With the push for nurse practitioners to serve as first point of contact for Saskatchewan residents, particularly in rural areas, it seems a great time to remind Saskatchewan that we were leaders in a unique venture: the Red Cross Outpost Hospital movement.
My Dad, Sargent McGowan. was driving down the Paddockwood highway from Northside east, heading for Candle Lake and points north. It was somewhere in the later 1990s. Beside him in the truck was a prospector colleague, and they were chatting.
As the truck crested the last hill before the Paddockwood cemetery, they passed a local ‘point of interest’ sign. The colleague looked across at the stone cairn on the side of the road. The cairn is protected by a roof, once painted with the iconic red cross on a white background, the international symbol of the Red Cross.
‘What is that marker for?’ he asked as Dad sped past.
Dad looked at him. ‘It marks the place where I was born.’
The prospector let out a scornful guffaw. ‘Ah, shit, Sarge, it does not. What’s it for?’
Dad slammed on the brakes. ‘It marks where I was born.” He put the truck in reverse. “I’ll prove it to you.’
Of course, the cairn doesn’t specifically mention that it’s the birthplace of Sargent McGowan. The stone cairn marks the original site of the Paddockwood Red Cross Outpost Hospital.
And that is indeed where Sargent McGowan was born.
The hospital, according to the Paddockwood history book published in 1982, was the first such outpost hospital erected throughout the entire British Empire. It was built in 1920 and served the community for close to thirty years.
The story of how it came to be at Paddockwood is rooted in the way the British Empire came together in patriotism to fight WWI, and support the Red Cross. The burgeoning district of Paddockwood was chosen as a major soldier settlement area in post WWI Saskatchewan — for soldiers already from Canada, and those from Britain searching for a fresh start.
The Soldier Settlement Board of Canada had learned hard lessons from the homesteading settlement phase in western Canada. Those lessons were rooted in three truths: one, farming is a skill that must be learned; two, farm success requires good land and good capital; and three, homesteading is incredibly hard on women and families.
Soldiers choosing to take land in the Paddockwood area would qualify for both their soldier settlement quarters of 160 acres, plus their homestead quarter of 160 acres. The larger half section land base, it was thought, would help soldiers establish their farms more quickly. The Board checked the soil, set up intensive training and classes, screened the applicants, and set up loans.
The land was also covered in trees, which quickly became a major cash crop. Settlers would cut the trees and sell it as cordwood fuel for city residents to heat their homes and cook their food.
It’s that third lesson — that homesteading is incredibly hard on women and families — that pushed the federal government to add the Home Services Branch of the Soldier Settlement Board. The Home Branch was tasked with addressing all things related to the ‘home,’ specifically providing training, classes, and other support for wives and mothers of the returning soldiers settling onto remote farms.
The Home Branch quickly identified medical care as a major need. The devastating lessons of the homesteading era showed how much accessible medical care mattered. The idea was also rooted in a time when medical care, particularly maternity care, was the realm of women. Women knew how many lives were saved when homesteads could access a nurse or a midwife.
The Home Services branch of the Prince Albert soldier settlement board worked with the Victorian Order of Nurses, the provincial Red Cross, and representatives from the Paddockwood soldier settlement area to devise the Red Cross Outpost Hospital scheme.
The Red Cross committed to equipping the outposts, and the Victorian Order of Nurses set about finding staff. The community accepted the challenge of finding a site and erecting the building.
Plans progressed. It was important that the settlement showed need, as in, enough people to justify the investment, and enough distance from the nearest medical centre. In a newspaper article January 28th, 1920, Miss Margaret McKillop, home branch director at Prince Albert, reported that a hospital means added security for the 700-800 people already in the area that it would support. “At present, all serious cases, maternity and injuries, have to be moved many miles over poor roads and taken to the hospital in Prince Albert at great expense. It need not be pointed out that money is very scarce among the pioneers….I’m safe to saying between 40 and 50 expected [maternity] cases between now and next May.”
