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Mrs. Woollam is currently, in her words, "77 and three-quarters years old", and is living and still farming her 60-acre farm in Enderby. She has been widowed for the past five years.

She began her training and did her early nursing at Vancouver General Hospital, her training beginning January. 3, 1930 and finishing in mid-December of 1932.

She was born and raised at Enderby, living at the foot of the Cliffs for much of her life.

She was the first nurse Vancouver General Hospital ever had who went through without sick leave. She went to work from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., had three fours off and from 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. "And when we worked 7 to 7 overnight, we had three hours off and were expected to attend classes that day. You can imagine how that would go over nowadays."

"We got five dollars per month for the first year, seven dollars a month for the second year and $10 dollars per month in the third year. In the second year I was in training, it was in the Depression, you understand and we were asked to take a 10% cut in pay that year, then a 5% cut in the second year.

"How long that lasted I couldn't's really say; do you see, I can't really say if that lasted into my third year. I know we got told it wasn't really pay for what we were doing, it was just to keep our heels square for what we were doing."

"Then, for an amusing story, compared to the liberties they have today, my friend and I made some beach pyjamas and we went over to where my sister was boarding, then to show her what they looked like, we wore them over to her house and we got called up on the carpet, for wearing beach pyjamas. And the funny part was, the little carpet was one of those little sample pieces, and we had to stand on it. Being the nature of the person I was, this amused me very much and this very superior Superintendent of Nurses kept saying, 'I would like to spank you.'

"But anyway, we got through our training with a few little incidents along the way."

"Of course, you had to keep up the traditions, so a friend and I climbed out of the window at Vancouver General Hospital; everyone did that. But, of course, when you got out there, there was no place to go. But you still had to do it."

She described her uniform, worn with pride by the nurses of the time. The hat was called a Glengarry, and the summer uniform was referred to as an 'American golfing' outfit. That was later replaced by a pin-striped uniform which she preferred.

"We went to work at VGH; there was a terrific shortage of nurses at the time. I don't remember the pay, it wasn't much, but we worked the 7-3, 3-11, or 11-7 shift. Less confusion. In the daytime, everybody was in everybody else's's road."

"I was checking with the 1960 grad and we both agreed, we had 30 to 24 patients in an L-shaped, almost T-shaped, ward. In that time, anyway, I saved money to go to university to take Public Health. That was another reason for the night shift; you weren't involved in a lot of the expensive things.

"With money so short, though, in our years down there, and weight being a problem, we used to do a lot of walking. We would walk what was called the streetcar line for exercise, and for anyone who knows Vancouver, that's known as Fairview Line: that's across Broadway, down Main, across Hastings, down Granville. I quite wonder at the number of miles we walked, after all the hours of walking on hard floors."

"I think it was the numbers of people in poor health that took you to public health, you know. Public health was the coming thing then, a lot of people realized there were a lot of life years lost. The feeling was to prepare a lot of young nurses. I remember being told, 'well, they're 65, they're old; they've had a good life. That there was nothing you could do for them. But going to the public health program at UBC, one of the early public health programs, they set up a sample health unit, one in North Vancouver and one around Victoria. They had very interested instructors, I remember Dr. Aymot, who became head of Public Health in B.C.

"Our training was very complete. There was no social services at that time, we covered everything from money matters relating to health care and, of course, our one day instruction in home deliveries, and got told the Mounted Police were doing it now, so I guess you can do this, too. We objected, we didn't feel one day was qualification enough.

"The greatest killer of young people at the time was Tuberculosis, so after I finished my training at UBC, I went into TB control, we had a new control centre at Vancouver General Hopsital. I worked there until I got married.

"I quit then, because married nurses weren't allowed to work in those days, there was shortage of work for those people. And I didn't go back to work until 1955.

"At that time, they came and asked me; again there was a great shortage of nurses. There was a great influx of seniors again, but a great influx of population. I can remember when Bennett promised hospitalization for $1 a day, and the number of people who took advantage of it. I attended a combined meeting of American Public Health and Canadian Public Health. After going back in 1955, we used to go to meetings to update once a year. We used to go to Victoria, at first (to the Empress Hotel--they were gala affairs), or to Vancouver, depending on the size of the group. Later we used to facilities at UBC, because the cost was less. The people started out paying their own way, just to feel they were keeping up to date.

