Denise Basse owns a cherished, one-of-a-kind piece of Santa Monica history that reflects a distinction held by her late mother.
Basse’s mother, Catherine Loraine Cryderman, was the first baby born at Santa Monica Hospital, on July 29, 1926 – just three days after the hospital officially opened to serve the community.
To commemorate the occasion, hospital officials gave Basse’s grandparents a gold medallion with her mother’s name and birth date engraved on the front and the words “First Baby Born at Santa Monica Hospital” on the reverse side.
Back then, maternity patients typically stayed in the hospital for up to 10 days, which gave the hospital ample time to produce the medallion after her mother’s arrival and before her discharge.
Hundreds of thousands of births later, the keepsake has become even more meaningful as Santa Monica Hospital, now called UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center, celebrates its 100th anniversary this summer.
The centennial celebration was not on Basse’s radar until she saw a Facebook post from hospital board member Susan Gabriel Potter, noting the anniversary and the desire to find any 100-year-olds born at the hospital – or their family members. They connected and the rest is history.
A special bond
Basse is unsure how her grandparents, Charlotte and Milton Cryderman, ended up at Santa Monica Hospital for the delivery so soon after its opening. Her grandmother lived in Culver City at one time and may have had a physician who became affiliated with the hospital. The family moved to New York when Catherine was a toddler, then landed in Glendale, where she grew up.
Basse, who grew up in the San Fernando Valley, left California in 1977. She had several careers, retiring as a financial planner with Charles Schwab. She now lives mostly in Colorado, but spends winters in Arizona. She inherited the medallion after her mother’s passing in 1984.
Ironically, Basse has never been to her mother’s birthplace. “I went to the beach in Santa Monica many times over the years, but was never at the hospital,” she said.
Nevertheless, she will always have a special connection to Santa Monica Hospital. It’s a bond forged by her mother’s gold-medal birth.
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