LEWISTON — It was Dec. 25, 1992, and Lee Myles, the newly named CEO of St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center, wanted his boys to help spread some Christmas cheer among hospital staff.
“I promised them treats,” the father said. The carrots that year were candy and a new Sega game system. Myles and his boys — Devin was 6 that year and John was 3 — went from floor to floor and work station to work station delivering boxes of chocolates.
A tradition was born, not just for the hospital but for the Myles family. The three have come back every Christmas morning to deliver gifts to the hospital staff working the holiday shift.
Lee Myles said he worked at the hospital for a while in 1971, when the Grey Nuns of the Sisters of Charity were more involved. They were a constant presence in the hospital’s hallways and always gracious to the doctors and staff.
“It was a very simple thing, just a way to say, ‘Thank you,’ to the staff that pulled that holiday shift,” he said.
When he returned in 1992, he wanted to do something that evoked that same spirit.
This year, they began with 150 boxes on a wheeled cart in the hospital’s emergency room, where Devin worked as a certified nurses’ assistant a couple of years ago. Devin and John wore red and green belled caps; a third cap sat on the cart. It wouldn’t fit on Lee’s head.
“Where’s that boy of yours?” said Nurse Ronda Wilson, coming around the desk to give Devin a hug while Lee and John chatted with Dr. Spence Bisbing.
It’s an annual homecoming of sorts for Lee’s sons. Both have moved out of the family’s Turner home — Devin, now 24, is taking graduate classes at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, working toward a PhD.
John, 21, is studying abroad for the year, taking classes at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. Next year, he’ll continue his studies at Nova Scotia’s Dalhousie University.
Some of the hospital staff choose to work on Christmas every year, so they’ve watched the boys grow up.
But many new employees also work on Christmas, Lee Myles said. “They’ve just drawn that shift, and they don’t even know who I am. so it’s nice chance for me to meet them.”
The three pushed their cart along the hospital’s hallways, through its warren of tunnels and up and down its elevators. Everyone got a visit, from the intensive care units to the psychiatric wards, and nurses across the street at d’Youville Pavilion.
Many patients were gone for the holiday, taken home by family and friends. A few remained, with a skeleton staff watching over them. When the Myleses came to an empty desk or a locked door, they left a box just to be sure — a surprise for someone coming in later on Christmas Day, slid through a mail slot.
Lee Myles said he hadn’t had to bribe or badger his boys to participate, ever since that first Christmas. The family opens their presents Christmas Eve, knowing that they have a special job the next morning.
“I guess they never really have had a normal Christmas,” Lee said.
“No Dad, this is the norm,” said Devin.
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- Devin Myles, 24, right, and his brother John, 21, deliver wrapped boxes of chocolates to nurses and doctors working at St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center on Christmas Day in Lewiston. Their father, hospital CEO Lee Myles, background, began the tradition in 1992.
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- Each box of wrapped chocolates from Haven’s Candies based in Westbrook is marked with words of appreciation from St. Mary’s CEO Lee Myles.
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- John Myles, right, and Devin Myles exit the elevator behind their father, Lee, as they delivered 150 boxes of assorted chocolates to the staff of St. Mary’s Regional Medical Center on Saturday.
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