The Reminder is making its archives back to 2003 available on our website. Please note that, due to technical limitations, archive articles are presented without the usual formatting.
The Company Hospital's first nurse celebrated her 100th birthday on September 16. Irene F. Judd was born at the home farm in North High Bluff, Manitoba, on the 16th of September 1904. She grew up in a family of six brothers and two sisters, attending school in the High Bluff area. In 1923 she left for Winnipeg to train to be a nurse at the Children's Hospital which was located just off North Main on Redwood Avenue. She graduated in 1926 and was presented with the General Proficiency Award. This award was $25 (five $5 gold coins) and she managed to save one of these coins and still has it. Irene first worked in the Operating Room at the Children's Hospital but soon moved on to hospitals in Rosetown and Melville, Saskatchewan and Sioux Lookout, Ontario. In June of 1929, while at home she received a wire from her sister, Lila, who was working in The Pas. It seemed that Dr. Guttormsson in Flin Flon required the help of a nurse. That spring the Legislative Assembly in Manitoba had passed a law making it compulsory to have all employees inoculated for typhoid and vaccinated for small pox. So Irene ? or Judy as she had become known ? arrived to become the first nurse at the Company Hospital in Flin Flon and on hand to help the doctor with this task, which also included a physical examination. Since there were a few hundred men on the Company's payroll at that time, it was a mammoth operation for these two people. Of course, most of the employees were big, husky miner types, but at the sight of that 4' 11 1/2" nurse with the needle, they fainted on the spot! Soon after arriving in Flin Flon "Judy" met a young man working at the Hudson Bay Mining & Smelting offices, D. B. "Mac" McGilvray. They were married at the home of Judy's parents in St. Norbert, Manitoba, on November 15, 1930. Mac and Judy made their first home at Company Cottage #9 but shortly after moved to #15 before the birth of their first child, Margaret, and following the strike in 1934 a son, William, was born. Both of these births took place at home. Their final home until Mac's retirement in 1966 was Company Cottage #1 and at that time they moved to 17 Hapnot Street. See 'Enjoyed' P.# Con't from P.# In September 1973 they made the "big" move to Winnipeg, where Mac passed away on March 3, 1981, just a few months after they had celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. Irene has continued to live in the apartment on Grant Avenue where they first moved to on arrival from the North. Through the years in Flin Flon Irene served on the Girl Guide Association, Flin Flon Nurses' Association, North Star Rebekah Lodge (she has her 50 year medal), was a Sunday school teacher at Northminster United Church ? which at that time was located on Church Street at the present site of the Labour Temple, and enjoyed being a member of a Rammoli group and a mixed Bridge club. She always enjoyed skating down at the Main Rink where at that time there was music for the crowd who enjoyed this pastime. The family purchased a summer cabin at Phantom Lake in 1946 ? a nice walk from town since they did not have a car. During the period of World War II there was a shortage of nurses locally and Judy was "pressured" into returning to her chosen career, as a "special" nurse. She continued this work until after Mac retired in 1966. There are many folks in the Flin Flon area who will remember being cared for by this nurse. Her great enjoyment was always caring for those in the hospital. A celebration honouring Irene (Judy) turning 100 was hosted by her family ? Margaret, Murray, Bill and Marilyn ? and held on the 16th of September in the Norwood Hotel in Winnipeg. She was joined by her three remaining brothers (Jim, Albert and Harry Judd) and a McGilvray sister-in-law (Jan) as well as her three grandchildren (Karen, David and Andrea McGilvray) and two of her great grandchildren (Sabrine and Lucas), as well as many nieces and nephews, her Bridge club, and a few very dear friends. She was the recipient of numerous congratulatory cards and floral greetings as well as those sent from Queen Elizabeth II, Governor General Adrianne Clarkson, Lt.-Governor John Harvard and Premier Gary Doer, as well as from various Manitoba politicians. Irene continues to live in the apartment on Grant Avenue, looking after it herself, keeping busy in the kitchen and enjoying her walks (now in the good weather only) and cards with the Bridge club ladies.