"But that one combined convention, they were looking at the 1 % a day, and we were told, 'enjoy it while it lasts, it's not economically feasible, it won't last', which it didn't.

"In 1955 I was asked to go back because there wasn't a nurse; it was supposed to be a two-nurse unit at Salmon Arm, the nurse from Enderby was leaving. I was only supposed to give a token service, answering, looking into communicable diseases, preventing their spread. Our funding came through the school district, so we got a heavy dose of school nurse. Yet we were continually reminded we were not really school nurses, we were public nurses for the whole community.

"But in '55 I went right into polio, the Salk polio injections. They were a lot of work, and we had so much equipment. We were cleaning our own syringes, our own needles, sharpening them, boiling them, sterilizing them, all the things now covered by disposables we had to do.

"In '55 we started, by '56 we completed three doses to all children up to 18. Then we started on the adults. At first, you know, it was considered infantile, it was called Infantile Paralysis.

"My territory at the time took in all of Enderby, Canoe, Salmon Arm, east and west, and we certainly brought in a lot of volunteers to help. Mostly to find the people, you know what I mean, so we didn't miss anybody.

"Then my area was changed, and I was in charge of Enderby, Sicamous and as far as Three Valley Gap. I retired in '67.

"The polio, Salk injections were only a small part of the program, as we were giving protection to children for diphtheria, whooping cough, lock jaw, and smallpox. The inoculations were given as babies, repeated at age three, grade one, three five, nine and 12. We inspected the children at school for impetigo, head lice, scabies, ringworm. The medical health officer, he was on a pilot project to see if children were entering school in good physical condition, or were there health problems which should be corrected before entering school.

"We examined all the grade one children. The Public Health nurse arranged all that, drew up the schedule of all the schools to go to, encouraged the parents to be there to hear the doctor, and that went over very well. Parents had never seen their children examined from head to toe; their backs were straightened, their eyes, their throats, their hearing.

The inoculations had started with the family doctors doing it, or each area having the equivalent of a family doctor, who was willing to do it. He got his supplies for free. "When I came back, the nurses were doing it. Before, nurses didn't give needles, just the doctor.

"After I came back, nurses were doing the examining of newborns, and we picked up the notices of birth and death from the RCMP. We went at least once a week to pick up the notices. We tried to visit the mothers in the hospital, find out where they lived, give one home visit, and invited them to attend baby clinics. Family doctors were well aware of the program, some continued to see their own patients, but most encouraged them to attend our clinics. This was a time where there was no medical insurance, or at least in very few cases. I can remember that the forestry had medical insurance. We used that. When a mother with a child looked like they had something contagious, you picked one with medical insurance to examine, and diagnose whatever was going around.

"There was measles, two types, chicken pox, scarlet fever in my time we brought in a fifth disease which wasn't serious, but there it was to be diagnosed. The children were kept out of school until the infection was over. Ringworm was a tough one to get rid of, but head lice wasn't as common. I remember once standing at the door of the classroom and asking the teacher to send me a particular child. Later she asked me why just that child, and I told her it was the way the child's hare was standing up. The nits were all at the roots of the hair. Nowadays, with today's hairstyles, you'd be hard-pressed to pick one out in a room of children.

"For all this being a huge territory, I knew the territory, I knew the people, so that's why I asked to go back to work.

"In a one-nurse unit, you weren't expected to carry all the programs. But people moved around, and if they had had those programs in other places, they wanted them here. And the driving. It wasn't foreign to me, but this was huge territory. We set up clinics so people would know where and when to meet me. We were really cut down on office time. We were allowed a scenographer, I think it was 45 hours per month. We did all our own buying and paying of bills, and there were all the notices to get out. We handled the travelling clinic for TB. If you had been a TB patient or contact, we did skin testing. Also we had cancer patients to be referred to whenever that travelling clinic came. That's when mental health came in; there were tremendous reports to do for them, to look at why the children weren't doing well in school, getting them to the clinic, because these were experts coming up, doing the follow-up. We did children mostly, though there were adults, too. It was more or less a child-guidance type of help then. We know now through TV what problems a child can have that we wouldn't have been able to pick up, the, it was up to the Public Health Nurse, through what she picked up at the institute at Easter, and could pass on.

