Lois Blais 1938 – 2008

Blais, Lois M. (1938-2008)


See Oral History files,
Fonds 18, Series 3, Subseries 8, AUOH23, CDOH39

loisblaisSee also fonds 23

Lois Blais was born in North Bay, Ontario. She received her RN Diploma from St. Michael’s Hospital School of Nursing in Toronto in 1959, and in 1967 completed her BA in English and philosophy at UBC. In 1993 she returned to university to enroll in the Masters inNursing program at UBC. Lois worked at St. Paul’s Hospital, Vancouver for most of her career, from 1969 occupying a number of senior administrative positions. She was also Head Nurse for the Cancer Control Agency of British Columbia from 1977-1981.

She was also active on many RNABC nursing committees, including Public Relations, Programs, and Philosophy and Nursing Practice; she was also Director-at-Large for the Board of the RNABC from 1976-1979. She chaired the British Columbia Institute of Technology Med/Surg Advisory Committee from 1986-1988, and later was a member of the same committee. From 1987-1989 she was President of the Vancouver Metropolitan chapter of the RNABC, and later chaired Langara College’s Holistic Health Program Advisory Committee. . She was recognized with an Award of Honour from RNABC in 1994.

During the 80s Blais took a break from her nursing career to assist in building a 36 ft. Wharram Catamaran. From 1981 to 1983 she sailed 15,000 miles off shore, including to Mexico, Hawaii and Micronesia. When she retired in 1999 she joined the History of Nursing group, where she became successively treasurer, vice-president and president, and also chaired the Archives Committee. She also studied energy alternative therapies and was an Integrative Energy Healing Practitioner.

Contents of biographical file

  1. Curriculum Vitae
  2. Member Bio: Lois Blais, RN, MSM, IEHP
  3. Letter from Carol Winter to Lois Blais, May 2, 1995.
  4. Certificates:
    1. UBC School of Nursing Adjunct Recognition Award, June 15, 2000.
    2. St. Paul’s Hospital Emergency Response Team, March 18, 1994.
    3. UBC Level 1 program in Critical Care Nursing, November 18-December 4, 1986.
    4. Membership in the Nursing Honour Society of the University of British Columbia, April 12, 1991.
  5. Invitation to Retirement Tea for Lois Blais, March 19, 1999.
  6. Remembering Lois Blais, HON News, Fall 2008 (2 copies).
  7. Two newspaper clippings
  8.  Jill Thompson, “Florence Nightingale: Her Life and Times Revisited”‘, History of Nursing News, Summer 2001, pp. 1-2
  9. Obituaries and e-mails
  10. 7 photographs: Graduation, n.d. and in 2000 as Florence Nightingale

Vivian Blake

Vivian Blake (1927-

Blake (nee Jackson), Vivian Mona (1927-

Vivian BlakeVivian Blake graduated from Vancouver General Hospital School of Nursing in 1950. She was an Assistant Head Nurse in Pediatrics after her graduation from UBC School of Nursing in 1952. From 1953 to 1958 she was an instructor in Anatomy/Physiology at the VGH School of Nursing. She received a life membership in VGH SON Alumnae in 1974. After her marriage in 1958 she retired to be a homemaker. She is active on numerous committees with the VGH SON Alumnae Association.

Contents of Biographical File

  1. Biographical Information Profile with signed release

Marion Boyle (1925-

Boyle, Marion (1925-

Marion Boyle grew up in Prince George and graduated fromVancouver General Hospital School of Nursing in 1949 and attended UBC receiving a BSc(N) in 1950. After her graduation she worked for several years in overseas jobs. She worked as a staff nurse from 1959-1976 on a community health nurse pilot project and from 1976 to 1996 for the Vancouver Board of Health.

Contents of Biographical File

  1. Biographical Information Profile. Release not signed.
  2. Cover letter indicates photo included, but none on file
  3. Letter from Naomi Miller to Ethel Warbinek re file.
  4. “Family Memories” by Marion of her mother Ethel, 2000, with three photocopied photographs.

Elizabeth Breeze (1881-1938)

Breeze, Elizabeth G. (1881-1938)

elizabethbreeze0012Breeze graduated from the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto; she received additional training in affiliated schools and Roosevelt Hospital in New York. In 1910 she initiated the school nursing service in Vancouver and in 1923 became Director of Nursing for the Metropolitan Health Committee of Greater Vancouver, a position she held until her death.

She was a charter member of the Graduate Nurses’ Association of BC, becoming elected president in 1921, and president of RNABC from 1921 to 1925. In 1923 she was elected president of the Public Health Nursing Section of the Canadian National Association of Trained Nurses. In 1936, when the Metropolitan Heath Committee of Greater Vancouver was formed, she was named Director of Public Health Nursing.

With J. Mace Andress she was co-author of Health Care for Canadian Schools, which was in use for more than twenty years after her death. In 1925 she introduced a course on health for school children at UBC’s summer school for teachers.

