The foresight of a country doctor, the steadfastness of a medical pioneer, and the generosity of a beloved Glasgow businessman are three of the treasured stories associated with the founding of the T.J. Samson Community Hospital.

The hospital observed its 80th anniversary Saturday with a celebration in the facility’s lower parking lot. The public was invited to the free event.

Founding of the hospital was chronicled in the special section in last Sunday’s Glasgow Daily Times. It related how Dr. C.W. Froedge first introduced the idea of a community hospital to Glasgow civic leaders, how noted Glasgow physician and medical pioneer Dr. C.C. Howard championed the idea, and how Glasgow businessman and philanthropist T.J. Samson agreed to bankroll the venture.

These men, whose stories are told here, are just three of the thousands of dedicated individuals who have labored to make the T.J. Community Hospital the remarkable community treasure it has become during the 80 years it has existed.

Dr. C.W. Froedge

Charles Wesley Froedge was born November 13, 1865, in the Metcalfe County community of Subtle.

He graduated from the old Southern Normal School and began a six-year career as a teacher in the county schools. He then decided to enter the medical field and graduated from the University of Louisville Medical School in 1893 at the age of 27.

He immediately began practicing medicine in the Eighty Eight section of Barren County, but his rural practice grew to encompass the outlying area including the community of Summer Shade in Metcalfe County.

Dr. Froedge was highly regarded as an upright Christian gentleman who had great compassion for those he ministered too. An example of that compassion was most evident in a letter he had handwritten to a couple who had lost an infant. The letter is one of a treasured collection of memorabilia kept by one of Dr. Froedge’s granddaughters, Mrs. Emogene Riherd of Glasgow. The words expressed in the poignant letter clearly demonstrated Dr. Froedge’s empathy at the loss of a child.

He was also known for his dedication to his patients, often riding miles in inclement weather at all hours of the day or night on his faithful white horse Dan, to see a sick patient.

He continued to serve the medical needs of that area until his semi-retirement in 1926 even after he had moved to Glasgow in 1919, seeing patients in his home office on East Main Street. Dr. Froedge continued to see patients until the final day of his life. He never drove a car and after moving to town, he depended on other modes of travel including the family of patients who would come fetch him from his home.

It was there around the time of his unofficial retirement that he read an article in a medical journal describing the Commonwealth Fund, which was about the business of financially supporting small rural communities in building hospitals.

Dr. Froedge took the article to the Glasgow Chamber of Commerce, which at the time was trying to raise $25,000 for an addition to Dr. C.C. Howard’s Maplewood Infirmary, Glasgow’s first hospital.

Civic leaders led by the Chamber contacted the Commonwealth Fund and thanks to Dr. Froedge’s foresight, it was the genesis of the hospital we have today.