"We went then to the Children's Hospital. We worked with the Kinsmen and other organizations to get children who needed the care to get to the Children's Hospital. They would be seen when the Children's Hospital would travel around, then we'd make appointments for the parents and all the children to see them when they were in the area, usually in Vernon of Salmon Arm at that time. The biggest thing was, you had to persuade the family doctor you weren't infringing on their territory, that you weren't trying to take anything away from them, and that they would get a full report back from the clinic on their patient."

She said they worked closely with the doctors, "especially here in Enderby. I was very fortunate (with the doctor there). Coming back after a big break, from '36 to '55, I asked him how he would like to educate the public. He told me if I hadn't been there he could never have done it all.

He was always there to help. When I had to figure out the amount of medication to give, worked out per pound of body weight, I used to work it out before I gave it. Having been a teacher before he was doctor, he'd say 'give me your figures', he'd work it out and tell me to go ahead.

"It was different in the neighbouring.... say Salmon Arm.

"It all changed as time went on, especially with the organization of polio clinics. People were really frightened. I was able to get a higher registrations of people here, because the people knew me. I was able to get the Jehovah Witnesses because I promised I would give them nothing that contained blood.

"I think I had an ideal situation to come back to. I thought I'd been busy at home, I had two children at the time. He persuaded me it was a terrific way to get a refresher course, and he (Doctor Kope) was there to back me. And through him I got to know the other doctors in the area.

"I had terrific volunteers for the polio. We took it street by street, neighbourhood by neighbourhood. We brought in everybody. The Kinettes helped with the clinics. It was quite a thing to walk into a clinic, say at Sicamous, and be faced with a couple hundred people."

Eva Thompson became her secretary and helped with many of the programs.

"But those people were so patient. They'd ask, have you got all our records, have you got enough stuff? We took it all with us, you know, we packed it all on ice.

"At the time, I drove about 20,000 miles a year. The government paid your mileage, 14 cents a mile up to so much, then 8 cents a mile after that. I don't remember the turnover, but I think it was 6,000 or 8,000 miles. I drove my own car at the time, because the government cars broke down so often on the rough roads. My husband did all the repairs, he changed the oil, etc. Because at 8 cents a mile, it was C.O.D.--Call On Dad.

"It was a terrific job, you know, it was. That was the best part. I think coming back in '55 with the shortage of nurses the polio problem, and the increasing population, the MHO had all the health units up to revelstoke. He told me I had a very big territory, and I was to organize it any way I saw fit. I had him and the Sanitary Officer to call on, and he called in regularly, he was with me examining the grade one children. Now there is a senior Health Nurse who is supposed to do that. But then, he did it all, came out to the little schools.

"It bothered me, all the inoculations that weren't there at the end of the year. People came and went. With the Roger's Pass opening at that time, all these people coming in because the road was improved all the way through. You had this road-building crew, and that road-building crew, and they all had young families, and you saw all of these babies. We had a lot of Americans come in, up to the Taft area. To begin with, they were most appreciative, because the inoculations cost $25 at home, and it was free here.

"At that time we packaged our needles and syringes, and took them to the hospital autoclaves; we were getting away from sterilizing our own needles, it was a step up.

"At one time I knew the weight of what I packed in the back of that car. You had a suitcase, all your literature in case they asked, mother and child pamphlets and disease pamphlets, the bathroom scale, the baby scale (it sat on the back seat because it was more temperamental than the bathroom scale), then you had your box of freezies to keep your medications cold, you had the inoculations for the TB patients, usually the ones who were still on inoculations, they went to the closest health unit for their inoculations, but I took them their pills and their medications. Usually the clinics were held in one school in an area, so you had your vision chart, to begin with we did the visions throughout the whole school, but after the teachers did it and sent the ones to you who were questionable. We had to because the health ministry had no money.

"When we were trying to stop the epidemics, it was necessary to get in there quickly, give, in a lot of instances, a temporary protection to the people so they would have some immunity so it wouldn't go from a complete household to a community. Go to see anyone in charge of community activities and explain the problem, especially because there were some diseases, like hepatitis, which were spread through food. So you went in and told them if the disease spread the men wouldn't be able to go to work. We got good co-operation, they just closed down their activities until the epidemic was over.

"We get back to the workload, as it progressed, new things were being brought in all the time. We were attending the Institutes to find out what was new, what new equipment was available.

"Before the Roger's Pass opened, Victoria worked it out that I was travelling regularly more miles on gravel roads than any other nurse in B.C. The gravel roads in the Caribou were longer, but then nobody went out there regularly. They had their better weather programs. Here I found the people from outlying districts just didn't get into Enderby during the winter month.

