HomeMy WebLinkAboutThe Seaforth News, 1938-08-18, Page 7THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 1938
THE SEAFORTH NEWS
PAGE SEVEN
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DR. GRENFELL
Ancient and leaky, ice -battered, in-
domitable, !11000 •fishing schooners ev-i
ery year used to put-out of the har-
bors of INew'foundland and southern'
Labrador, as soon as the ice left
them, for six months of fishing "on
the Labrador," famous for fogs, gales
and icebergs. To these craft some ,30,-
000 fishermen and their families trust-
ed their 'lives. Birth, sickness, and
death tookplace at sea, or on desert-
ed shores. Superannuated ships com-
monly sprang leaks and sank in a few(
minutes, Every year many died of
gangrene from accidents that could
not he treated. A toothache went ons
until it got (better—or ended in ecrosis
of the jaw. Rickety children were al-
lowed helplessly to pass the incurable
point. Only frames • of iron escaped
beriberi, scurvy, pneumonia, and to
berculosis.
On !August 4, 1I&92, the fleet, lying
in Domino Run, ran up greeting 'flag
as a little ketch -rigged British ihospi
tal ship, the first ever to visit this
floating city of hoping and suffering
humanity, sped in on a fair breeze.
There were cheers and salutes, visits
and explanations. When the courtesies
were over, to the hospital ship's one
medicine man, 'Wilfred Thomason
Grenfell, cane a hail from a miseralble
little tub.
"Be you a real doctor?"
"That's what I call myself."
'Us hasn't got no money," fenced
the helmsman, "but there's a very sick
ratan ashore, if so ,be you'd conte and
see him,"
Dr. Grenfell went ashore on his
first case in the New World. In a ho-
vel he found a tubercular man in the
last stages of pneumonia, six neglect-
ed children huddled in a corner, with
only a future of starvation before
titent.
Few in Labrador and northern
Newfoundland ever sought medical
aid (when. any was available) until the
situation was practically hopeless. Be-
fore health could become anything
like as prevalent as disease and maim-
ed limbs and early death, a popula-
tion scattered over a thousand miles
of dangerous coast would have to be
educated in hygiene and child care,
would have to unlearn agcold super= the resolve to be a 'fighting Christian,
stitions. The whole economic life who began the •betterment of his lel-
would have to ibe reconstructed. low man by patching up his body. Blit
In that enlightened year, 1&92, he wanted to go on, .providing decent
there was nobody in the region who resthouses for sailors on shore, enter -1
had the vision and the will to alter a taininent to vie with that of the bar!
whole country, from its monetary sys- and the !brothel, and economic self -re -
tem to its spiritual 'outlook, except spec -t.
Wilfred Grenfell, 127 years old. These were the principles Grenfell
Grenfell was born on the Sands of brought to Labrador and to that frost-(
bitten, barren • eninsula of Newfound-
tl7ee in Cheshire, (IJt>glaud, As a child bP'
fishermen to start their own stores,
purchasing aid selling collectively. At
the first meeting called to discuss the
project, the old traders, bitterly anta-
gonistic, packed the meeting, took rap
every moment of discussion with de -
cations. Outside, the fishermen deci-
ided that there must be something in
these "copper stores" that the traders
were so afraid of them. But Grenfell
found that he had to lend his friends
the capital ($10,000) with which to
start.
With time, a chain of small co-op-
eratives was doing business along the
coast, Not all were honestly or wisely
run. One day the St. john's merchants
from whom the .supplies: were pur-
chased game down on the Labrador
Doctor for $215.000 unpaid bills. Le-
gally, it appeared, Grenfell was .o'leiv
responsible. A beautiful new schoon-
er, his personal property, had just ar-
rived. He sold her as she dropped
anchor, and threw in every scrap of
personal property. The remaining and
reorganized co-operatives are now
owned by the fishermen themselves
and have paid ae high as W percent
dividends to tEttir shareholders.
(On the day that 'George V was
crowned, he pressed a button and laid
the cornerstone of the "King George
V Seamen's Institute," built by Sir
Wilfrid through the generous help of
many friends, in St. John's ((New-
foundland's capital), for fishermen
and for their daughters who come to
the city. When in 1907 the main hos-
pital at St. Anthony was rebuilt in
fireproof construction, crowning .1
lifetime's achievement, George V
knighted the Labrador Doctor, and he
became Sir Wilfred Grenfell, Knight
Commander of St. Michael and St.
George; and the Lake Forest girl,
Lady Grenfell.
