Grace Cottage is featured in the Fall 2026 issue of Stratton Magazine. The article goes into depth about the history of Grace Cottage and is written by Deborah Lee Luskin.
Here’s an excerpt:
Visitors to Stratton may not know about Grace Cottage Family Health and Hospital, but they should: Vermont’s smallest hospital sits in the heart of Windham County, less than thirty minutes away. The hospital was established in Townshend by Carlos Otis, M.D., the forward-looking physician and founding Medical Director of the Stratton clinic that bears his name.
Dr. Otis arrived in the West River Valley in 1939 and spent the next decade driving bad roads to deliver babies, set bones, and administer medical care on hill farms—some without indoor plumbing. He founded Grace Cottage Hospital in 1949. Thirty-nine babies were born between opening day in August and the end of that year, and seventy babies the next. Babies were booming.
That was 77 years ago, and both medicine and demographics have changed. So has Grace Cottage, which helps explain how a 19-bed hospital is thriving in 2026, when cottage hospitals across the country have become a rarity and even mid-sized hospitals are struggling. Ironically, its small size is one reason Grace Cottage has been able to pivot as medicine, technology, demographics, and medical financing have changed. Remarkable community support is another.
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Click here to continue to read the full Stratton Magazine story (PDF)
