Stanley Child knows how much Primary Children's Medical Center has changed in the past 75 years.

He began working there as a pediatrician in 1950 when the hospital was in a two-story house, located across the street from the Salt Lake LDS Temple. It had a staff of 50 and a patient capacity of 35.Child helped move the hospital to its second location in the Avenues in 1952. He was still around when it moved to its third location on the University of Utah campus in 1990.

He watched the hospital's staff grow from 50 in 1950 to 2,008 in 1996. Now, the hospital can care for 232 patients at once.

The location and the amount of staff members are not the only things that have changed. Until 1952, the hospital's focus was on helping children recover from illnesses, rather than treating them. LDS Hospital treated the patients.

When Primary moved into the Avenues, it established its first treatment facility. "I was one of the first doctors to treat a patient with an acute illness," said Child, 72.

Since then, the hospital has added more than 75 specialized treatment programs for children, including a cancer treatment facility, an organ transplant center and a genetics lab.

"It's a whole different world than it was in 1922," said hospital spokeswoman Laura Winder. "We're on the cutting edge of technology."

Primary Children's has grown to be one of the largest and most advanced children's hospitals in the West. It was not something that happened overnight.

Louie Felt, president of the LDS Church's Primary organization, saw a partially crippled child struggling to walk down the street. The child inspired Felt to call for a children's hospital in an LDS Church conference in June 1911, Winder said.

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints opened the hospital on May 11, 1922, 75 years ago this Sunday. The hospital was first called the LDS Children's Convalescent Home and Day Nursery. The church acquired the Orson Hyde home on 40 W. North Temple and converted it into the hospital.

"I remember playing checkers, singing and reading with the other kids," said Ron Bartlett, who was a patient in the first location from 1938 to 1940.

Polio crippled Bartlett when he was 4 years old.

"Dr. Heater in my hometown of Price, Utah, said to my mom in his dark, gruffy voice, `He has polio, we're going to send him to Salt Lake,' " Bartlett recalled.

The house had two main bedrooms that were on the second floor - each had about 20 beds. On the first floor, the doctors treated patients for chronic diseases, such as chicken pox and the flu.

The hospital's bathtub is one thing Bartlett will probably never forget. The white tub was about 3 feet deep and 8 feet long, he said. "Bath day" was once a week. Nurses would bathe 35 children in groups of six - one group after the other.

"We all used the same bath water," he said. "It was 1938."

Bartlett recovered from polio and was able to use his legs by the time he was in high school. He played basketball for his high school team and made the all-state team.

The hospital's North Temple location was abandoned in 1952. The building was torn down and a parking lot replaced it. Buses moved 35 patients to the new building at 350 E. 12th Ave.

The $1.25 million facility could handle 70 patients - double the capacity of the old location. The hospital's focus changed to include treating patients with acute illnesses. By 1981, the hospital had added five operating rooms, more than 120 beds and dozens of specialized treatment programs, Winder said. In 1975, Intermountain Health Care assumed ownership from the LDS Church.

Chante Wouden remembers the second Primary Children's location. Doctors treated her for bone cancer when she was 3 years old in 1985.

"All the employees felt like family to me," she said. "I loved the nurses. When the doctors would check on me everyday, I would always tell them a joke."

Wouden, 16, is sophomore secretary at Box Elder High School and president of the orchestra. Music helped her recover from her illness because it kept her attitude positive, she said.

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"I would play the piano in the basement," she said. "Sometimes, the janitors would stop and listen to me."

The current location, 100 N. Medical Drive (1800 East), became the hospital's third location in 1990. Primary Children's teamed with the U.'s School of Pediatrics, a move that will change the hospital's focus in the future, said Joseph Horton, Primary Children's chief executive officer.

"The genetic research taking place at the U. has given us the potential to not only cure diseases but prevent them," he said.

Patients, staff and contributors will celebrate the hospital's 75th birthday Tuesday with cake and ice cream.

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