Among Sir Wilfred'., successes have
been the flourishing ve.gettutles gard-
ens, the introduction of cows and
sheep, the lumber mill, and above all
the orphanage.. Grenfell found that
it took years of explaining, of exhaust-
ing lecture tours, to get people to see
that orphans will shout spontaneous
hymn of gratitude to their Maker if
you so improve their economic status
that they can get job. and support
themselves. Nothing bac paid such
sound return as the orphans. Years
ago Grenfell found himself with one
abandoned baby, He had to hring it
back to the orphanage on a hospital
ship manned only •hy sailors. The baby
got into everything. In a terrible sea
it wriggled out of the swinging cot
into which it had been lashed and was
found in the scuppers playing peek -a -
baa with the aging Atlantis, This
dauntless foundling was one of the
pioneers of the St. Anthony orphan-
age. Today the brightest children are
sent to the States or Canada for a
higher education and came back as
nurses, teachers, electrical engineers,
carpenters, to labor among their own.
people. Most have paid hack to the.
Grenfell Association dividends in hu-
man service for what it cost to shel-
ter and educate them.
The biggest r i m ss men of New i
York. Bostn. Ottaca and Lonitt
act as trustees for the finanti'1 hetpl
that, in (renfeli's name, 81.:acs n.,
ward t Lahra,lw and northern Ne•a-
f•'un:iland; they (pit their affairs to
attend annual meeting; in New York.
Yum.; men and w:,tnen who ._i c e
stren.t't and intellect aad heart are
iroed to say they -erred with ;leen-
.el' in the North. The Grenfell
ciati:+n of Arnerica, with office, at JSo
Fifth :avenue, New York, manages
the cause in the States.
The Grenfell personality h• s been,
otrt i.y, tit..taltr :c' s-
in the !nighty i,t+'ues= that his priet;-
cai ha, !te.onie. Sh__.
'imniness lets tli-armed enemies
met hits!. His eintin,r snare, pis @,:
fll'g sense tt !minor, his (nen -,ey t:..
el to the doors si.tha lifetime of eal-
sedes hazardous, funny, or heart-
breaking, charm from haul -headed
Business men the needed river of gold
flow northward. •
Teetotaler, Bible scholar shirts or-
ganizer, the Lahrador Doetor ha-
the
ia,
tit • old-fashioned virtues, and pltntc
of peeeadilloes to salt them. He is v
tittles excruciatingly ab ent-minds.
and considers precise punctuality a
tore, :Manlike, he never reads nottls:
se admires the "Men of Action" .r-
es. For Incsihe has no ear. H s
!vie tells of hint that when the church
organ rolled "All People that' tin
Earth Do Dwell,"he stood up loc.tl-
y to what he supposed was "God
Save the King."
How, in the lonely years, did this
non fight the battle of eitilization it -
ell 'f against reactionary intducnce s?
wasn't will alone, though it couldn't
lave been done withont optimism that
to cliseouraf^genteut could crush opt. It
has dteen an insatiable zest for life, for
t'hc sheer adventure of the conflict,
hat made Grenfell accomplish nlore'
ban any one man who had do state
reasury. no (gun, and .only the
sketchiest official authority at his
tack. He says, "Life is .short. Things
have to be crowded into it."
An iron constitution taw Sir 4V'i1-
Fred through the 'worst, a constitution
that sleepless :lights and grinding
on that treacherous estuary he had
known fishing ships fail to conte back
after great storms, Though 'lee was
the son •of a• Church of England der -
land that points with a granite 'finger
at the arctic seas. At sea or ashore)
starvation threatened. An icy •climate 1
grips a .barren soil where grew no ce-i
gyman, the (blood of old sea 'figh'ters. 'reals and few vegetables or cultivated
was in hisl'veins. He traces descent 'fruits, When sheep or cows were first,
brought to this grim land they were
from Sir Richard Grenville who sailed � I
out 0115211) in the little Revenge and slain :by the fierce sledge -dogs. At sea.
gave (battle to SO gigantic 'Spanish gal- the power -driven boats of "Southern"
leans, whipped, shamed, and sank companies were sweeping the seals
them by the score, and died on his into oblivion, slaughtering the young
own quarter-deck.
