Eunice Dyke, health care pioneer : from pioneer public health nurse to advocate for the aged

255 Pages·1983·13.83 MB·English

by  Marion V Royce

Eunice Dyke
Health Care Pioneer
From Pioneer Public Health Nurse
to Advocate for the Aged
by Marion Royce
Dundurn Press
Tbronto and Charlottetown
1983
Copyright © Marion Victoria Royce, 1983
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval
system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying,
recording, or otherwise (except brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior
permission of Dundurn Press Limited.
Editor: Bernice Lever
Design and production: Ron and Ron Design Photography
Typesetting: Computype
Printing: Editions Marquis, Montmagny, Quebec
The publication of this book was made possible by support from several sources. The author
and publisher wish to acknowledge the generous assistance and ongoing support of the
Canada Council and the Ontario Arts Council.
J. Kirk Howard, Publisher
Canadian Cataloguing in Publication Data
Royce, Marion V. (Marion Victoria), 1901-
Eunice Dyke, health care pioneer
(Dundurn lives; 3)
Bibliography: p.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-919670-67-9 (bound). - ISBN 0-919670-64-4 (pbk.)
1. Dyke, Eunice, 1883-1969. 2. Public health nurses
— Canada — Biography. 3. Aged — Services for —
Canada - Biography. I. Title. II. Series.
RT37.D9R6 610.73'4'0924 C83-098544-1
Eunice Dyke
Health Care Pioneer
Prom Pioneer Public Health Nurse
to Advocate for the Aged
This page intentionally left blank
In Memory of My Two Sisters
Jean 1904-1982
and
Catherine 1909-1972
Eunice Henrietta Dyke, 1909
Contents
Preface 8
Foreword 11
A Prologue to Public Health Nursing 13
1. Eunice Henrietta Dyke 31
2. A Mammoth Undertaking 41
3. Fresh Challenges 61
4. An International Figure 79
5. After Paris 93
6. The Consuming Concern 105
7. Arousing Public Awareness 119
8. Collapse of a Career 135
9. A Rockefeller Fellowship 155
10. Return to Canada 173
11. Six Months Trial 191
12. Further Ventures 204
13. A New Way of Life 217
14. Her Last Days 232
Notes 236
Dyke and Ryrie Family trees 248
Illustration and Photograph credits 251
Index 252
Preface
It was photographs of early public health nurses in
Tbronto that led me to Eunice Henrietta Dyke. She, I later
learned, was one of those young women in tailored suits,
with fitted jackets and floor-length skirts, wearing sensible
hats and white blouses, complete with four-in-hand ties, and
carrying black 'doctor' bags. The nurse might be standing
at the door of a poor dwelling talking with a woman plainly
in awe of so austere, yet kindly a person; or, dressed in a
white cover-all, weighing babies in a clinic while anxious
mothers looked on; or again, teaching a group of small girls
how to bathe a baby, obviously a rather large doll. Some shots
were taken in a classroom where the nurse was talking on a
health subject, or assisting a doctor as he examined chil-
dren hoping to go to camp. The photographs piqued my
curiosity. Here was a dimension of the nursing profession
that expanded my image of the traditional nurse. On
enquiry, I was told that the Nursing Division of the Depart-
ment of Public Health had kept scrupulous records of its
work of which 'Miss Dyke' had laid the foundation.
So began a search of many facets in which I have
depended strongly on those and other records in the City of
Tbronto Archives, whose staff have been helpful far beyond
the claims of duty. I have had access, also, to other archival
collections in the city: the University of Tbronto Archives,
the Library of the Academy of Medicine, hospital and church
archives, files of the Canadian Red Cross Society and papers
of the Family Service Bureau of Metropolitan Ibronto. In
addition, the Reference Library of Metropolitan Tbronto and
the Municipal Library have turned up useful sources,
including newspapers on microfilm and contemporary pam-
phlets. In Ottawa, I consulted records of the Library of the
Canadian Nurses Association, and papers of the Canadian
Welfare Council in the Public Archives of Canada. Requests
for information sent to Simmons College, Boston, and to the
8
Archives of the Rockefeller Foundation in Poughkeepsie,
New %rk, were graciously answered, and an enquiry about
conditions in Saskatchewan during the early years of the
Depression brought a generous response from the Saskatch-
ewan Archives Board in the University of Regina.
Later in her life, Miss Dyke, aware of the rapid demo-
graphic changes in Canadian society, devoted her energies to
emerging needs of the elderly They were living longer and
had begun to represent a growing proportion of the popula-
tion. %t little consideration had been given to their health
and welfare and how they were to maintain dignity and self-
respect. Not even the helping professions, medicine and
social work, had come to grips with the changing circum-
stances of their lives. Working with a group of older women,
later including men also, she became increasingly aware of
these shortcomings in social organization. A doer as well as
a thinker, she was instrumental in founding the first associ-
ation of senior citizens in Tbronto, and she spent her last
active years giving birth to ideas that forecast later develop-
ments in the field of geriatrics. This preoccupation together
with her earlier responsibilities in public health nursing
engaged most of her adult life and are, therefore, the main
substance of this work.
Sketches of Tbronto's efforts toward health control in
the 19th century and of the role of the tuberculosis nurse,
antecedent of the public health nurse, have been included to
lend historical perspective to the achievements of a new era.
Not having known Miss Dyke, with few personal let-
ters and no diaries to draw upon, I owe a special debt to
people who knew her, some of whom must not go unmen-
tioned: Miss Florence Emory, LL.D., Miss Mary Millman
and Miss Violet Carroll, all three of whom were nurses
whom Miss Dyke selected as early members of her staff in
the Nursing Division of the Department of Public Health. I
have had advice and help, also, from Miss Eileen Cryder-
man, one of her later appointees, who became Director of the
Division. Miss Dyke's nieces, Miss Jean West and Mrs.
Catherine Barrick, filled in family background; Dr. Hast-
ings' daughter, Mrs. Audrey Williams, told me what she
remembers about her father's association with Miss Dyke;
Miss Bessie Tbuzel, a social worker who was associated with
Miss Dyke during several periods of her life, helped me place
9