The History of Alexandria Hospital and the Twig
The Twig is the Junior Auxiliary of Inova Alexandria Hospital--an organization of women dedicated to providing financial aid, volunteer service, and support to Alexandria Hospital--itself originally established by volunteers.
For the city’s first hundred years, physicians cared for their patients at home or in their offices. After the Civil War, however, when an outbreak of typhoid fever occurred on board a ship in the harbor, several sailors were brought to the home of a local doctor. Answering a plea for assistance, Miss Julia Johns, daughter of the Episcopal Bishop of Alexandria, called together a group of concerned women to “form a society to establish and control a hospital for the sick.”
After this small group of “charitably disposed friends” met in 1872, the Alexandria Infirmary opened its doors in a converted house on the southwest corner of Duke and Fairfax Streets. Miss Johns and the Board of Lady Managers continued to oversee the operation of the hospital, establishing a Nurses Training School, dispensary, surgery, and horse-drawn ambulance service. These first “volunteers” set the precedent for Alexandrians to rise to the responsibility of supporting and operating a community hospital.
In 1933, a group of twenty-four young women gathered at the home of Mrs. Julian T. Burke to form the Junior Auxiliary of the Alexandria Hospital. They took the name “The Twig” from a contest entry by Mrs. Nellie Sommers Blackwell; this described the new organization as a small branch of the “tree” which represented the Hospital.
In 1997, the 125th Anniversary of Julia Johns’ far-reaching volunteer act to serve Alexandria, The Twig’s contributions given to the hospital surpassed the $1,000,000 mark for total funds. Also in 1997, the Alexandria Hospital joined the Inova Health Group to maintain a community based non-profit service.
The Twig and Inova Alexandria Hospital both have grown along with the city of Alexandria. For 76 years, The Twig has remained true to the goals of its charter members by helping the Hospital provide the highest quality medical service.
Today’s members carry on that tradition of community support and individual dedication. To date, The Twig has contributed over $2,500,000 to Inova Alexandria Hospital. In 2005, The Twig accepted its biggest challenge when it pledged $750,000 for The Twig Pavilion, a sixteen-bed single patient telemetry unit. The Twig also funds a nursing scholarship and a one year nursing certification program for the hospital.
