The Nurses of Mack
Miss Money (who was sent to England by Dr. Mack to recruit a staff of nurses who had been trained in the Nightingale system) appeared to be connected with the hospital for a very short time.
The first nurses, whose salaries were recorded in the account book of the hospital, were a Mrs. Fuller and a Mrs. Johnson. It is unknown if these were the nurses from England. In 1874 Mary Scott (1877), Maria Glazier (1877) and Emma Lincke (1877) were on the salary list. Mary Scott was the Head Nurse in 1877, followed by Annie Carline and Hannah Dalby (1877). These five are thought to be Mack Training School graduates - although there is definite proof of only three. Rhoda Carr (1880) was the next of our own nurses to be mentioned in the account book.
A picture of historic significance called "The First Graduating Class" shows six nurses with Dr. Mack and Dr. F.S. Greenwood (who went to McGill the year the Training School was opened and finished his medical course by the age of 20.) He went to do post-graduate work in England and remembered the use of the Lister sprayer in this hospital which he said was the first hospital in Canada to use it. Dr. Greenwood was the first intern and was closely associated with the hospital and the Training School until his death in 1937.
Staff and Graduating Class of the Mack Training School for Nurses, 1878.
Pictured left to right, graduates Mary Ross, Ann Carline, Hannah Dalby
and staff Emma Lincke, Mary Scott, Mrs. Florence Wilton
Dr. F.S. Greenwood and Dr. Theophilus Mack
The first graduation ceremony of which there is certain information took place on August 5, 1879, and two of the three graduates were Hannah Dalby and Annie Carline. In 1879 the Marqui of Lorne who was the Governor General of Canada and his wife H.R.H. Princess Louise presented the diplomas. Princess Louise became the patroness of the Mack Training School. In our archives we have a telegram of good wishes sent at the request of Princess Louise in response to greetings sent to her from the nurses not long before her death.
Also in our archives is Maria Glazier's small diploma. Each received a small one to be carried for the purpose of identification as well as a large one. In the early days of the School, the nurses who came from England and who had worked with Florence Nightingale through the Crimean War were called "sisters". The younger nurses were called "Nurse Annie" or "Nurse Rhoda". This continued until someone in authority noted the omission of the word "nurse" by a male patient and from that time nurses received the title of "Miss".
After a few months of preliminary experience in the hospital, the nurses were sent out to do nursing in homes. The institution received money for their services (at first $5.00 per week). In the earliest days the nurses were given "testimonial books". In one that we have in our archives, Dr. Mack wrote, "The testimonials in this book are expected to be strictly truthful". The patient or his friends or the doctor signed these statements that the nurse brought back to the hospital. Some examples from the book are that nurse was "reliable", "excellent", "efficient", "intelligent", "adapted herself to the ways of the family", "cheerful", and the one that was used most was "kind". The nurses went to homes as far away as Toronto, Rochester and Lindsay. The practice of sending nurses out during their training days continued into the nineties.
Graduates from the Mack Training School went on to establish schools of nursing in other communities. Hannah Dalby started the training school in Peterborough; Amy Pollard started the training school in St.Thomas; Florence Cattle went to Victoria Hospital in London; Annie Carline was asked to start a school at Toronto General Hospital but illness prevented her doing so.
Many graduates sought careers in the United States and one of the most outstanding was Mary Eugenie Hibbard (1886). She was the Lady Superintendent for two years (1887 and 1888) after which she started the School of Nursing in Grace Hospital in Detroit. When the Hospital Ship "Maine" was sent to South Africa at the time of the Boer War, Miss Hibbard was in charge of the nurses.
Miss Mary Eugenie Hibbard
Superintendent, 1887-1888 |
In the first "American Journal of Nursing" is an article by Miss Hibbard "With the Maine to South Africa". During that trip she had an audience with Queen Victoria and was able to visit Miss Nightingale who was then eighty years of age. She wrote "Miss Nightingale seemed much interested that I was a graduate of the first School for Nurses in Canada" and that she had been sent out under Dr. Mack's care, the first Superintendent of the Mack Training School for Nurses. Miss Hibbard helped in the building of the Panama Canal by working with General Gorgas in the fight against yellow fever.
Given to the Archives by her friend Rachel Benson (1887). Prior to her death in 1946 Miss Hibbard left to the School her water-colour of the Hospital Ship "Maine". The testimonial which accompanied it bears the signature of Jennie Randolph Churchill who was also on the Hospital Ship "Maine".
Residence Life
The St. Catharines General
and Marine Hospital Nurses Home |
The First Nurses Home was opened in 1876 (a frame building). This was torn down in 1925 and the Leonard Nurses' Home was opened (the gift of the late Colonel and Mrs. R.W. Leonard). The residence section of the Leonard Nurses Home was torn down and the Arthur A. Schmon Residence for Nurses was opened in 1957. With the beginning of Mack School of Nursing in 1967, the Mack Centre for Nursing Education was opened - a six-story complex that included classroom facilities and a residence for nursing students. In 1974 the Mack School of Nursing closed and the building along with the classroom facilities were transferred over to Niagara College for its new Nursing Diploma Program that was initiated in 1973. Nursing now came under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Colleges and Universities. In 1998 Niagara College discontinued its Nursing Program.
Uniforms
A picture in 1878 shows the nurses dressed in uniforms of plain material (thought to be dark blue). The uniforms worn in the hospital were of dark blue and white striped material and the nurses wore aprons but no bibs. The dark blue striped uniform was worn until the late eighties.
The first caps are thought to have had fluted edges. These were sometimes worn with the street uniforms, as well as with the hospital uniforms. The caps have undergone numerous variations. The style worn by the nurses (students and graduates of the Mack Training School) was adopted in 1925 by Miss Meiklejohn.
In the mid 1900s students did not receive their caps until they had completed a probationary period of six months and the black band on the cap was worn only after graduation. The students of the Mack School of Nursing wore their caps when they entered the program. This was a pillbox style with a fluted frill around the cap.
Pins
The first badge of the school was a locket or medal apparently worn on a chain. It was handmade of silver with a red cross and inscribed with the motto Video et Taceo. In the early eighties the pin was a red cross in a circle suspended from a silver bar by a red, white and blue ribbon. This was followed by a silver Maltese Cross inscribed with "I was sick and ye visited me". It also had a bar for the nurse's name. The gold pin of M.T.S. graduates was a laurel wreath encircling St. Catharines General Hospital and the raised letters M.T.S. was adapted at the beginning of Miss Uren's leadership. The type of letter used for M.T.S. was changed when Miss Wright was the Superintendent. These pins were either 10K or 14K yellow gold. The pin for the Mack School incorporated the laurel wreath encircling a drawing of the first pin with the cherub candle-holder on porelain and the inscription Video et Taceo under which is imprinted The Mack School of Nursing.
Some of the pins and rings that are in the archival collection.
The Mack Training School Alumnae Association also had a significant round pin - made of white porcelain encircling a red cross with the letters.
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