Lakeview Hospital in Bountiful marked 50 years of serving Davis County with a ribbon-cutting ceremony on Saturday, Sept. 19. The highlight was a former patient's story connecting two families across two decades.

Stacy Poll of Roy told the crowd how a nurse named Mary Ann helped deliver her daughter Kelsey at Lakeview about 22 years ago. Poll, then a working mother of two, worried about managing a third child. Mary Ann reassured her.

Twenty-two years later, Kelsey and her fiancé were flipping through her baby book on the couch when he spotted a photo at the front. Poll had snapped it the night Kelsey was born: nurse Mary Ann holding the newborn.

"My future son-in-law says 'that looks like my mom,'" Poll said at the ceremony, as first reported by the Davis Journal. "Lo and behold if I hadn't taken that picture we would have never known the connection that was made between our families that night."

The nurse was, in fact, his mother.

Mary Ann remembered the birth despite delivering more than 2,000 babies since, Poll said. Kelsey had been born with a rare condition that could be fatal to both mother and baby. Mary Ann had never seen it before and made a memory note about that night.

Both Poll and Mary Ann were later present in the delivery room as Kelsey gave birth to their shared grandson.

A hospital born from overcrowding

Before Lakeview existed, Davis County residents who needed hospital care had to drive to Salt Lake City. The county's only facility, South Davis Community Hospital, was built in 1961 and struggled with overcrowding as Davis County became the fastest-growing county in Utah, according to the hospital's history page.

In 1972, HCA Healthcare founder Dr. Thomas Frist Sr. purchased the proposed site. Crews broke ground on Aug. 20, 1974, and spent $8 million on a 150,000-square-foot building with 128 beds. The hospital got its name when Frist rode the elevator to the fourth floor during construction one evening in March 1975, looked out at the Great Salt Lake and told his son, "We're gonna call this hospital Lakeview, Tommy."

CEO Troy Wood opened the Sept. 19 ceremony by recalling what Bountiful looked like in 1976. Gas cost about 63 cents a gallon. A new home ran around $44,000. About 45 physicians came together with a vision for a local hospital, Wood said.

Lakeview, now a 210,000-square-foot acute care hospital with more than 200 physicians and 600 caregivers, is part of MountainStar Healthcare.

Backpacks for 500 students

The anniversary celebration extended beyond the ceremony. Lakeview staff partnered with the Davis Education Foundation to fill 500 backpacks with school supplies for Davis School District students, Fox 13 reported.

Doctors, nurses and county officials attended the Saturday event. A display featured a poster-sized version of Poll's photograph: nurse Mary Ann holding baby Kelsey on the night she was born.

Residents can share their own Lakeview Hospital memories on Facebook and Instagram (@LakeviewHospital) using the hashtag #LVH50.