The Islands Florence Nightingale'
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•*• fcrS IT i. 1 1 - | j & * The Islands Florence Nightingale' n unexpected storm darkens the She was born on the Island and was Awater and lights up the sky over By Boyde Beck and never out of it in all her life! Many Charlottetown Harbour. On the deck of Adele Townshend people here are in the same position the Rocky Point ferry a young boy and are, notwithstanding, amazingly stands beside the chair of an elderly civilized. Mrs. Pope has a governess woman. He is holding her hand. She has for her children, beautiful grounds for asked him to do so, confessing she is their recreation and a capital library. afraid of thunder and lightening. Ironic Georgina was the second youngest that this brave woman, a nurse who of eight children in this typically upper served in two major wars, should be middle class Victorian family. An intelli- afraid of a summer storm. But maybe gent outsider, using the measures of not. Perhaps it is a measure of the price their time, could have forecast the her career has exacted. The flash of probable path her life would take. A lightning and roll of thunder may have young woman of her standing could brought too many memories of another look forward to a certain amount of summer — this one in Flanders — schooling, then marriage to a gentle- when the Great War had added her to man of equal or (hopefully) slightly its tally of casualties. Her passing timid- superior social status. After marriage, ness belies the life she has led. she would devote most of her time to managing her household and bringing up her (hopefully numerous) offspring. The Silver Spoon Spare time and excess energy could be spent on church activities, suitable Cecily Jane Georgina Fane Pope was charities, and the genteel entertain- born on New Year's Day, 1862. Her ments available to those of her stand- upbringing was that of a proper ing. In time, she would help her chil- Victorian lady — one born to a family dren make marriages as proper as her of wealth and distinction. Her father The Popes made their home at own, and look forward to an old age was the Honourable William Henry Ardgowan, one of Charlottetown's most surrounded by respectful grandchil- Pope, one of the most powerful men exquisite estates. "We lived about a dren. Adventure or a professional on Prince Edward Island. A jurist, land mile out of town," recalled brother career did not figure in these estimates. agent and publisher, Pope was also a Joseph in his memoirs, "in a house sur- As with her mother, all that Victorian political manupulator of legendary abil- rounded by grounds laid out with a society would expect or demand of ity and ruthlessness. In the decades good deal of taste by my father, who Georgina Pope was a life in which she just before Confederation, William delighted in landscape gardening. We achieved: "a governess for her chil- Henry Pope was one of the key leaders had a manservant, who with his family dren, beautiful of the Island's occupied a cottage on the grounds, and grounds for their political elite two or three domestics." In 1864, dur- recreation and a — an individ- ing a lull in the Charlottetown capital library." ual to be Conference, George Brown of Upper Who could have feared and Canada described the household: guessed that her reckoned with. Mrs. Pope [Helen DesbrisayJ is a life would take Pope named her, among other "Georgie" after very plain person with a large family of strong, vigorous, intelligent and good places, to a hospi- one of his dis- tal less than fif- tinguished looking children — eight of them all steps and stairs, kicking up a precious teen miles from clients., Lady the bloodiest bat- Fane, the ab- row occasionally. Her grandfather was Governor of the Island, and she is relat- tlefield in the his- sentee propri- tory of war? etor of Lot 29. ed to all the old families upon it. feiE: c ,J: ?p: CiML was "expected." Hospital in Yonkers, N.Y. After 15 In the 1870s, for years of study and work in the United instance, three of States, Georgina Pope was approach- them, Joseph ing a pinnacle in her career. There was and Georgina in- obviously a great demand for adminis- cluded, convert- trators of her calibre. It is apparent ed to Roman that prominent positions were hers for Catholicism. Not the asking. It is also apparent that she an unusual step, was somehow dissatisfied. She had until you consid- met every challenge set her; in 1899 er that their she decided to set one for herself. father was a founding mem- Ardgowan, Pope's childhood home, from a photograph taken inbe r of the Or- South Africa the 1880s. ange Lodge in Charlottetown, It is not known whether it was a sense and was