By Helen Armstrong

South Peninsula Hospital celebrates 70 years of serving the southern Kenai Peninsula from 4 to 7 p.m. on July 2 on the lower level of the hospital. The following story of one Homer family provides a powerful reminder of why local medical care mattered so much to the pioneers who built this community — and continues to matter today.

In 1937, Eero Walli, age 47, was badly injured after a tree fell on him and ruptured his spleen. Eero and his wife, Lillian, lived in Anchor Point on Stariski Creek where they fished and had a fox farm. Life for the pioneers was hard. No roads to Homer. No doctors, no clinic, no ambulance in Homer. His only chance for survival was getting to Anchorage, which meant an eight-hour walk on the beach, a boat ride to Seldovia, another boat ride to Seward and then a train ride to Anchorage.  Walli began the arduous trip. According to the recollections later shared by his grandson, Steve Walli, Eero Walli died on the way (Homer News, December 25, 2019).  There was no road; “the beach was our road,” Steve Walli said.

For Eero’s widow, Lillian Walli, the tragedy would become one of several experiences that revealed just how isolated Homer was when it came to medical care. Ten years after her husband’s death, in September 1947, Lillian’s grandson Steve was born in the Harrington Cabin (now part of the Pratt Museum) on East End Road. Steve’s daughter, Adrienne Sweeney, recalls the story that the “doc” who delivered Steve was not a medical doctor, but a veterinarian. Usually in the 1940s, pregnant mothers in the Homer area traveled the long distance to Seldovia or Seward to give birth, but Steve’s mom was unable to make the long trip in time. Lillian proclaimed that Homer needed a clinic so that “Homer babies could be born in Homer.”

Then came another event that family members believe deeply influenced Lillian’s views about health care. According to a story told by Steve Walli’s wife, Marie Walli, and confirmed by Steve and Marie’s daughter, Homer resident Adrienne Sweeney, Lillian suffered a serious bleeding condition around 1949. Medical care was unavailable locally. Family recollections describe a journey by horse on the beach from Stariski to Homer, by boat to Seldovia, by another boat to Seward and then by train to Anchorage. The trip reportedly began around Thanksgiving, but winter weather made travel difficult, and Lillian did not get to Anchorage until after New Year’s. 

For Homer residents of that era, obtaining medical treatment often required extraordinary effort. Adrienne Sweeney believes those experiences transformed her great-grandmother into an advocate for change. By the 1950s, Lillian owned the Homer Cash Store (which today is the white building next to Nomar’s that is the Coast Guard building).  Lillian interacted with everyone in the Homer area and was remembered as “Ma Walli.”

 “Lillian was a real mover and shaker,” Sweeney recalled. 

Family members remember her as someone who pushed for improvements that modern residents now take for granted — telephones, electrical service and health care. They believe she was among the community members who recognized that Homer could not continue to depend on distant towns when lives were at stake — and most likely talked to everyone who walked in the door about the need for a hospital.

In 1956, that vision became a reality when Homer opened its first hospital.

No single person built the hospital. It was the product of volunteers, donors, community leaders, medical professionals and determined citizens. Yet behind every community project are personal stories — stories of hardship that convince people change is necessary.

For the Walli family, those stories included a husband lost while trying to reach medical treatment, a grandson delivered by a veterinarian because no physician was available and a grandmother forced to undertake a five-week journey to Anchorage for care.

Seventy years later, as South Peninsula Hospital celebrates its anniversary, it is worth remembering the pioneers who understood what the absence of medical care meant.

Among them was Lillian Walli. Lillian’s granddaughter in-law, Marie Walli, carried on “old Ma Walli’s concern for making sure our hospital continued” by serving on the South Kenai Peninsula Service Area Board for about 15 years until she died in 2022. 

Lillian’s story reminds us that hospitals are more than buildings. They are promises made by one generation to the next by people who care about our community — people who believe that the Homer community deserves to have excellent health care.

Helen Armstrong is a retired anthropologist living in Homer and a member of the South Peninsula Hospital Service Area Board. This story was told to her when she visited the Walli Homestead with Marie Walli and Steve Walli’s fifth cousin, Marja Kanerva (Helen’s host sister when she lived in Finland in 1973) from Espoo, Finland.