Categories: G-H

Haggit (nee Bell), Margaret
(1912-  

Margaret trained at the Queen Victoria Hospital in Revelstoke from 1930-1933; the uncertainty of jobs in Canada led her to go to England where she did a post graduate course at St. Thomas’s Hospital in London.  This led to employment as a district nurse as World War II threatened.   She married and moved to Cambridge, but her husband was shot down over Holland September 7, 1941.

She returned to Canada in April 1942 where she worked at Shaughnessy Hospital and Eaton’s Department Store, then to the Willow Tuberculosis Survey clinic for the next 23 years.  She moved to Australia in March 1984 to live near her daughter.

Contents of Biographical File

1. Recollections of Margaret Haggit by M. Haggit
2. Note by Joan Doree
3. Letter dated March 18, 1994 from Elizabeth Steeves to Joan Doree.
4. Inspection report for the Queen Victoria Hospital in Revelstoke, dated Feb. 1933.
5. Letter dated October 1, 1954 from P.E. Russell, Administrator of Queen Victoria Hospital, to Alice Wright.

Handford (nee Martin), Margarette (1918-  

Mrs. Handford received her RN from Victoria’s Royal Jubilee Hospital in 1941.  She worked at VGH and the joined the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps, which she considers the highlight of her nursing career.  After the war she worked for a year as a general duty nurse in Red Deer.

Contents of Biographical File

1. Biographical Information Profile
2. Photograph (photocopied)

Hargrove (nee Pound), Margery
(1918-  

Margery Hargrove was born in Tzeluitsing, China, her parents United Church missionaries.  Her family returned to Canada, and she received her RN from Royal Inland Hospital in Kamloops in 1940, receiving a Medal for Ethics Award on graduation.  She worked as a graduate nurse in the United Church Mission Hospitals in Bella Bella and Powell River, bringing medical care to canneries and other settlements by boat.  She did not nurse from 1948-1970 because of raising four children.  In the 1970s she worked part-time in extended care in Powell River.

Contents of Biographical File

1. Biographical Information Profile
2. Letter dated September 4, 2004, from Glennis Zilm to Jennifer Carpenter, Director of Heiltsuk Cultural Education Centre.
3. Background to the Margery Pound Hargrove materials
4. Two letters from Hargrove to Glennis Zilm, n.d., October 3, 1991.
5. Hargrove, Marjory, “Nursing at Rivers Inlet”, History of Nursing News, October 2004, pp. 14-15.
6. Hargrove, Marjory, “Nursing at Bella Bella and Rivers Inlet.”
7. “My Nursing Days”

Heal (nee Young), Fyvie  (1910-1986)

Fyvie’s father was Henry Esson Young  BC’s Provincial Health Officer from 1916-1939. Essondale Mental Hospital – later Riverview – was named in his honour. After graduation from VGH and UBC in 1931, Fyvie worked for the Cowichan Health Unit, later promoted to supervisor.  She attended Columbia College on a Rockefeller Foundation scholarship for her MA.  Following graduation, she became secretary to the Canadian Welfare Council’s Division on Maternal and Child Hygiene.  She returned to UBC in 1937 to teach Public Health Nursing, leaving UBC when she married in 1940. She died in Oliver BC on September 8, 1986.

Contents of Biographical File

1. Biographical information
2. Photograph (1931)
3. Amazing Alumni Stories School of Nursing

Henderson, Mary E.

See 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

Higgins, Kathleen (1912-1998)

Kay graduated from the nursing program at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Victoria in 1933.  She pioneered the independent living concept for the physically disabled during her employment at the G.F. Strong Rehabilitation Centre as a member of the first rehabilitation nursing team established in BC.  She contributed her energy and abilities to organizations such as the Multiple Sclerosis Society, the International Association of Rehabilitation Medicine and the Muscular Dystrophy Association.  In 1981 she received an RNABC Honorary Membership in recognition of her contributions.

Contents of Biographical File

1. Correspondence from Carole Vince, Beverly Du Gas, and Klari Varallyai re Kathleen Higgins, 1998-1999.
2. “Lieutenant Governor Declares Building Officially Open”, RNABC News (November-December 1981), pp. 4-5.
3. Cover letter and award of Honorary Life Membership in the RNABC, 1981.
4. Support letters from Dr. A.C. Pinkerton and G.F. Strong for award.
5. Obituaries

Hill, Isabelle (1871-1936)

Isabelle Hill’s extensive contributions to medical care have been recognized by the building of the Isabelle Hill Memorial Fountain, dedicated to her at the Family Respite Centre and Home Care Society of BC in 2006.

