At a ceremony Monday marking its centennial, Mercy Hospital in Portland announced a $2.8 million donation from the family of the late Dr. Harry Davis, Mercy’s first and longtime chief of pediatrics.

Davis’ daughter, Patricia Klingenstein, and her family have supported many efforts to improve health care in Maine, the hospital said in a news release. The Klingensteins’ financial gift is especially personal and honors Portland’s beloved and well-known “Dr. Harry,” it said.

Davis received his medical training from Tufts Medical School in 1919 and returned to Portland in the early 1920s to work as a pediatrician. He served as chief of pediatrics at Mercy Hospital from 1943 until his death in 1963.

Founded in 1918 by the Sisters of Mercy to heal those affected by the Spanish flu pandemic and to care for the Portland area’s poor and disadvantaged, Mercy is celebrating a century of operation this year.