Adventures of a Grenfell Nurse
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. In her own
words, 89-year-old author Rosalie Lombard tells us about herself and how the
book came to be.
After I
retired from a rather busy life in the field of nursing education and
administration, the memories increasingly flowed back about the period in the
early 1950s when, at the age of 25, I left the large medical center in New York
City to travel to northern Newfoundland and work as a nurse with the Grenfell
Mission.
As I learned
of the changes in Newfoundland and medical care in general, I realized the
uniqueness of that experience and how, in today’s culture, it might seem
unbelievable. I felt I had to document it for my family and friends.
Finally in
2014 at the age of 87, after being convinced by friends that there might be a
wider audience of interested people, I completed the first edition of Adventures
of a Grenfell Nurse and it was published.
The process
of writing had not been easy or rapid. For approximately ten years I had been
writing and editing in spurts while other events barged in for priority; such
things as travel to other countries, moving to several new cities, and pursuing
other interests.I wanted photos
for the book and yet I had only taken with me in 1952 a movie camera. I had to
find some way to capture still photographs from those movie reels. First they
were transferred to DVDs. and after some searching I found a technician who
could produce stills from the DVDs.
During this
whole process I found more and more books about Newfoundland, the Newfoundland
Railway (on which I had been a passenger when it was wrecked), the changes in
the fishing industry, books written by other nurses and doctors with the
Grenfell Mission, other stories about sailing in the Strait of Belle Isle and
the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and on and on. I became so involved that I found
myself doing more reading and researching than writing. I had no idea that
there were so many good books about Newfoundland. So, in the autumn of my life,
this was a very pleasant period of reintroduction to things Newfoundland.
After
publication, I began to hear from persons who had been with the Grenfell
Mission or who had an interest in Newfoundland and Labrador. I reconnected with
some people with whom I had had no contact for 60+ years; this included
locating at long last the whereabouts of “the baby” whose delivery I helped
with on board the coastal steamer, Springdale. 62 years later I was able
to communicate with her. These contacts, and others, made all of my efforts
worthwhile.
What a
feeling of relief when that last draft was sent off to the publisher. Little
did I know that soon after, I would begin to remember other stories and think
of updates to improve that book. All of this led finally to a revised version
being published two years later, and who knows whether a third edition might
appear two years hence?
