Norsing for the GrenfelI Mission

195 Pages·1998·11.21 MB·English

Norsing for the GrenfelI Mission:
Maternalism and Moral Reform in Northern
Newfoundland and Labrador, 18944938
Jill S-a Perry
A thesis submitted to the School of Graduate Studies
in partial Mfilment af the requirernents for
the degree of Master of Arts
Department of History
Mernorial University of Newfoundland
September 1997
St. John's, Newfoundland
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ABSTRACT
From 1894 onwards, the Grenfell Mission was a powerful, foreign influence in
northern Newfoundland and Labrador. In spite of its vast army of volunteers and staff
members, historians have been oveMlheImingIy concerned with the activities of Wilfked
Grenfell, the Mission's founder. But in the Mission behind the man, it was women who did
the majority of the day-to-day work. Within this femaie workforce, nurses were a key
component. Nurses were central to the Mission's operations on two levels. First., they
perfomed a wide range of duties, both medicai and non-medical, which kept the Mission
running smoothiy. Second they were strategically central to the Mission's objectives of
"improving" the local people. ui accordance with matemaiist rationales of the early
twentieth cennily, the officia1 Grenfell discourse deemed nurses ideaily suited to moral
refonn work because it was felt that "essential" female virtues iike sympathy, selflessness,
and dornesticity had been mouided into a mode1 of bourgeois fernininity by their
professional training. As the female embodiment of a "superior" culture, nurses were
supposed to refom the local people according to the Mission's Anglo-Saxon, middle-ciass
vision of how life shouid be.
When the matemalist rationaie for nurses' importance is measured against an
examination of the daily realities of Grenfell nursing, a tripartite gap emerges between
discourse and reai Me. First, the conservative gender ideology obscured the fact that Grenfeu
nursing was, hdamentally, an exceptional female work experience. In shouldering a wide
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range of duties at isolated Mission stations, Grenfeu nurses enjoyed high levels of
independence, authority, and adventure. Second, by portraykg nurses as smiling angels-of-
mercy, the official discourse denied both the unpleasant realities of that experience, as weil
as individual deviation h m t he ideal. Grenfeii nursing was, nrst and foremost, hard work;
fedei ndependence was ultimately circumsrmi by a maledominated Mission hierarchy;
and Grenfeu nurses were not aiways respectflll of Mission policies nor doctors. Third, by
portraying nurses as timely heroines, the official discourse shrouded the less admirable
aspects of thek work. in keeping with their own cultural influences, nurses' reform efforts
were often marred by a distinct lack of respect for the local people and their way of life.
Rooted in middle-class assumptions about "proper" Mestyle, nurses' reform initiatives were
often eiitist and, through their focus on local women, highly gendered. A full examination
of Grenfell nursing must balance the admirable quality of nurses' work against the
problematic aspects of that opportunity.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Financial support for this project bas corne fiorn several sources. First, I would like
to thank the Deparmient of History and School of Graduate Studies at Mernorial University
for the graduate fellowship held during the year of my MA. In addition, I th& the
Hannah lnstitute for the History of Medicine for the rnasters feilowship which h d e d my
second year of researching and writing. Finally, 1 am grateful to the Srndwood Centre for
Newfoundland Studies at Memonal University for the gant which enabled a research trîp
to Yale University.
On an academic levei, 1 thank Dr. Linda Keaiey for supe~sionof this thesis. At the
Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador, 1 thank Howard Brown for his
painstaking rettievai of nurses' persomel files. In addition, 1 thank Andy Parnaby; though
not involved in any official capacity, he was a reliable source of enthusiastic discussion and
critical commentary.
Personai thanks are extended to my imrnediate farnily: to my father for sparking my
interest in social histoq- long before 1 knew what it was; to my mother for her grnuine
interest in, and unflinching support of,j ust about everything I have ever done; and to my
sister for king my oldest niend, as weil as a generous supplier of British Columbia. care-
packages. Thanks aiso to my Friday-aftemoon-history-beer-buddies@ ou know who you are)
for being a great source of tension release. And las but far from least, 1 thank Andy
Parnaby, who was a Lifeline in the bad moments, and an essentiai ingredient in the good.
