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TO THEIR HEALTH

Millie Lancaster’s gift of $325,000 enabled Bon Secours to open a new women’s health care center as an addition to the Bon Secours Health Center at Harbour View in north Suffolk / PAGE 8

BY PHYLLIS SPEIDELL
THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Reach Phyllis Speidell at (757) 222-5566
or e-mail phyllis.speidell@ pilotonline.com 

Like millions of other women, Millie Lancaster made a good decision recently when she went for her annual mammogram.
    But Lancaster may be the only woman, at least locally, who has the examination done in a building that bears her name – the Millie Lancaster Women’s Center.
    Her gift of $325,000 enabled Bon Secours to open the new center in March as an addition to the Bon Secours Health Center at Harbour View.
    The program at the 4,100-square-foot facility encourages women to make informed health choices by offering multiple diagnostic tests and health education resources in one location – in this case, a site especially convenient for women in north Suffolk, Churchland and Western Branch.
    “I want to give while I’m still alive,” she said. “And I know this will help women for the rest of their lives.”
    Lancaster, 87, is a 30-year survivor of uterine cancer.  She and her doctor caught the disease early, she said, and she underwent surgery in what is now Bon Secours Maryview Medical Center in Portsmouth.  “I was very lucky – I still have the same doctor,” she said.  “I know that my recovery was a miracle, but I believe in taking care of something when it happens and seeing the doctor.”
    She and her husband, Arthur “Junie” Lancaster, who died 10 years ago, were wellknown for their philanthropy across Hampton Roads.
    Usually, however, it was his name that was promoted and recognized, such as his work to produce the annual Winter Wonderland holiday display at his business, Coleman Nursery in Portsmouth; his efforts to establish the nowdefunct Bennett’s Creek Rescue Squad; his being named “First Citizen” of Portsmouth in 1991; and the couple’s gift of his $1 million toy and train collection to the Children’s Museum in Portsmouth.
    It was time, Sister Rita Thomas, president of Bon Secours Hampton Roads Board of Directors, said to recognize Millie.  “I was shocked,” Lancaster said, adding that she was also delighted with the name, the center and its facilities.
    Natural light from numerous skylights warms the center’s living room-like ambiance. A mural surrounds the reception area.
    The view of a water scene, with a low-flying egret cruising over a row of boats, makes the waiting room seem like a broad, open porch overlooking a river.
    Lancaster commissioned a friend, noted local artist and Portsmouth native Robert Burnell, to create the artistic illusion. Beyond the peaceful decor stands an array of high-tech diagnostic equipment for mammography, ultrasounds, bone densitometry, and stereotactic imaging and biopsies – and the personnel trained to use them.  A small health information library, including educational computer software, and a massage therapy area round out the facility’s resources.Any woman who has ever felt the chill of icy, cold mammography equipment will appreciate the Mammo Pads used at the center.
    Laurie Jesz, breast program coordinator at the center, said that the thin, foam disposable cushions make for a warmer, more comfortable experience, even though the machine’s compression is the same as traditional equipment.
    Most of the mammograms performed at the center are done with digital equipment.
    The digital image can be sent directly to a computer and offers what may be, Jesz said, a more accurate analysis on most women.
    Women with extremely large breasts may be better examined with traditional mammography equipment, also available in the center.
    The center is also equipped for stereotactic breast biopsies – a minimally invasive procedure that uses threedimensional computer imaging to map and pinpoint suspicious areas in the breast.
    Patients lie face down on a specialized platform with a hole that allows the breast in question to be suspended below, a more comfortable position than traditional mammography, and with the imaging equipment below the platform.
    The procedure offers an enhanced view for both the exam and the biopsy.
    The data from the needle biopsy performed under local anesthesia can be immediately relayed to a computer.
    Having all the equipment in one location, Jesz said, greatly reduces the amount of time between a suspicious mammogram and a biopsy, and helps relieve the patient’s anxiety.
    Ultrasound equipment at the center is available not only for breast examinations, but also for pregnancy updates as well as diagnostic checks on a patient’s kidney, bladder and other organs.
    The center doesn’t ignore the less-technical aspects of a woman’s health needs.
    Eileen Pietila, director of guidance at Churchland High School in Portsmouth, was pleased to find a way to destress her muscles and her mind with massage therapy at the center.
    “This was a find – I can’t find a lot of medically backed massage therapists around the area,” she said.
    Pietila also was happy to discover aromatherapy and music therapy are part of the massage treatment.
    Soft music and delicate fragrances wafted around her as she enjoyed a refreshing foot bath and a massage.
    For Lancaster, who has spent
much of her life working to make people feel comfortable and at ease, the women’s center is an appropriate legacy.
    She was born in Portsmouth and was raised with her nine siblings in the Westhaven section of the city.
    Around the corner lived a boy, just two weeks younger than she, who would grow up to be her husband and life partner for 53 years.
    Junie Lancaster was her paperboy, and Millie rode on the handlebars of his bike as he lobbed newspapers onto the neighborhood porches.
    They married in 1942. He worked in the office of the Virginian Railway, and she worked at the telephone company, first as an operator and then in the employment office. The couple had no children.
    Junie Lancaster always loved gardening, so when the opportunity came in 1951, he took to a career in horticulture naturally.
    He worked at Coleman Nursery in Portsmouth, and in 1965, he bought it.
    “When Junie went to Coleman’s, I’d go in and do the floral arrangements and make bows and then work in the office,” said Millie Lancaster.
    While they owned Coleman’s, the couple created a seasonal landmark with the Winter Wonderland, scores of animated Christmas displays that rivaled the famed Macy’s department store windows in Manhattan.
    For two months each year, busloads of school children toured the wintry fairytale scenes.
    Families made a visit to Coleman’s an annual holiday tradition.
    When the nursery closed in 2004, many of the animated scenes found new homes in downtown Portsmouth, where the public can still see them during the holidays in shop windows and at the Courthouse Museum.
    Throughout Junie Lancaster’s career at the helm of Coleman’s, and then, in northern Suffolk at Lancaster Farms Inc. and Bennett’s Creek Wholesale Nursery Inc. (both wholesale container nurseries), Millie was at his side helping.
    She greeted, entertained and generally charmed their friends, business associates and the many charitable groups the couple patronized.
    When Junie Lancaster was stricken with Parkinson’s Disease in the early 1990s, Millie was the one who helped visitors feel at more at ease with his declining condition.
    On a blustery day in February 1996, crowds packed Monumental United Methodist Church in downtown Portsmouth for his funeral.
    Millie arrived in a bright, rose-colored suit with a determined smile on her face – both worn because, she said, “Junie would have wanted it that way.”
    And, once again, she knew how to make others feel more at ease with a difficult situation.
    Recently, she sat in the foyer of the Harbour View Health Center, dressed in a royal blue suit with her gray-tinged brown hair gently coiffed.
    Her face lit up as she talked about the wonders of the women’s center.
    But her smile brightened even more when she saw Sandra Donato, the mammographer who had done her examination, approach wearing her own smile.
    “Mrs. Lancaster – everything is fine,” Donato said. “We’ll see you in a year.”

