Autobiography of William Anthony Paddon who worked for more than 30 years as a pioneer doctor with the Grenfell Mission in Labrador.

The best-selling biography of Wilfred Grenfell, back in print.

Dr Wilfred Grenfell, physician and folk hero, recruited thousands of volunteer workers for his Newfoundland and Labrador seamen's mission, many of them Americans from Ivy League institutions. As the medical mission grew to become the International Grenfell Association, establishing institutions along the Labrador and northern Newfoundland coasts, Americans also became resident staff leaders in the region, and Grenfell himself married an American, Anne MacClanahan, who led mission activities. The Grenfell Medical Mission and American Support in Newfoundland and Labrador, 1890s-1940s reveals the nature and extent of support from Americans throughout the distributed privately run social enterprise until the 1940s, before the region joined Canada. Essays explore the organization's claims to share an Anglo-Saxon heritage with the United States, American reaction to its financial scandal and creation of an incorporated association, its promotion of sport and masculinity, and the development of education and schools in the region and the mission. The organization's strong ties to the United States are exemplified by Grenfell's friendship with American physician John Harvey Kellogg; the donation of clothing from American donors; the work of one American woman on her affiliated mission unit; the impact of American philanthropy and training on the construction of the mission's main hospital in St Anthony; and the superior American-accredited health care facilities and their clinical achievements. From its corporate base in New York City, the International Grenfell Association blended contemporary social movements and adopted American notions of philanthropy. The Grenfell Medical Mission and American Support in Newfoundland and Labrador, 1890s-1940s offers the first thorough history of an iconic health and social organization in Atlantic Canada.

When British doctor Wilfred Grenfell arrived in Newfoundland in 1892 to provide medical service to migrant fisherman, he had no clear sense of who his patients were or how they lived - a few weeks on the Labrador coast changed that. Struck by both the rugged beauty of the place and the difficulties faced by those who lived there, Grenfell devoted the rest of his life to improving theirs. At first an evangelical missionary of the Royal National Mission to Deep Sea Fisherman, Grenfell became part of philanthropic movements on both sides of the Atlantic. Raising funds in Canada and the United States, he founded a network of hospitals, nursing stations, schools, and home industries that exists in a modified form to this day. In 1908, the story of his survival after a night marooned on a drifting patch of ice transformed him into a popular hero. He eventually became one of the most successful lecturers of his time. Ronald Rompkey tells the story of Grenfell's education, his Anglo-Saxonism, and his devotion to broader issues of hygiene and public health. Above all, Rompkey shows that Grenfell went beyond being a doctor or a missionary to become a cultural politician who intervened in a colonial culture. Grenfell of Labrador provides a vivid picture of the man himself and the social movements through which he worked.

Autobiography of Wilfred T. Grenfell, M.D., Labrador's famous missionary doctor.

Like other children of the 1930s, I read about the adventures of Sir Wilfred Grenfell, who worked among fishermen in a very cold, icy place way up north called Newfoundland and Labrador . . . It was many years later, during my student-nursing days at Columbia-Presbyterian, that I really learned what the Grenfell Mission was all about. I was intrigued at the thought of, someday, using my nursing skills there. After graduating in 1951, I remained at the medical centre for another year of nursing experience. In that time, I had gotten tired of the large city and yearned for a more adventurous working environment. Those earlier seeds about the Grenfell persona had sprouted. In the summer of 1952, I met with the International Grenfell Association secretary and signed up as an assistant nurse in St. Anthony. The seed that had been planted so many years before had finally blossomed and would lead me to great adventures. Adventures of a Grenfell Nurse is a riveting collection of stories that share the experiences of a Grenfell nurse in the early 1950s in the subarctic climate of Newfoundland and Labrador: a train wreck, a dogsled trip, the delivery of a baby on board a coastal steamship, a harrowing sailing experience, a near-shipwreck in gale-force winds, and much more!

Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. We are republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork.