Emil came as CEO of the old Deaconess Hospital, specifically to oversee the merger of Deaconess with the new Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital. Deaconess, located at the corner of Seventh and Maple Streets (on what is now a parking lot), had opened its doors in 1902.

Before World War II, the Deaconess board had started planning to expand the hospital, but during wartime no new building projects were possible because all of America’s resources were needed for the war effort. But in 1948, with the Hill-Burton Act, federal money became available to build hospitals in rural areas. The Deaconess board set out to hire a professional administrator, one who had education and experience. Emil Stahlhut met all their qualifications.

Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital, with Emil at the helm, opened on April 8, 1954, with a maternity ward, a surgery ward and 100 beds. And instead of staying three or four years, Emil stayed for 30, retiring in 1983 after a career that brought the Lincoln area a level of excellence in health care not always found in a small rural community.

Emil was born on a farm in Madison County. After graduating from Edwardsville High School, he went to Elmhurst College in Elmhurst. There he met Jane Sherman of Oak Park. They were married in 1941, and he was drafted into the U. S. Army in 1942, after he had finished all the work for a master’s degree in social work except for his thesis.

"The Army didn’t know what to do with a social worker, so they put me in the medical department," he says. He became a captain in the Medical Administration Corps, and, he remembers, "By the time I got out of the Army I had been in the medical field longer than in social work."

A new field was opening up, and Emil was interested, so he got a degree in hospital administration at Northwestern University in Evanston. He served as a medical administrative officer at Hines Veterans Hospital in Maywood, then went to Mount Sinai Hospital in Chicago as assistant administrator. After that, the Stahlhuts went to Maquoketa, Iowa, where Emil opened a hospital. They stayed for three years, then came to Lincoln.

When he became the administrator at Abraham Lincoln Memorial Hospital (ALMH), Emil "did it all," says David Sniff, his first administrative assistant. "From the opening of the hospital until 1963, when Jim LaMothe became the first fiscal officer, Emil did everything, from payroll to ordering supplies and drugs to the finances -- whatever had to be done," Sniff recalls. "He was very disciplined, very hardworking." (Sniff himself came on board in 1974, left in 1980, then came back in January of 1983, when Emil retired, and stayed until 1995.)

(To be continued)