10.1. 1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
........................................................
ABSTRACT
.............................................
ACKNOTKLEDGEMENTS
..........................................
CHAPTER introduction
.............
CHAPTER Matenialism and the Official Grenfell Discourse
..
CHAPTER The Women Behind the Man: Grenfeil Nurses At Work, Part 1
.......
CHAPTER 4: Working For the Man: GrenfeLi Nurses At Work, Part 2
.........
CHAPTER 5: Hovels and Housewives: Reforming the Local People
.
APPENDIX A: Table Showing hcoming Nurses' Geographic Origins 19 14- 1938
APPENDIX B: Table Showing Distribution of Nurses by Year and HospitaY
..............................
Nursing Station. 19 14- 193 8
Map of Greafell Mission Hospitais/Nursing Stations. 18%- 193 8
Chapter 1
Introduction
In the winter of 1929, Nurse Kate Austen was a long way £kom home. The remote
Labrador hospital where she worked had littie in common with Sydney, Austrdia Harsh
winter weattier, in particular, was a constant challenge. Retrrming to the hospital one snowy
evening, Austen plunged nine feet domi nto a massive snowdrift. Panic-sûuck, she kicked
and kat at the snow as it feli in around her, but al1 efforts to crawl out were futile. To make
matters worse, there was little chance of king rescued; she had ken on an emergency house
cali and it was already close to midnight. Galvanized by the indignity of dying so close to
the hospital door afler rnonths of risky winter travel, Austen remembered the tale of a local
man who had ken similady trappeci- Following his example, she uspd one snowshoe as an
adjustable plaâonn and the other to dig her way up and out of the massive drift Haif an hour
later, Austen staggered, exhausted, to her bedroom above the quiet hospital.'
Austen's narrow escape fiom the snowdnft and many other remarkable tales nom her
three-year stint in Labrador were recorded by her husband, Ellion Memck Pubtished in
1942, Northern Nurse is the story of Austen's employment with the Grenfell Mission of
northem Newfoundland and Labrador fkom 1928 to 1930. At North West River in 1929,
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Austen was the only medical help available for hundreds of miles a responsibility which
'Eiliott Memck, Northern Nurse (Woodstock, Vermont: The Countryman Press, 1942)
1 73- 174.
was fi-equentiy complicated by a mgged terrain and severe climate. Certainly, such a high
degree of outdoor adventure was not typical of the nursing profession. Fominately, Kate
Austen was no typicai nurse, as this book makes abundantly clear. But Austen's experience
was not as u n d a s one might suppose. In fact, many other foreign nurses struggled with
the same circumstances.' Although only a select few have had thek stories published,
between 1894 and 1938, roughly 350 nurses were employed by the Grenfeil Mission of
Newfoundand and abr rad or.^ Like Kate Austen, the vast majority of these nurses were
foreign women, largely fkom Canada, the United States and the British Isles, who travelled
'Other published biographiedmemoirs of Grenfeu nurses include Bessie Jane BanfiIl,
Labmdor Nurse (London: Robert Haie, 1954), Dora Elizabeth Burchiii, Labrador
Memories (Shepparton, Victoria: Shepparton News Publishing Co., 19 47)' Floretta
Elmore Greeiey and Hugh Payne Greeley, Work and Plav in the Grenfell Mission (New
York: Fleming H. Revell, 1920), Dorothy lupp, A Journev of Wonder and Other
Writin~(N ew York: Vantage, 197 1), Mificent Blake Loder, Dauehter of Labrador (St.
John's: Hamy C&, 1989), and Judith Power, Hazel Corn~ton-Hart:A ngel fiorn the North
(St. John's: Jespersen, 1995).
