Front, Thelma Cryder and a young family friend, Josh Rhile; left, Cryder blows out candles with grandson Ralph Johnson at her side.

COURT HOUSE -- Thelma Cryder recalls when cakes and delicious desserts would accumulate on the back porch of her home here over 58 years ago, when she and dozens of others in the community were working to raise funds to open the first hospital in Cape May County.

Cake helped mark another milestone Sunday as Cryder celebrated her 103rd birthday surrounded by family and friends at the First United Methodist Church here.

Cryder's late husband, Millard, was the first chief of medicine at Cape May County's only hospital, Cape Regional Medical Center, formerly Burdette Tomlin Memorial Hospital. She was instrumental in helping the hospital get its start. Cryder recalls sitting around her kitchen talking about how much the county needed a hospital.

"We had bake sales," she recalled Sunday, where cakes and other desserts would be collected on her back porch and sold to raise matching funds for $25,000 in seed money donated by Burdette Tomlin, the Ocean City philanthropist, who pledged that amount if the community could match the donation. With cake sales and help from local community groups such as the boy scouts, funds were raised and the challenge was met. It took nearly a decade, but the hospital finally opened Oct. 9, 1950, with 56 employees, 65 beds and a medical staff of 28.

For full story, see the April 2 issue of The Herald.