Henderson, Mary E.

hendersonSee Oral History files, Fonds 18, Series 3, Subseries 8

Mary Henderson graduated from Vancouver General Hospital School of Nursing in 1929 and also from UBC School of Nursing in Public Health Nursing in 1929.  She worked for a year as a public health nurse in Saanich, but then returned to Vancouver where she became a school nurse with the School Health Service.  In 1939 she received the Florence Nightingale Memorial Fellowship to study in London, but the outbreak of war, the course was cancelled. Instead, she did a year of postgraduate study in Administration and Supervision in Public Health Nursing at the University of Toronto.  She returned to UBC as an instructor.

In 1944, she joined UNNRA to work in 1944-1945 at the El Shatt refugee camp near Port Said for Yugoslav refugees.  She then did similar work in Greece.  On her return to Canada she went back to the Metropolitan Health Service as supervisor of the School Health Services and then became Assistant Director of Nursing until her retirement in 1955.

Contents of Biographical File

  1. Transcript of interview from oral history tape, April 27, 1988.
  2. “Our New ‘International’ ”, The Canadian Nurse, 1939 35 (5), 260, 262.
  3. “A New Position at the U.B.C.”, The Canadian Nurse, 1941 37 (11), 771-772.
  4. Henderson, M.E. “Letters from Near and Far: At the El Shatt UNRRA Camp”, The Canadian Nurse, 42 (4), 336-339.
  5. Henderson, M.E. “Nursing with UNRRA in Greece,” The Canadian Nurse, 1947, 43  (6), 446, 467-469.
  6. Henderson, M.E., “An Eventful Year,” The Canadian Nurse 1940, 34 (12), 807-809.
  7. Amazing Alumni Stories School of Nursing