Elba Bigelow

The name “Holy Cross” has always played a big role in my life. As an adolescent, I attended Holy Cross Academy and my childhood home was and continues to be, right in Holy Cross Hospital’s neighborhood. As an adult, my relationship with the hospital grew increasingly more personal.

My older sister was the first in the family to actually use Holy Cross Hospital when she was a teenager and involved in a bad car accident. But she was by no means the last. In 1976, I traveled from my then-home in Brandywine, Md, specifically to give birth to my son at Holy Cross Hospital. He is now 36 years old and a proud member of the DC Metropolitan Police Department. The year before he was born, I delivered my daughter at a little community hospital in Southern Maryland, and I couldn’t believe the difference. Holy Cross Hospital was so much better and more advanced.

As my father got older, he was a patient at the hospital on many different occasions, and ultimately died here almost four years ago. But he loved Holy Cross Hospital; it was partly at his urging that I applied for a position and joined the staff eight years ago.