Silver Cross' Last Day: Patients and Memories Roll Out

Gwen Ulmer started as a certified nursing assistant at Silver Cross Hospital in Joliet when she was 18, fresh out of high school.

That was 43 years ago.

"We're a dying breed that people do not begin and end their career in the same place," said Ulmer, now community relations coordinator.

Sunday was the last day for Silver Cross in Joliet. As workers peeled the markings off the building, a series of ambulances started shuttling the final 129 patients down the road to a new Silver Cross in New Lenox.

Ulmer is not the longest-lasting employee of the Joliet facility, which moved to a new site in New Lenox on Sunday. That honor belongs to Joan Butler, an RN in the procedural care unit, said Tracy Simons, marketing and community relations director.

Butler started at the hospital 50 years ago. She was a graduate of the hospital's nursing school, which closed in 1970, Simons said.

Ulmer started tearing up when talking about the move from the building where she, Butler and others had spent their whole careers.

"(It's) exciting, but very sad at the same time," she said. "It's life. It progresses."

Shortly after 7 a.m Sunday, the hospital's final 129 patients started trips by ambulance to the hospital's new location, three-and-a-half miles down Route 6 in New Lenox. A helicoptor sat on the roof to airlift one patient to a different facility.

Although Simons expected the shuttling of patients to take 10 hours, there were only a few left by 1:30 p.m.

Rita Miller of Joliet has lived near the hospital for more than 70 years. It's where her husband went for surgeries and other procedures. She came out that blustery morning to see her lifelong neighbor leave.

"Silver Cross has always been good to us," she said. "We watched it change through the years, the additions. It's just a great facility."

Silver Cross will still be part of Miller's life. She recently started volunteering at the New Lenox location.

"Change is good," Miller said. "It's sometimes hard to accept, but it's good."

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