Photo by Deb Gau Area residents looked at items up for auction during Saturday's benefit for Prairie Home Hospice and Community Care. At the benefit, speakers like Dr. Vince LaPorte talked about the history of community support behind the founding of the hospice group.

MARSHALL — For more than 40 years, Prairie Home Hospice and Community Care has helped families in southwest Minnesota with end-of-life care and more. That legacy started in response to a time of grief and uncertainty, when three local children were diagnosed with cancer, Dr. Vince LaPorte said.

“Out of that pain, something remarkable happened,” LaPorte said. Families and Marshall area residents came together to support each other, and established a local hospice. “It grew out of a community of grief, love and determination.”

The history and legacy of Prairie Home Hospice and Community Care was in the spotlight Saturday at the organization’s annual benefit event. Displays of photographs, news clippings and personal stories paid tribute to the community members who helped found Prairie Home Hospice more than 40 years ago.

Lynn Cormier, CEO of Prairie Home Hospice and Community Care, said the tribute came together with the help of longtime staff and supporters of the organization.

“This is my second year, and I started asking, what is our heritage? How did this organization start?” Cormier said.

“(Vince LaPorte) and I put together a little group. We had Muriel Runholt, we had Barb Moore, she’s our longest tenured employee . . . we had Jaen Weilage, and we sat in these sessions and kind of brainstormed,” she said. “We started digging, and we found the most unimaginable stories.”

Speakers on Saturday evening included LaPorte, who worked with some of the families who started Prairie Home Hospice in the 1980s. Lynn Yueill, who served as CEO of Prairie Home Hospice from 1988 to 1998, also attended and spoke at the benefit.

LaPorte said he interviewed about 20 people to help gather the stories of Prairie Home Hospice’s early days. They went back to the late 1970s and early 1980s, he said.

“It was a difficult time in our community. Three young children – one of them my patient, Jennifer Grong – were diagnosed with cancer, a very unusual event in a community our size,” LaPorte said. “The families were thrust into a world no parent ever expects to navigate.”

LaPorte said families like the Grongs founded the Compassionate Friends support group. “Within it, I met people who would go on to shape the future of hospice care in the region,” he said. “They had a vision of how our community could do better, how we would care for people with dignity, compassion and presence at the end of life.”

Prairie Home Hospice had its first board meeting in August 1984. Jennifer’s mother Linda Grong served as the first president of the organization, and the full board had 25 members, LaPorte said.

“These people didn’t want to stay home. They wanted to be a part of this, so it was pretty hard to turn them down,” he said.

LaPorte said one of those community supporters was Betty Lockwood.

“She was the kind of person who didn’t wait to be asked if something needed doing. Betty made it happen,” LaPorte said. “In many ways she was the engine behind the scenes.”

Over the past 42 years, Prairie Home Hospice grew and built two hospice houses, expanded into home care services, and now owns Fieldcrest Assisted Living in Cottonwood.

“These are extraordinary accomplishments for an organization that began with only two paid employees,” LaPorte said.

Yueill’s personal account of her time with the hospice said a lot of her work involved educating area communities about the hospice’s mission.

“We had to convince the community of what hospice could do, not only for the patient but the whole family,” a quote from Yueill said. She said there was “tremendous” support from communities like Marshall, Minneota, Cottonwood, Tyler, Tracy, Balaton and more.

In remarks to the crowd, Yueill thanked community members for their love and support for their neighbors through the years.

“I am so proud of this community and this organization,” she said. “You stuck together, you remained independent, and you cared about your community.”