"Babies had to have their immunizations once a month and if they missed too much time in between, they had to start over. It seemed you were forever starting over, never completing. We established regular baby clinics, in schools, in homes, in stores. Wherever there was a group of people, due to their work, living in mobile homes. It was the first influx of mobile homes. There were special classes in high schools on handling food. It was something to be there at that time when everything, you might say the country was being torn up.

"And you worked out the distance to places (like Enderby to Kingfisher) by the time it took to get there, not by the miles, even though that's how you were paid. I was being held up, so I would have to time my arrival by the work being done.

"The wages at the time would probably surprise people. When I went back to work in '55, nurses were no longer expected to be on call on the weekend. Little matter that it took you till the wee small hours to do the book work. (And spent time on weekends visiting homes and arranging visits for patients to travelling clinics and the Children's Hospital.) Just before I went to work in the late '40s, the PH nurses originally got an arrangement of per month wage, plus a $60 increments over the nest 4 years. This is going from $112.50 per month to $115. Then in checking some records I had, the next salary I could find, when I went back to work, you were getting $221 per month and it rose to $245 at the end of the '60s. That was a day when you left for work at 8:30, and you closed for the day at 5 but the paperwork had to be done. You always cleaned up after.

"When I left in '67, they were just then getting down to a reasonable wage. I think what brought about it was that the Health Inspectors organized and they were getting more, and the hospital nurses were getting a way more than the Public Health nurses, especially for the responsibilities you had. Then in the '70s they unionized; personally, I wouldn't have worked under a union, and the old nurses felt that way. They worked for the good of the community, and they were proud of their uniforms. I don't think they even have uniforms now.

"Added to all these other things, we had all this worry about the nuclear--it was after the bomb blast and we were warned there could be retaliations. The Japanese were the ones who were being fingered, and the Public Nurse was expected to make record of all buildings in their are that could hold evacuees, what buildings there were, how many it could hold. And we were expected to keep them up to date. If a building was torn down or burnt or something. The seniors were given instructions about what to do in emergency situations. We were sent instructions about backyard shelters, and what to put in it, and we were told we should be the first ones to build one to set a good example. But something that surprised us, we were told that the Public Health nurses knew the area and the people better than anyone else, so in case of emergency we would be instructing the RCM Police.

"They had a couple of demonstrations. I knew my area pretty good, because my husband was in the Pacific Coast Militia Rangers, which was a local volunteer group to look for Japanese incendiaries and different things, and we all knew where the bottlenecks were. We were instructed there would be this evacuation from Vancouver all these people on a mock trial basis. We were all to be in readiness, and there was another one in the Caribou--it amused us no end; they couldn't get the people past Hope, the bottleneck at the road.

"In the summer, when the school's were out; you weren't supposed to be a school nurse per se; you were a nurse for the whole community, you were supposed to pass on your knowledge to others. In the summer we were still busy, you had all your supplies in order and so on. Things that were a headache, when you sent in a request and it was handled through a different government agency. Public Works covered the toilet paper. Enderby didn't have Public Works and Highways wasn't going to supply me with toilet paper.

"Once in the summer, I remember I had a gentleman stop in at the office. That wasn't unusual, our doors were open to everyone. After asking about many things in the area, he introduced himself as the Medical Health Officer for the area. And that made me think back to the greeting I'd given him--"come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly." I had a reputation that no one got out of my office without getting an injection for something or another, mostly polio.

"I was long enough around, and talked enough at various service activities that I was quite well known, and Enderby was quite well known. Enderby really is a centre, but wasn't known as a centre until the Ministry of Transportation put the signal in the mountain. Then we became known right to Ottawa.

"In summarizing the years, I enjoyed working with the people of the area. It is still the people I meet today that worked with then who really make it all worth while. They still seem to appreciate that area, and the amount of work that was accomplished, and certainly it had to be with their help as volunteers. There were a lot of good times, and we were accustomed to work in those days. But the service to the people was uppermost in our minds as compared to being employed in a government service. We worked for the people. It was our only allegiance; when I came back in '55 my only allegiance was to the Queen and the rest was your area, your people, and to do the best to give the most good to the greatest number, with the added admonition that you should be running your area, it shouldn't be running you. 

Judy Reimche
from an interview with Mary Woollam 1988