The Paddockwood settlers, all for the idea, wanted to ensure that the hospital would be in a central location. There was a small townsite, but the promised rail line was neither announced nor surveyed. So, they waited.
In the meantime, Paddockwood residents found a suitable house where the intended nurse could go and stay, while waiting for the hospital to be built, to get started on providing medical care. Miss Reeve (another article said Reed), a Saskatchewan woman and graduate of Saskatoon nursing hospital, came north and started working in the settlement.
Then, fundraising. The community needed to raise funds to buy needed building supplies — most of which had to be shipped out from Prince Albert by wagon, thirty miles over rough trails and rivers. The community, led by a committee of Mrs. L. McLean, Lorne Merrell, Pat O’Hea and J. Telfer, came up with their commitment of $1000, but that still fell short of what was needed.
With the war in the immediate rear view mirror, the settlement knew it had a large, potentially excellent audience — with pocketbooks — right on their doorstep. As a soldier settlement, they could pull the heartstrings of patriotism. They planned a door-to-door campaign in Prince Albert.
The editor of the Prince Albert Daily Herald on May 3rd worked hard to whip up excitement and get people to open their hearts and wallets. “The new hospital will be an advance post in the attack by modern humanity on the kingdom of pain.” He went on: “In Prince Albert there are many veterans of the homesteads, men and women who wrested a livelihood, then a patrimony from the soil in the old days. None knew better than they what homesteading means when loved ones are sick and medical aid too far away.”
Between the patriotism and the excitement of creating a new way to support local medical care, the canvassers were successful, raising the needed funds and more. As the community started building the hospital, nursing duties passed to Miss Beckett of Shell Lake, who soon found herself immersed in calls.
The hospital was planned with two wards, plus living quarters for the charge nurse. Measuring a generous 28 by 32 feet, with a second story and a basement, the community took all summer to complete and finish the structure.
Then, the Red Cross swooped in. It’s one thing to furnish a homestead. It’s quite something else to completely furnish and outfit a working hospital. From linens to beds, desks and medicine, medical instruments and supplies, all the way through stoves, a fully outfitted kitchen and all the other furniture, lights, and decorations, there was a lot to do. Some of the hospital’s supplies came from surplus war supplies; the rest were purchased and moved out.
The Red Cross sent in Miss C.I. Stewart of the provincial Red Cross Society to oversee the final preparations and take over as charge nurse. She took her job seriously, even to varnishing and scrubbing the floors. Stewart had served overseas as a war nurse in Salonika and France, which afforded her a determination to continue to find ways to support service men.
The outpost generated considerable interest. E. Cora Hind, the famous agricultural journalist at the Manitoba Free Press, toured through Prince Albert region in late summer 1920 and made a point of stopping in to view the outpost hospital. Lt. Col. J. Wilson stopped by and was visiting with Miss Stewart and admiring the almost-finished hospital when a knock on the door sent Stewart off to help a settler with a sudden illness.
The hospital was officially opened on Friday, October 1st with a come-and-go tea and open house in the afternoon. Visitors found that the hospital had already been christened by its first birth: baby Hambleton made his appearance two nights before. Citizens followed the opening festivities by a dance at the local Paddockwood hall.
The Paddockwood Red Cross Outpost Hospital shines like sunshine on the waters of local memory. In its nearly thirty years of operation, its charge nurses mended and repaired outpatients, acted as midwives for numerous local births, triaged more serious illness and injury to Prince Albert, and acted as a centre for the community. From tonsil removal to mushroom poisoning to buzz saw wounds in the back, the hospital saw nearly everyone.
In the depths of the 1930s, when Paddockwood’s star shone bright as a haven for dust-weary prairie denizens searching for rain, the hospital saw its busiest years. As a community-owned hospital, payment for services adapted to the local cordwood and barter economy. Many paid their hospital bills with chickens, beef, vegetables, and cordwood.
Both of my parents, several aunts and uncles, and numerous other relatives were born in the hospital. Later, another uncle purchased the building and moved it to his farm east of Paddockwood. He and my aunt renovated and it became their family home. My brother remembers going to the farm to help reshingle the roof — and seeing the distinctive Red Cross painted on the original shingles. My cousins tell stories of ghosts, particularly a nurse who would check in on them at night.
In about 2003, I received a call from Mrs. Ruth Dulmage Shewchuk. Ruth had been the last nurse at the hospital, tasked with closing it down. She worked with Paddockwood local resident Betty Elliott, who had nursed at the Red Cross Outpost Hospital in Buffalo Narrows. The two coordinated a reunion, held at the Paddockwood hospital-turned-house. They created a scrapbook with pictures and memories. Ruth then asked if I would write about her experiences. I did, and they were published in Saskatchewan History. When she passed away in 2004, Ruth Shewchuk’s files were passed to the Provincial Archives of Saskatchewan.
When I worked as a contract writer for the Encyclopedia of Saskatchewan, published in 2005, I requested — and received — permission to craft a short article on the Red Cross Outpost Hospital program in Saskatchewan. I ended that article with a list of all the outpost hospitals that had been built and operated across Saskatchewan:
“RED CROSS OUTPOST HOSPITALS
In 1920, the first Red Cross Outpost Hospital in the British Empire was built at Paddockwood, Saskatchewan. This post-WORLD WAR I Red Cross program served small, remote communities (often soldier-settlement areas) unable to afford municipal hospitals. Built and maintained by the communities, these hospitals were staffed and supplied by the Red Cross. This successful partnership led to a total of twenty-four outposts in Saskatchewan, over 200 across Canada, and more around the world. A “Nurse-in-Charge,” not a resident doctor, managed each hospital and lived in the community full-time. With the nearest doctor typically thirty or more miles away, Charge Nurses delivered babies, stitched wounds, administered medicine, set bones, treated fevers, gave vaccinations, and offered practical medical advice. Often forced by circumstance to make diagnoses and prescribe treatment in a doctor’s stead, these nurses worked admirably outside the bounds of accepted nursing practice. The Red Cross name and flag gave instant recognition, and promoted trust for people of all nationalities. By 1946, over 37,000 inpatients and 27,000 outpatients had been treated in Saskatchewan outposts, with 8,800 births recorded. Over the years, as communities matured and transportation improved, each hospital was turned over to community management or closed. Saskatchewan’s Red Cross Outpost Hospitals included, in order of establishment: Paddockwood, Carragana, Bengough, Eastend, Cutknife, Meadow Lake, Willow Bunch, Kelvington, Big River, Lucky Lake, Broderick, Wood Mountain, Bracken, Nipawin, Tuberose, Rabbit Lake, Rockglen, Loon Lake, Endeavour, Pierceland, Leoville, Hudson Bay Junction, Arborfield, and Buffalo Narrows.”
When I started my PhD research in 2006, I went home to visit and interview older neighbors and friends. One, Iona Locke, quietly pushed across the table a softcover large black ledger. I opened it, then stopped in shock. It was the original ledger for the hospital, from 1920 right through to the end of the 1940s.
As I flipped through, I could see that the ledger, precious as it was, was only partial. Charge nurses only recorded those patients who required overnight care in the hospital. Outpatients — stitches, wound cleaning, advice, setting a broken arm, stopping a nosebleed — were not recorded.
Nonetheless, it contains the birth record of so many people that I knew, growing up. Iona said, it’s time for this to go to a safe place. I made a photocopy of the whole book for research purposes, then donated the precious item to the University of Saskatchewan archives.
And my Dad? Well, he passed away from cancer in 2005. He is buried in the Paddockwood Cemetery — just a few hundred yards from the very place where he was born.
I love local history because of stories like this one! Thank you so much for your efforts to preserve memories (and objects like the precious ledger) that might otherwise disappear.