Sentara Obici Hospital art collection is a tribute to founder’s vision

Sentara Obici Hospital has a storied history built on love, generosity, and healing. It started with one man, Amedeo Obici, an Italian immigrant who co-founded Planter’s Peanuts and developed a method for blanching and roasting that made him wealthy. He moved his successful business to the city of Suffolk, Va., in 1913. He and his beloved wife, Louise, made Suffolk their home in 1924.

“His business grew and required more peanuts, so he decided to move to be close to his peanut supply,” said George Birdsong, former chairman of the Obici Healthcare Foundation. Suffolk and the surrounding counties are major peanut producers, and the decision turned out to be a good one. Planters Peanuts became a household name, and Amedeo Obici became a leading industrialist, a renowned marketing genius, and a philanthropist.

Amedeo and Louise loved their city and were active in the community. Louise died in 1938. To honor her memory, and ensure quality health care, Amedeo endowed a hospital to be built in her name. He died in 1947 while it was still in the planning stages, but he left a lasting legacy. The Louise Obici Memorial Hospital opened in 1951 with 117 beds, 58 physicians, and 30 registered nurses, with a charitable trust to support the institution.

“The legacy of Amedeo and Louise Obici lives on and perfectly aligns with Sentara’s mission to improve health every day,” said Stephanie Jackson, vice president and chief nursing officer at Sentara Obici Hospital, who was born and raised in Suffolk. “I am grateful for their vision to offer a home for the sick in our city and surrounding communities.”

The hospital grounds also became the final resting place for the Obicis. Meantime, the Obici Charitable Trust continued supporting the hospital and doing health-focused grants and philanthropy. Fifty-one years later, in 2002, the trust helped fund the construction of a new, larger hospital off Godwin Boulevard. The new hospital merged with Sentara Health in 2006 to ensure long-term viability and grow services and programs, while the charitable trust transitioned into the Obici Healthcare Foundation, which continues serving the region known as Western Tidewater.

Cornerstones from both of the earlier hospitals are visible at the entrance to the current hospital. Bronze sculptures from the Obicis’ personal collection are displayed in the main lobby. A pictorial history, newspaper headlines, portraits of Amedeo and Louise, and memorabilia from their lives are displayed in Heritage Hallway on the garden level near the cafeteria.

Outside Heritage Hallway, in the healing garden, visitors find something unexpected and possibly unique in America: the Obicis’ graves. The couple’s bodies were relocated to the new hospital and re-interred in an exterior wall, where they overlook the landscaped, cobblestoned garden and some of the outdoor sculptures they enjoyed at their stately home on the Nansemond River, which now belongs to the city—a peaceful reminder of their love for each other and the people of Suffolk, and a living legacy that continues serving the community to this day.