Thomas Gillam Whedbee Jr., the retired director of the old Church Home and Hospital in East Baltimore, died of complications from Alzheimer's disease July 14 at a family home in Calvert County. He was 83 and lived for many years in Timonium.
Born in Edenton, N.C., he was the son of Thomas G. Whedbee Sr., a farmer and furniture store owner, and Lizzie Miller Whedbee, a teacher and homemaker. He was raised in Ahoskie, N.C., where he graduated from Ahoskie High School.
He enrolled at Wake Forest University. During his first year there, he joined the Navy during the Korean War. He was assigned to Iceland and tracked submarines from a naval aircraft.
He completed his studies at Wake Forest and earned a master's degree in hospital administration from the Medical College of Virginia.
Mr. Whedbee worked for a year at Roanoke Memorial Hospital for his hospital administration residency before coming to Baltimore in 1960. He arrived as the assistant director of Church Home and Hospital and was named its director in 1965. He lived for many years in Timonium.
The hospital that Mr. Whedbee administered was founded in 1833 as the Washington Medical College. Edgar Allan Poe died there in 1849. The buildings were purchased by the Episcopal Diocese of Maryland and its name was changed to the Church Home and Infirmary. The hospital, at Broadway and Fayette streets, closed in 2000, and the buildings are now part of the Johns Hopkins medical campus.
His institution functioned as a long-term residential care facility as well as an acute-care hospital. Mr. Whedbee directed the hospital's construction of a new wing that introduced intensive-care private rooms and an Alzheimer's unit.
"Gil was a brilliant administrator and was first and foremost a kind man," said Catherine J. Boyne, a former Church Home assistant vice president who lives in Baltimore. "He had a policy of talking to everyone. At lunch, he would stroll into the cafeteria, sit at a table and would invite anyone he saw. It could be a housekeeper, a doctor or a visitor. He learned from what they told him."
She said Mr. Whedbee believed that, no matter what else, the patient came first.
"He said that if you made a decision about what was right for the patient, everything else would fall into line," she said.
She recalled a time when a patient's relative rushed to the hospital and had her car was towed from a spot where she had left it near the entrance.
"Parking spaces were always tight where Church was located. Gil and I jumped in a car and drove to Greenwood's garage on North Avenue where the car had been towed. He reached in his pocket and paid the fine. The he drove it back. He was that kind of person," said Ms. Boyne.
When he was not eating at the hospital cafeteria, he enjoyed seafood at the old Obrycki's.
"Gil understood that hospitals are a social institution with an obligation to operate as efficiently as any business in order to meet its mission. He felt that every dollar should be there for the patient," said Rick Wade, former communications vice president at the Maryland Hospital Association. "He had a way of listening with a quiet, laid-back, Southern warmth through long policy discussion and distilling the important issue. He always took it back to the patient."
According to articles in The Baltimore Sun, Mr. Whedbee fought to keep the hospital and its long-term care facility open.
"Mr. Whedbee contended that Church Hospital was the victim of state health officials anxious to cut down the oversupply of hospital beds in the Baltimore metropolitan area," said a 1980 Sun article.
Mr. Wade, who went on to be an American Hospital Association official from 1991 to 2009, said Mr. Whedbee had a loyal medical staff and enjoyed community support.
"Johns Hopkins was a world-famous institution, and across the street was Church Hospital. It survived until it was time for it to become something else," said Mr. Wade, who lives in Arnold.
Mr. Whedbee was a past president of the Rotary Club of Baltimore and belonged to the American Hospital Association, the Maryland Hospital Association and Calvary Baptist Church.
After his retirement in 1993, Mr. Whedbee moved to Suwannee, Fla., where he enjoyed fishing. He also kept an apartment in the Inner Harbor.
Plans for a life celebration are incomplete.
Survivors include his wife of more than 60 years, Marianne Farnell Whedbee; two sons, Thomas G. Whedbee III and Christopher Neal Whedbee, both of Calvert County; a daughter, Sarabeth Whedbee of Charlottesville, Va.; and five grandchildren.