As vice president of Patient Care Services and executive director of Heart and Vascular Services at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, Gene Ridolfi loves what he does. He also loves where he works.
That’s because, for the Ridolfi family, caring for patients at Barnes-Jewish is the family business.
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For nearly a century, a member of the Ridolfi family has worked at the hospital. That includes Gene, who has worked his way up from nurse to executive during his 40-year career, and his daughter, Katherine, a bedside nurse. The line of Ridolfis serving Barnes-Jewish dates to Gene’s grandfather, Hugo, who started working at the facility as a pharmacist in the 1930s.
In the Ridolfi family, the hospital is like a second home.
“At the end of the day, I love what I do,” Gene says. “I love seeing my daughter, Katherine, (and) I think it’s really important to me that a Ridolfi continues to serve in healthcare and serve our community.”
Plenty of Ridolfis have answered that call to service.
The patriarch’s work as a pharmacist inspired several generations of family members to seek careers in the healthcare industry. Florence Mueller—Gene’s aunt—is believed to be among the first women to graduate from St. Louis College of Pharmacy when she completed her studies in the early 1930s, joining Barnes Hospital and eventually spending 35 years as the head pharmacist before retiring in 1975. “She orchestrated the transition of the pharmacy to the new era of what they call unit dose medicine distribution, which was a big deal in the early years,” Gene says.
Gene, whose father, Hugh, worked as a medicinal chemist at Barnes, knew from a young age that he wanted to serve in healthcare. Among his earliest memories are Saturday mornings spent accompanying his father to work, while also visiting his sister, Janice Ingersoll, at her job in the hospital pharmacy. Gene eventually chose to attend the Jewish Hospital School of Nursing because his sister, Vincelle Ridolfi, graduated from the same program. (Vincelle worked at the former Jewish Hospital of St. Louis, and served as a nurse at Missouri Baptist Medical Center.)
Not only did he find a career at Barnes-Jewish, Gene also found love. While working as a nurse in the intensive care unit, Gene met a nursing student named Leanne. They started dating six months later, before marrying in 1985. They have three daughters, Katherine, Gena, and Laura. Katherine has been a nurse at the hospital for the past nine years. Like Gene did with his father years earlier, Katherine also enjoyed going to work with her mom and dad. Those early years inspired her to follow in their footsteps.
“Hearing my parents’ stories about when they were both bedside nurses was always something I loved as a child,” she says. “I always asked questions and was on the edge of my seat every time.”
For Katherine, pursuing work at Barnes-Jewish was an easy decision. She even began her career there working on the same ICU floor where her parents met.
“It’s played a big part in my family’s history,” she says. “I never imagined myself anywhere else.”
Although Gene and Katherine don’t work together, dad does make a point to stop by and say “hello” when he can. Long-time employees often share stories about their memories of working with her parents and other extended family members.
“I enjoy the stories people share about [Gene],” Katherine says. “I can always tell if somebody has known him since the 1980s if they call him ‘Geno.’”
As for Gene, he’s simply thankful that his family has been able to contribute to such a longstanding tradition at the hospital.
“All along, I’ve had family in some way working across this organization,” he says. “I have an incredible loyalty to our organization.”