'This total has ken obtained, in part, by compiling names found in the "Reports of the
Staff Selection Cornmittee" which appear in the July issues of Amone the Deep Sea
Fishe~fro m 19 14 onwards. Between 19 14 and 1938,179 nurses worked for the
Mission. Apart fiom the possible existence of the occasionai nurse whose name did not
make the Reports (because of publication timing), the post- 19 14 figure is reasonably
accurate. Pnor to 19 14, no such reports exist. 39 different nurses have been distinguished
for this period through passing mention of their names. Since the pre-19 14 information is
far fiom comprehensive, 1 estimate that although 32 1 nurses definitely worked for the
Mission, missing names would probably bring the total closer to 350. In addition, 1 have
suppiemented the official iists with the names of nurses married to Grenfeu doctors;
though the Mission did not credit them with nurses's status, their names have been
included if they appear to have been formdy trained as such, and continued to perfonn a
nurse's duties after marriage. This total does not include the young women who were
hired as nurses' aides, but lacked professional training as nurses.
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to a remote region of Britain's oldest colony to £Um usuai nursing positions. These women
are the central subjects of this thesis. What was it like to nurse for the Grenfeil Mission?
What positions did nurses occupy in the Mission's structure and agenda? How did nurses
uiteract with CO-workersa nd local people? Answers to these questions are based on the
experiences of more than 350 women who nursed for the Grenfeu Mission between 1894 and
1938.
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Most Grenfell nurses travelled thousands of miles to offer their senrices services
which were required by the expansion of the Grenfell Mission across northern Newfoundland
and Labrador in the same decades. This expansion had its roots in an 1892 journey to
Newfoundland by a British medical missionary. WiEed Thornason Grenfell came as a
doctor representing the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen, a British missiomry
organization devoted to meeting the medical and spirituai needs of Britain's North Sea
fishing neet. Officiais of the Mission to Deep Sea Fishermen had been aierted to allegedly
deplorable living conditions in Newfoundland's Labrador fishery. Grenfell \vas sent to
uivestigate whether or not the Labrador fishermen were in need of the Mission's cornmitment
to 'kscuing" the fishermen of the British empire. From his glimpse of a St John's stiii
srnoldering &er the Great Fire of 1892, Grenfeil was convinced that the fishing people in
this corner of the empire were badly in need of outside help.
GrenfeU's conviction was inteosined by a voyage dong the Labrador Coast. Several
different groups of people were living in this region of the colony. First, there were the
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native Innu (then known as Nascopie and Montagnais Indinns) who kept largely to the
interior of Labrador. Second, there were the permanent settlers or "livyers" who were
descendants of British, Irish, Scottish, and Newfoundand traders and sailors, many of whom
had intemiarried with the native peoples. Lady, there were the migratory fishing people
who came north fiom Newfoundland every spring/sunmer for the mual "Labrador fishery."
The people of the Labrador hhery were subdivided into 'Yloatea" who Lved aboard vessels
moving from one harbour to the next in search of fish, and "stationers" who brought their
families ashore and lived in dwellings (some basic, others quite substmtial) that they had
either purchased or built for themselves in previous years. Both floaters and stationers
u d y st ayed util the fishing season ended in the autumn. For d of these people, swival
in the harsh Labrador environment was a full-tirne task. The resident lnnu and livyers
depended upon seasonal use of the natural resources; in the winter they lived in sheltered
bays where they hunted and trapped, while in the spring many livyers moved to fishing
stations for seal and cod.' "Living off the land" in the severe Labrador climate was a
precarious existence and a constant challenge.
The migratory fishing people fared little better. Though Newfoundland was well-
known in Britain for its seemingly inexhaustible cod stocks, there was Little "trickle down"
to those who a c W yc aught the fish. In the econornic relationships of the 'kck system,"
-
settles received food and supplies on credit fiom the local merchants a system which
'~ohnC. Kennedy, ''The impact of the Grenfell Mission on southeastern Labrador
communities" Polar Record 24,150 (1988) 199.