Contents of Biographical File

  1. Elizabeth Breeze, “The Metropolitan Health Committee of Greater Vancouver”, The Canadian Nurse, May 1938, pp. 233-238.
  2. Appointment [to the Metropolitan Health Board], The Canadian Nurse (February 1937), p. 71.
  3. Miscellaneous personal information, with some accompanying e-mails, on an article on Breeze by Glennis Zilm and Ethel Warbinek for the Canadian Journal of Nursing (2002).
  4.  Ethel Warbinek and Glennis Zilm, “Profile of a Leader: Elizabeth Breeze”, Canadian Journal of Nursing, Sept./Oct. 2002, pp. 28-29.
  5. CV
  6. Biography from the “Biographical Dictionary”
  7. Biographical information
  8. Death certificate
  9. “Elizabeth Gertrude Breeze” from Glennis Zilm and Ethel Warbinek, “TB Nurses in BC 1895-1960: A Biographical Dictionary”: White Rock, 2006.
  10. Obituaries
  11. Photograph

Sharley Brown (1879-1944)

Brown (nee Wright) SharleyBryce (1879-1944)

brownSee also Memories of Scharley Wright Brown and Helen Randal by Jacqueline Ratzlaff in book collection

Mrs. Bryce Brown (Sharley P. Wright) was born in Toronto and attended the Farrand Training School for Nurses in Harbor Hospital, Detroit, from which she graduated in 1904. When her roommate Nellie McComb contracted smallpox in the course of her duties,Sharley accompanied her to the “pest house” where she nursed her to recovery.

She moved to New Westminster in 1908 and became that city’s first school nurse. In 1912 she was instrumental in bringing together 68 nurses from Vancouver, Victoria, New Westminster and Kamloops to organize the Graduate Nurses Association of British Columbia, forerunner of the RNABC. She became third president of the Canadian Nurses Association (1914-1917), but retired from active nursing following her marriage in 1915.

Contents of Biographical File

  1. Five excerpts from The Canadian Nurse Journal. — 1917-1918.
  2. Hand written notes by Esther Paulson, Feb. 15, 1999.
  3. Vital Statistics—Marriage Registration, 1915.
  4. Information on the Farrand Training School—excerpts from an article written by Frank P. Woodford and Philip P. Mason, Harper of Detroit, (1964).
  5. Registration of deaths: Charlotte Phoebe Brown and Robert Bryce Brown
  6. Letter from Monica Green to Glennis Zilm, April 27, 1992.
  7. “The Presidents, 1912-1987: 75 Years of Caring.” RNABC News Nov.-Dec. 1987, p. 19.
  8. “Profile: BC Nursing Leader.” History of Nursing Group Newsletter, June 1993, pp. 8-9.
  9. Additional Notes
  10. Nomination to the RNABC Memorial book.
  11. Nomination to the CNA Memorial book
  12. Photocopied photograph
  13. Glennis Zilm and Ethel Warbinek, “Profile of a Leader: Scharley Phoebe (Wright) Brown, CJNL(September-October 1999), 12 (3) pp. 24-26.
  14. Obituaries, British Columbia Daily, June 13, 1944, p. 5, The Canadian Nurse (1944), 40 (8), p. 576.
James Bullen

James Bullen

Bullen, James

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

James Bullen was the first male nurse to graduate from a BC hospital (St. Paul’s). He states that he developed an interest in medicine during the three years he spent as a corporal in the Canadian Army Medical Corps during the war. He believes that being invalided out of the army has given him more sympathy and understanding of his patients. He was the great grandson of BC’s first doctor, Dr. J.S. Helmcken.

Contents of Biographical File

  1. Newspaper article “B.C.’s First Male Nurse Grad ‘Just One of the Girls’” by Naomi Lang. source and date unknown. Copied from original, which was in poor shape.
  2. Typed copy of above.

Helen Campbell (1902-

Campbell, Helen (1902-

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

hcampbellHelen Campbell was born in Medicine Hat.  After four years of teaching in one-room schools, she commenced nursing study in 1926 at Vancouver General Hospital.  Subsequently she worked at Wrinch Memorial Hospital in Hazelton for five years.  From 1937 to 1942 she did private nursing in Vancouver, followed by brief periods at Britannia Beach and Fort Rupert.  She returned to Grand Forks in 1943 to nurse her parents and do some work in the local hospital.  In 1963 a new hospital was built here, where she became Director of Nursing until her retirement in 1968.

Contents of Biographical File

  1. Biographical Profile by Vera Polonicoff
  2. Three photographs
  3. Reminiscences by Helen Campbell from Boundary History, the thirteenth report of the Boundary Historical Society. – 1995.

