Immigrant served Newfoundlanders for 60 years
I
magine being the only medical professional along 320 km of rugged, isolated coastline. Imagine there are no roads, telephones or regular access to supplies. Now imagine you’re a single woman from another continent with no family on this side of the ocean.
These were the conditions willingly accepted by nurse Myra Bennett (née Grimsley) in 1921 when she arrived in pre-Confederation Newfoundland and Labrador. Myra lived and worked on that coastline for over 60 years, earning the name the Florence Nightingale of Newfoundland.
One of her earliest childhood memories was Christmas Day in London. A young boy came to her family’s door seeking help for his expectant mother. Young Myra’s mother, although untrained in midwifery, left her family to help this woman deliver her baby. Seeing the family’s poverty she called for Myra to bring their remaining Christmas dinner for the children.
Such compassion helped Myra develop a heart for the poor and disenfranchised, and she found her true calling in nursing and midwifery. During the First World War, her skills were stretched as doctors were overworked or called up to active duty. She was regularly tasked with doing procedures traditionally reserved for doctors.
These experiences prepared her for her greatest challenge and life’s work.
Across the ocean Lady Harris, wife of the governor of Newfoundland, was becoming increasingly concerned with the lack of rural medical care. She visited England to recruit nurses to work on the island.
For generations of Newfoundlanders, she was simply the beloved nurse who served her community with skill, sacrifice and a deep love of God.
Myra was recommended for the program. After some preparatory training and a long journey, she arrived in Daniel’s Harbour on the isolated Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland.
She was shocked at the conditions. Travel was limited to boat, dogsled or foot, often in difficult weather. Consultations, procedures and even surgeries took place in kitchens. Many of her hundreds of patients had never seen a doctor or nurse. Superstition and folk remedies were rampant.
Within her first year she met and married a merchant named Angus Bennett. Angus built a house for his bride and their new kitchen became Myra’s clinic.
Married nurses were expected to leave the profession, so when Myra’s contract expired the government refused to renew it. But her patients relied on her. For the next decade she continued to offer care without financial remuneration. When the government stopped sending medication (she was, technically, unlicensed), Myra and Angus paid for the much-needed supplies themselves. She was eventually relicensed, but even after her retirement she continued nursing for another 30 years, again without pay.
Myra delivered more than 750 babies and pulled more than 5,000 teeth. She treated tuberculosis, scarlet fever and infections. One winter her brother-in-law Alex severed his foot in a logging accident. Myra stitched up the injury so Alex could be transported over 120 km to the closest doctor. When telegraphed about the accident, the doctor assumed the foot wouldn’t survive. But when viewing Myra’s kitchen table surgery, he declared amputation unnecessary. Both foot and patient were saved.
Myra’s love for her community didn’t stop at the clinic door. She and Angus had three children and fostered six. She managed the bookkeeping for Angus’ business, played the church organ, led local fundraisers, and visited the elderly and dying.
Myra Bennett’s legacy continues in books, a stage play, a CBC TV documentary and countless articles. The home built by Angus was designated a Newfoundland Heritage Structure. She was made a member of both the Order of the British Empire and the Order of Canada.
But for generations of Newfoundlanders, she was simply the beloved nurse who served her community with skill, sacrifice and a deep love of God. In the introduction to Myra’s memoir, My Story (DRC Publishing, 2012), her son Trevor Bennett writes, "She was a person who was very anxious to serve her people. In doing so she was serving her God. My mother never wore her religion on her sleeve, but she was a deeply religious person who would attend and join in singing and prayer in any church. She felt she had a duty to all the children of God – age, colour, creed, status had no bearing on her duty."
This was the heart of nurse Myra Bennett, the Florence Nightingale of Newfoundland.
