The new Arlington hospital had been open for just over an hour on March 15, 1944, when a young man named George T. Stallings arrived with his pregnant wife, Frances. A member of the U.S. Merchant Marines, George was on a 10-day furlough when 19-year-old Frances went into labor. Hospital administrators had scheduled the facility’s official opening for midnight, but they probably weren’t expecting much activity until after sunrise. At 1:25 a.m., Frances became their first patient.
Demand for a hospital in Arlington had been growing for years. For emergencies, county residents usually traveled to the (now defunct) Central Dispensary and Emergency Hospital in D.C.’s Foggy Bottom, losing precious time before receiving care. Volunteer fire departments in Arlington provided emergency first aid, too.
In the early 1930s, community groups began organizing and fundraising for a hospital in earnest. Five women’s groups—members of the Federated Women’s Clubs of Arlington—made the hospital their pet project in November 1933. The following year, citizens incorporated a new organization, the Arlington Hospital Association, with a 20-member board.
After scouting out a site for the new facility, the association purchased farmland in North Arlington in 1935 for $15,000 (equivalent to about $355,000 today), kicking in an extra $1,000 in free medical care for the landowner, W.W. Sealock, and his family.
By the time the hospital opened, the Arlington Rotary Club had donated an iron lung and the Lions Club had funded an oxygen tent (then widely used for respiratory care). Private donations helped pay for beds and the baby nursery. In 1964, the hospital opened an intensive care cardiac unit, the first of its kind in the region and only the third in the nation at the time.
Following several expansions, Arlington Hospital was renamed Virginia Hospital Center in 2001 and rebranded in 2022 as VHC Health. In June 2023, it opened a $250 million outpatient pavilion, making the 537-bed hospital one of the largest in the area. At the ribbon cutting, then Arlington County Board Chair Christian Dorsey called the facility “compassionate and people-centered”—just as it had been when Frances Stallings arrived on its doorstep some 80 years earlier.
After a protracted labor, Frances gave birth on March 16, 1944, to a boy named George, after his dad. To honor the family’s special status, the hospital provided all of the care surrounding their baby’s birth and delivery free of charge.