The woman behind the Sharp Mary Birch name

Ask any San Diegan what they think of when they hear the name “Mary Birch,” and the answer will likely come quickly — new life. Around 7,000 babies are born at Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women & Newborns each year, and more than 250,000 children have been born there in its illustrious 33-year history.

Yet had you been around 100 years ago to ask Mary Birch herself if she might have thought this would be her legacy, she may well have wondered, Why San Diego?

“Mary Birch was an extraordinary woman from an extraordinary family, but she tragically died very young, long before the Birch family set down roots in Southern California,” explains Bill Littlejohn, senior vice president and CEO of the Foundations of Sharp HealthCare and resident Sharp HealthCare historian.

A family’s founding

Mary Rand was born on June 22, 1886, in Minneapolis. A daughter of the president of the Minneapolis Gas Light Company, she attended boarding school in New York City and graduated from prestigious Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania in 1909.

While Mary was completing her education, the man who would become her husband was making his fortune. Stephen Birch was born in New York in 1872, the son of an injured Civil War soldier. He joined those who headed to the Alaska gold rush in 1898 but decided to stake his future on copper. After a few years, he founded what would, for a time, become the world’s largest copper company.

Stephen met Mary and the two married in 1916, settling in New York City. The couple became part of the city’s philanthropic scene, contributing to many worthy causes. They had two children, also named Stephen and Mary. Sadly, the elder Mary developed cancer and died in 1930, at just 44 years old.

Six years after Mary’s passing, Stephen purchased 30,000 acres of land in San Diego’s South Bay, a property known as Otay Ranch. “The family would spend time there horseback riding and, eventually, the younger Mary settled there to live,” Littlejohn says. “Some of the original buildings, including the ranch house, are still there.”

As the Birch family spent more time in San Diego, they brought their penchant for generosity with them. Stephen launched the Stephen and Mary Birch Foundation in 1938 to support local civic organizations, with a specific interest in hospitals. While he died just two years later at age 68, the Foundation continued its work.

His daughter, Mary Birch Patrick, married in 1955 and stayed in San Diego. She would remain active in the foundation’s work, supporting causes related to health care until her passing in 1983.

A lasting legacy

In 1955, Sharp Memorial Hospital opened its doors and quickly became one of the biggest labor and delivery centers in the county. The maternity ward was known as “The Stork Club,” symbolized by the giant stork statue, which the hospital obtained after it debuted in the famous Rose Parade in Pasadena.

By the mid-1980s, San Diego was growing rapidly, and Sharp executives had a novel idea. “Many hospitals had maternity units, NICUs or a wing dedicated to women’s health,” says Littlejohn. “But the concept of an entire hospital — its own building — just dedicated to women wasn’t very common. I think it was a visionary idea to serve the needs of the San Diego community.”

The Stephen and Mary Birch Foundation agreed and provided a $5 million gift toward the launch of the Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women & Newborns, which opened in 1992.

Determined to serve patients’ needs with the level of care that would eventually become known as The Sharp Experience, Sharp Mary Birch was built with features that were groundbreaking at the time, including private labor and delivery suites, a world-class NICU and its own operating rooms. This led many of the top practitioners in their fields to move to San Diego, making Sharp Mary Birch their home.

“It became a specialty hospital that could provide service excellence and also take on the most complex cases,” says Littlejohn. “I think that’s when the Sharp Mary Birch brand began to take on a meaning of its own, combining the Birch family’s legacy of giving and Sharp’s legacy of quality care.”

Littlejohn says the Stephen and Mary Birch Foundation continues to be one of Sharp HealthCare’s biggest benefactors and supports many Sharp initiatives across the county. And, in fact, that legacy is spreading. Labor and delivery services will now be offered at the newly renamed Sharp Mary Birch Hospital for Women & Newborns Grossmont, with similar branding spreading to the Sharp Chula Vista and Coronado hospitals in coming months.

“I think it’s wonderful to see Mary Birch’s name continue to grow its legacy. There is no greater symbol of this wonderful partnership than the fact that when you hear the name Mary Birch, you think of the joy for the families bringing new life into the world at Sharp Mary Birch,” he says.

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