The Way We Were: Very first Medicare recipient in 1966 was a Naperville woman

This black-and-white photographic print from the Naperville Heritage Society collection shows Lillian Grace Avery, a Naperville resident and the nation’s first Medicare beneficiary, signing government forms while recovering from minor surgery at Edward Hospital in Naperville on July 1, 1966. On the left is her husband, Robert, and in the center is hospital administrator Eugene Morris. President Lyndon Johnson signed the federal health insurance program for the elderly on July 30, 1965. An article by The Associated Press, which covered the signing event, said “Blue Cross Association Headquarters in Chicago said Mrs. Avery was the first of the 19 million persons age 65 or over in the United States to be certified as eligible for Medicare.” When a reporter told her she would be the first to have her bills paid under the then-new program, she reportedly quipped, “Oh boy! Now I can go to New York and get on the television program ‘I’ve Got a Secret.’”