the people of Lincoln and providing their health care,” Imig said. “That’s the best legacy we could leave.”

“It’s really the healing ministry that’s really brought people to St. Elizabeth and kept people here for so long,” St. Elizabeth president Kim Moore added.

The hospital currently staffs 1,600 people. Last year, it served about 140,000 patients.