After graduation from the Hamilton General Hospital in 1900, and a year of VON training in Montreal, Isabelle commenced work as the first and only VON nurse in Vancouver.  Britannia Mining Company hired her in 1905 as BC’s earliest occupational health nurse.  She became matron of the hospital at Sumas, Washington, and in 1910 opened the first private hospital in New Westminster.  In 1913 she became matron of the hospital in Port Alberni, and later helped open the Shaughnessy Military Hospital.

Contents of Biographical File

1. Biographical Information
2. Article on occasion of the dedication of the June 2006 dedication of the Isabelle Maude Hill Memorial Fountain at the Family Respite Centre and Home Care Society of BC.
3. Photographs: Print, laser copy and photocopy
4. “Isabelle Maud Hill” from Glennis Zilm and Ethel Warbinek, “TB Nurses in BC 1895-1960: A Biographical Dictionary”: White Rock, 2006.

Hodgson, Kathleen  (1907- 2007)

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

Kathleen Hodgson was born in Kamloops, the youngest of ten children.  She graduated from the Royal Inland Hospital in 1929, where she worked in the OR until 1938.  After her marriage in 1938 she did mainly on-call work, although in 1941 she set up an emergency hospital at a local school for war-time preparedness.  She lived past a hundred.

She recalls that the notorious train robber, Bill Miner, had dinner at their home one night.  He “helped with the dishes and chores and behaved like a gentleman.”

Contents of Biographical File

1. Biographical Information Profile
2. Young, Michele, “100 Years of Memories”, Kamloops Daily News, March 22, 2007, pp. A1, A7.  Laser copy.
3. Biographical file with photograph, February 2006.  CD.
4. Biographical information by Ethel Warbinek

Hogan (nee Dorgan), Maud Mary (1879-1935)

Mary Hogan was born in London, Ontario, the eighth of nine children.  She graduated from St. Michael’s Hospital Training School in Toronto, following which she did special nursing and some settlement work around Toronto.  She accompanied a patient to Winnipeg, where she remained to work, and also met her future husband.  After she married in 1910 and moved to New Westminster, she discontinued nursing.

Contents of Biographical File

1. Biographical information from daughter Jean.
2. Group photograph with identification.
3. Covering letter from daughter Jean.

Holland, Laura (1883-1956)

See also the Laura Holland fonds in UBC Archives

Laura Holland’s outstanding leadership and influence on health and social policies in Canada earned her an honorary Doctor of Laws from UBC in 1950.  After graduation from the Montreal General Hospital School of Nursing in 1914, she distinguished herself with service in the Canadian Army Medical Corps and was awarded the Royal Red Cross.  She was made a Commander of the British Empire in 1923 for her work in establishing the first four outpost hospitals in Ontario.  With the Vancouver Children’s Aid Society she reorganized child welfare in BC.

In 1932 she was appointed Superintendent of Neglected Children, and worked to select and prepare qualified applicants for the Welfare Service Field.  In 1938 she was appointed Advisor to the Ministry of Health and Welfare, and later took an active role in development of the Placement Service and Labour Relations Program of RNABC.   In 2007 she was nominated a “National Historic Person of Canada”.

Contents of Biographical File

1. Biographical information by Esther Paulson
2. Curriculum Vitae
3. “An Important Appointment”, The Canadian Association of Social Workers, June 1927, pp. 447-448.
4. Notices in The Canadian Nurse, 1934, 1936, 1946, 1950.
5. Comments by Ethel Warbinek on excerpts of E.F. Watson’s A Summary and Discussion of the History of Child Welfare Services in Vancouver…..related to Laura Holland.
6. Harry Cassidy, “Laura Holland”.
7. Correspondence.-1937-1945; 1971.
8. Citation for honorary doctorate
9. Laura Holland, “A Better World for the Children of Tomorrow”, Offprint from Canadian Welfare, XXIX, no. 8 (March 1, 1944).
10. Newspaper clippings
11. Vignette on Laura Holland for consideration for History of Canadian Nursing
12. Zilm, Glennis, Comp., “Nomination of Laura Holland as a ‘National Historic Person of Canada’ to Parks Canada, National Historic Sites and Monuments Board,” January 26, 2007. E-mails and letter included.
13. Glennis Zilm, Ethel Warbinek and Esther Paulson, “Portrait of a Leader: Laura Holland, 1853-1956”.
14. Two photographs, one photocopied
15. Biographical notes by Ethel Warbinek