National Network for Equitable Library Service

Like other children of the 1930s, I read about the adventures of Sir Wilfred Grenfell, who worked among fishermen in a very cold, icy place way up north called Newfoundland and Labrador . . . It was many years later, during my student-nursing days at Columbia-Presbyterian, that I really learned what the Grenfell Mission was all about. I was intrigued at the thought of, someday, using my nursing skills there. After graduating in 1951, I remained at the medical centre for another year of nursing experience. In that time, I had gotten tired of the large city and yearned for a more adventurous working environment. Those earlier seeds about the Grenfell persona had sprouted. In the summer of 1952, I met with the International Grenfell Association secretary and signed up as an assistant nurse in St. Anthony. The seed that had been planted so many years before had finally blossomed and would lead me to great adventures. Adventures of a Grenfell Nurse is a riveting collection of stories that share the experiences of a Grenfell nurse in the early 1950s in the subarctic climate of Newfoundland and Labrador: a train wreck, a dogsled trip, the delivery of a baby on board a coastal steamship, a harrowing sailing experience, a near-shipwreck in gale-force winds, and much more!