The schooling of Wilfred Grenfell
was the accepted type of the ,day in
England. Even a second-grade medi-
cal college today would look with
that could not swim. In the forested
hinterland the ancient fur trade was
dwindling, And for ceneuries the Hud -
sons 13ay Company had held the trap-
pers in its economie control; it never
paid cash for furs; payment was either
scorn on the beat training a physician in kind or in "counters," pod only at
could then obtain. Doctors operated Company stores.
in ,bloodstained frock coats; carrying - There were then no agencies of
gangrene from patient to patient, talk- mercy on the Labrador, except the
ed about 'laudable :pus.' For the young mercy
Brethren and a few clergy,
medical students wenching, drinking, their influence weakened by inter -de -
non -attendance on classes or rowdy ttarnininf lue l rivalry, weakened
hat was need -
behavior during lectures were all too ed w•as a •permanent Red Cross, a
often considered normal behavior. Salvation Army, circulation of free
But from the rowdier student life, las- money, and a few cool millions in ca-
pital to start lumbering and quarrying
industries to alternate With fish and
fur, a chain of hospitals, orphanages,
and non -denominational schools, and
a whole corps of doctors and nurses.
What carne was Wilfred Grenfell.
_tad Was situated. He saw •plenty of the Atter two years of lonely battling,
effects of drunkenness. Women who the,frante of this young man working
had gashed each other's scalps open against the suspicion and calumny of
old or vested interests, was spreading
with broken (bottles, men with ease- through :Newfoundland and Canada.
um tremens, seduced and warped diseased, Ir a few years more the United States
girls, children hopelessly wanped front, teas aroused.'INurses and young thec-
ae
starvation by the rule of the bot- :tors went north for the short sub -arc -
implacable
.in the home, made •him early an
implacable ,foe of alcohol.
Returning one night from an out-
patient case, he stepped into a big tent
where Moody and Sankey were hold-
stidiaus young Wilfred held himself
aloof. Believing firmly in the bodily
and spiritual prophylaxis of spirt, he
organized rowing, swimming, cricket,
football and tennis among his fellow
students, and among the tough boys
of East End London, where his hospi-
tic summer. ' Boats for hospital duty,
for traveling library duty, Were don-
ated. And "boys from Harvard, Yale,
Princeton, Brawn, and - Johns Hop-
kips, looking for adventure in their
ing a revival meeting. A tedious pray- vacations, put heart and muscle into
er-'b'ore• was maundering ou, and the Sisyphus tack. Presently Grenfell
•Grenfell gat up to leave. The watchful had a chain of small hospitals, cover -
Dwight Moody saw hint and called ing nearly a thousand miles of coast -
nut, "Let tis sing a hymn while our line, connected by hospital ship. Mad -
brought
he finyo, his prayer," his'ern surgeons proudly gave their serve
brought the young doctor ,back to h'stlees to Grenfell's fishermen and half -
seat, in admiration of the leader's breed Eskimos and Indians,
"practical Christianity." "When I All the time 'Grenfell never lost
left," says Grenfell, "it was with the himself in executive red tape, Though
determination to make religion a .real he was the responsible head of half a
'effort or frankly to abandon it, That dozen ventures, institutions, and in -
could have but one' issue while I lived dustries, he was still personally on
i with a mother like mine." All his, life call at any instant to attend to any
his Christianity has been vigoratisly (body's needs, from a young man with
•
..aactive. 'In a grog shoph
he knocked out love troubles to burying an unmarried
blasphemer. When he .put to sea to ship's drudge who had died at sea of
do duty on a hospital ship with the a premature birth. Over her grace he
North Sea fishing fleet, it was with placed a cross on which wag carved:
Jesus said, "Neither do I condemn
thee."
Racing across a frozen bay- to save
a boy's life, the Labrador Doctor
found that his dogs were carrying
hint over "sish" ice, a treacherous
crackled and rotting cruet over death}
waters, As they sank tbr,'t.a, 1e
sprang off his sledge and let the d,ge
fight their way to the biggest ;'an ,
ice he could see, dragging him
through - the water by the traces ties(
to his wrists. - Coatless, hatless, and
bootless he lived the- night through by
killing three of the dogs far the
warmth of their skins. \Wien morn,
ing broke he was drifting rapidly to
sea where ice pans were grinding up
and down and crushing; each other to
bit,. Making a flag of bit last remain-
ing garment, his shirt, '!se •tacea for
tars at the receding c!iks, but no
one seemed rat see him.. Actually. ,31-1
shore, the whole village was wringing
its hands for its Guardian Angel. A
last, in such an ice -covered sea as 1101
even these modern Vikings had ever
before attempted, his rescuers, speech-
less with emotion, grasped his hands.
On • that shore stilt stand= a bronze
tablet that Grenfell erected "To the
memory of three noble dogs, Moody.