MICHAEL KESTNER / THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT Millie Lancaster, left, talks with Joyce Smith, CNA/med tech caregiver, outside the Millie Lancaster Women’s Center at Bon Secours Harbour View Health Center in north Suffolk.

VIRGINIAN-PILOT FILE
The late Arthur J. “Junie” Lancaster Jr., who died in 1996, was former owner of Coleman Nursery and then president of Lancaster Farms Inc. and Bennett’s Creek Wholesale Nursery Inc.

Thanks to a gift from Millie Lancaster, the Bon Secours Health Care Center in northern Suffolk, at left, now houses the women’s center that bears Lancaster’s name.

MICHAEL KESTNER PHOTOS / THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
This minimally invasive stereotactic breast biopsies equipment is part of the Millie Lancaster Women’s Center at Bon Secours Harbour View Health Center in north Suffolk.

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Bon Secours Hampton Roads Health System is a leading health care organization known for providing care for the whole person with grace and clinical distinction. Bon Secours brings together a network of hospitals, primary care practices, ambulatory care sites and continuing care facilities to provide quality health care services to the residents of Hampton Roads. Bon Secours, which employs more than 4,500, includes: Bon Secours DePaul Medical Center, Bon Secours Maryview Medical Center, Mary Immaculate Hospital, Bon Secours Health Center at Harbour View, Bon Secours Maryview Nursing Care Center and St. Francis Nursing Center.

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