House calls on horseback
December 1, 1905
Dr. Urling Coe moved to Bend and began treating patients. For the first three years of his career, Coe provided the only skilled medical care in an area that extended 90 miles into the desert to the east, south and west and past Redmond and Camp Sherman to the north. Every patient was a house call; some could be reached only by horseback.
Read moreFather Luke Sheehan
February 13, 1917
One priest’s determination sets the stage for a Catholic hospital in Central Oregon. Father Luke Sheehan came to Bend in 1910, one of two Capuchin friars sent by their order to assess the opportunities for establishing missions in the less settled Eastern Oregon. He saw the need for a medical facility that could handle major medical emergencies given the railroad construction risks and hazardous work at the area sawmills, ranches and forests. In 1912, Father Luke appealed to the superior of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Tipton, Indiana, Mother Gertrude, whom he met on a ship bound for Ireland in 1908. She promised to send nuns to Bend, but died of cancer in 1916. In 1917, Sheehan traveled to Tipton to meet with the new Mother Superior of the Sisters of St. Joseph, Mother Xavier. She agreed to honor Mother…
Read moreThe Sisters come to Bend
December 25, 1917
On a cold, bright sunny afternoon in 1917, five nuns boarded the Pennsylvania Railroad at Kokomo, Indiana and headed west to Bend, Oregon. It was Christmas day, but the women had a rendezvous to keep. What they faced was a raw logging town only a decade removed from the wild west. These women helped found St. Charles Medical Center.
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