Groundwork for the Future

U.S. Navy veteran Owen Bastian follows his father's footsteps

In 1938, Owen Bastian’s father started a floor-covering business, Bastian Carpet. Eighteen years later, Owen Bastian Sr. joined 80 people and led the incorporation of the Muhlenberg Medical Center, now Lehigh Valley Hospital–Muhlenberg.

Though Bastian knew after serving in the U.S. Navy that he would join the family business, he didn’t realize he would follow in his father’s footsteps by contributing to LVHHN’s growth and success.

Fifty years after Muhlenberg Medical Center’s founding, Bastian and his wife Jean gave a significant gift to LVHHN’s major fund-raising campaign, Investing in Excellence Here at Home. “We’ve spent our lives in this area,” Bastian says. “It’s important to us to give back to the community.”

To recognize their gift, two patient rooms at Lehigh Valley Hospital–Cedar Crest and oneat Lehigh Valley Hospital–Muhlenberg are named in memory of their parents, Owen M. Bastian Sr. and Lillie Bastian, and John and Emma Strauss. Not only is the Bastian name now part of these patient rooms, but their company’s flooring materials grace all three hospital sites.

“We’ve always had excellent care at LVHHN,” says Owen Bastian, who underwent successful prostate cancer treatment in 1990. Jean recently received successful cancer treatment, too. “I went for a routine colonoscopy on my birthday last October and they caught my cancer early,” she says. “The doctors and nurses took great care of me.”

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