 

joyce campbell

Joyce Campbell (1921-2013)

Campbell (nee Fergusson), Joyce May (1921-2013)

joyce campbellSee Oral History files, Fonds 18, Series 3, Subseries 8

Joyce took her nursing at Vancouver General Hospital, receiving her nursing registration in 1944, ranking second in the Provincial exams.  In 1945 she received a diploma in teaching and supervision and in 1967 a diploma in public health nursing, both from UBC.  In 1975 she received an Award of Merit for achieving the highest standing in a course in business economics in a diploma in business management.

After various positions at VGH, Joyce became a nursing supervisor at Lions Gate Hospital in 1967, Nursing Director in 1975 and Vice-president of Nursing in 1985.  She retired in 1987, but remained active in nursing for some years. Colleagues describe her as empathetic, compassionate, dependable and supportive.

Contents of Biographical File

 

  1. Biographical information file with release form and curriculum vitae
  2. Page of history
  3. Photograph
  4. Correspondence to Campbell from Glennis Zilm.

Margaret Campbell (1923-1992)

Campbell, Margaret (1923-1992)

margcampbellSee also fonds 22

Margaret Campbell graduated from the UBC School of Nursing in 1948.  She received her M.S. from Western Reserve University in 1955 and her Phd from Columbia University in 1970, the first UBC graduate on the faculty to receive a doctorate.  From 1955 she taught at UBC, and was the most senior faculty member throughout the Muriel Uprichard years.

She chaired a committee to develop a nursing model based on a behavioural systems model which was first introduced in 1973, and was subsequently adopted by the Psychiatric Unit of the UBC Health Sciences Centre Hospital and the G.F. Strong Rehabilitation Centre.  From 1978 to 1986 she was coordinator of the MSN program and graduate advisor.  In 1987 she received the RNABC’s Award of Excellence in Nursing Education, the same year she completed The UBC Model for Nursing:  Directions for Practice, commonly referred to as “the blue book”.

In 1990 she received one of the 75 UBC Alumni Association 75th Anniversary Award Certificates of Merit “for distinction to the University throughout her professional career and professional dedication and exceptional contribution to the community”.  Six months following her retirement she was diagnosed with lung cancer, and died of the disease in January 1992.

Contents of Biographical File

  1. Biographical Information Profile
  2. Curriculum Vitae
  3. Nomination to the CNA Memorial Book
  4. Campbell, M.A. (1973) Panel:  “Preparing Tomorrow’s Practitioners, Innovations and Projections—University Programs”.  CNA National Conference on Nurses for Community Service
  5. Nurses graduate:  photograph of M. Campbell (photocopied).
  6. Dinner at 7:  Photograph of M. Campbell, 1952. (photocopied).
  7. Letter from Alain Norman responding to Glennis Zilm October 7, 2005.
  8. Campbell, M.A. (1978).  “Conceptual framework:  The Leveling of a Discipline”.  A paper presented at CAUSN Annual Conference, The University of Western Ontario. –June 2, 1978.
  9. Transcript from The Vancouver General Hospital School of Nursing, 1944-1947.
  10. Campbell, Margaret Amelia.  From Who’s Who in America 1982-1983 (Vol. 1) 42nd ed.  Chicago:  Marquis Who’s Who, ca. 1983.
  11. Campbell, M.A.  “Untitled article”.  National Conference on Nurses for Community Service, 1973.  CNA Ottawa, November 13-16, 1973.
  12. Campbell, M.A.  “Identifying Nursing Problems.”  The Canadian Nurse (1965) 61 (2) 96-99.
  13. “Candidates:  Member at Large, Nursing Education”.  The Canadian Nurse, April 1980, p. 24.
  14. Interview by Ethel Warbinek, June 18, 1991.
  15. Obituary Notice.  The Vancouver Sun.
  16. Photographs: 2 b&w, 1 colour, plus the colour negative.
  17. Certificate of Registration in the Graduate Nurses’ Association of British Columbia and registrar’s receipt for Margaret’s mother Helen Kathleen Davis, 1920.

Mary Campbell (1879-1958)

Campbell, Mary Palma (1879-1958)

Mary was born in Scotland, graduating from the Royal Infirmary and Fever Hospital and St. Mary’s Hospital in Greenock, also studying midwifery.  In 1911 she emigrated with her mother and two nurse sisters to Canada, living first in Toronto then Vancouver.

She became a school nurse for the Vancouver School Board in 1918 and joined the Metropolitan Health Board in 1936.  Other activities included service as president of the RNABC from 1929 to 1933.  She provided support for the Seafarers’ depot and was active in the life of the Holy Trinity Anglican Church.

Contents of Biographical File

  1. Biographical data submitted by Pauline Ranta, with sketch of Mary Palma.
  2. Preliminary CV information
  3. “The Campbells” by Pauline Ranta, in “The Lunch Club Lives”, an unpublished document produced by the West Point Grey United Church in 1999, the International Year of Older Persons.  Includes sketch.