known of patriotism or adventure that brought To be fair, there were early indica- as the most creative Catholic-baiter of Georgina Pope back to Canada. Like so tions that the financial status of the his era. Sometime after her father's many of her compatriots, it was proba- Pope family was not as solid as it death, Georgina made another decision bly a blend of both. The rumour of war appeared. As Joseph remembered, their that departed sharply from her society's between Great Britain and the Boer father was "an excellent guide, council- norms. She would leave the Island. republics of South Africa hung in the lor and friend to many, but a poor judge Indeed, she would leave the country. air, and many Canadians were delight- of his own affairs, while his natural ten- She would pursue, not a marriage but a ed at the prospect. dency to some form of extravagance career. She would be a nurse. It was an era of willful innocence in (he must always have for those dear to It must be remembered that in the attitudes toward war. Preferred descrip- him the best of everything, whether he 1880s nursing had been considered a tions of battle included the poetry of could afford it or not) involved him in "respectable" occupation for only a Rudyard Kipling and exciting, sanitized financial difficulties from which he couple of decades. Nurses, like doc- descriptions in papers like the could never extricate himself." By 1870, tors, were struggling to be recognized Illustrated London News. War was con- the year of Joseph's 16th birthday, "the as true professionals. Training stan- sidered a proving ground, for nations state of my father's finances compelled dards varied widely, as did conditions as well as individuals. Topics like death me to set about earning my own living." in the workplace. Georgina's choice of and dismemberment were only rarely He embarked on a career that, at its training schools demonstrated a deter- brought up, and then only by socialists, peak, would see him regarded as the mination to go as far as she could in pacifists and other such "lunatics and most powerful civil servant in Ottawa. this fledgling profession. However, the economic chaos of the Bellevue Hospital in New York was 1870s continued to batter his father's known as "The Mother of Nursing fortune. In 1879, at the age of 54, Schools in North America." After grad- William Henry died of a stroke: "leaving uating from its programme in 1885, my mother and six sisters in straitened Nurse Pope took a job in charge of a circumstances...." Joseph recalled, private hospital in Washington, D.C. "largely dependent upon my care." Sometime later she moved to that city's Columbia Hospital for Women. Here she began to develop her impres- Nurse Pope sive capacity for organization, adminis- tration, and sheer hard work. As well Victorian society had an alternate life as being the Superintendent of plan for young ladies who had fallen Nursing, she was asked to found a into straightened circumstances. It still school of nursing. Five years later the hinged on making a proper marriage, school was up and running, but Pope but recommended casting further had paid what would become a famil- down the social ranks for prospective iar price. Exhausted by the strain and candidates. If needed, the young long hours, her health collapsed. She woman could take a job, but only a resigned from the hospital and went respectable one (like teaching) and back to New York for a year of post- then only until a husband could be graduate work at Bellevue. Shortly found. Adventure and careers were still after this additional training, she won frowned upon. Society still expected a another position — this time in charge life centered on home and children. of the nursing staff at St. John's The Pope children, however, had already demonstrated a streak of inde- Georgina Fane Pope in nurse's garb, in pendence that flew in the face of what the years before the Boer War. misfits." When war came in 1899, female nurses in Britain extended a call to arms to its base and gener- overseas dominions.* In Canada, thou- al hospitals, but sands of militiamen and other hopeful not in units soldiers clamoured for a place in the close enough to 1000-man strong Canadian Contingent. the enemy to be In addition to this infantry force, the shot at. Since Militia Department also decided to the British com- send a small medical contingent of mand had al- three doctors and four nurses. ready staffed a Georgina Pope was on this muster list. Base Hospital in Though the fact that she was sister Cape Town, it to the powerful Joseph Pope probably sent Pope and did not hurt her application, Georgina her small force Pope was undoubtedly selected on to a General merit.