Watch, and Spy, whose live. were g
e sen for !nine on the ice, April
190&,"
Next -summer Grenfell luetit hack
to England and brought his mother
over for a visit to the New World.
Even on the old Mauretania, queen of i
the seas, Mrs. Grenfell suffered from,
seas -sickness, and this left her 4011 z
free •handl with a beautiful pa
senger. With New York drawing ever 1
nearer .Grenfell proposed to tate,girl
not even knowing her -tame,
This -was Miss Anne Elizabeth 1
Caldwell ,AfacClanahan of Lake For
est, Illinois. Tlsat (November they
were married. It was its a subzero,' 1
death -white 'January that Grenfell t
bride first saw (Newfoundland. \Vd
feed Jr., id years old, teaches at St.l.
Marks School for boys. Two .years.t
younger, 1Kinlach Pascoe is an engi-,t
neer for the General Electric •Com 1 t
pany, and 20 -year-old Rosamond is a'
studen't.at 1F.c:Gi'il'University. Id
'Grenfell's work has required finene,
sial as well ,as physical and. moral
•courage. To 'break the visegrip of :the
trading companies, be induced - the
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THE SEAFO TH NEWS
.SEAFORTH. ONTARIO.
•
•
U. a McInnes
erairopractor
Office — Commercial Hotel
Hours—Mom and Thurs. after
Electro Therapist — Massage
noon and by appointment
FOOT CORRECTION
by manipulation—Sun-ray trea't-
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Phone 227.
days could not wear down. When a
man came in with his hands (blown off
and Grenfell had 'bone -grafted him
two "flippers," he took strips of his
own flesh to :over dm improvised
hands. As a good English Public
School 'boy should he leas made sport
put of his work and treaded play as if
it called for heroics."When a thing
was known to be impossdble, when
wiseacres shook their heads, when
common sense urged retreat, Sir Wil-
fred "saw it through."
Also, Sir Wilts, 'Grenfell, like
Ciara Barton and nniike many saintly
people, ,las always had a bubbling
sense 31 humor. He has laughed his
way through many an ugly predica-
ment. On the subject of missions, this
practical Christian is outspoken. He
says that mieeitnary money and ,.f -
fort are often waste:( by red tape. He
sees no sense in praying the Lord do
something when we could do it our-
selves if we •wanted to take° the +trau-
ble. To snake the world a better place
to lire in, Sir Wilfred does not' believe
that you have to overturn govern-
ments. He believes, and has gone far
to prove, that you can aotually make
a people and a land aver, (from obste-
trics to the ;alcation of the soul, with -
.in establiohed law and order, At
Heart he is a rugged .individualist:
"Has one man more than another the
right to be called `missionary,' for of
what use is any man in the world if
he has no mission in its Christ's life is
one long emphasis an the point that in
the last analysis, when ,something has
to he done, it is the individual who has
to do it."
An abundance of good pasture dur-
ing the summer greatly reduces the
cast of maintaining brood sows. Crops
such as rape or clover supply needed
minerals, vitamins and other nutri-
ents. The exercise obtained in graz-
ing also contributes in no small
measure to the general health of the
• breeding stock, with consequent 'bene-
ficial results at farrowing time.
Sows raising only one litter per
year need but little grain after the
pigs are weaned, if gond pastures are
provided. 1,Vlti1e it is a mistake to
allow 'sawn to become too fat, it is
equally unwise to allow theta to '!,•-
came too thin. •Enough grain • sb.,• 1!
be given to keep the eaw•e in thrifts-
eonditian, and in any event
should get same grain spelt as a m -e,
ture of ground oats, gronml ha:I •
and middlings, Supple rented w',tlt
skint -milk or fish me 1, to; ' two .x•
'three weeks before breeding silty i :
the fall. Sow; raising two litters
•,trs ^ tm.rti!y n•,luir,: ru,rc 1 .,i
tlttn th,s. -t;:ire: on'+ rang, 7::r i'
eery .1.1 fie ii,t < t
_ t, thw aver + e .torr ,
roari,t. ❑: 'S1:
),4' ,
r.ir 1.
Market hog, make fa -ter ..
when confined tot pea, but s; -,i
vhi,h are to ase reserved for breeding,
oul•1 oe 0:cen good oastnre to ee-
s:tre goal ci;gorons bremdesrs. T'^,
shottlri be fed liberally to stator e. s.rt-
i'fictory gr,.atlt tr i l t dies ars• o0
pasture, but -.1 cher c11•:1 is smell ,.
the gilts get only 1 'loan. .un ,..a:
exercise, ;navy
avoided.
Total cherry production this season
is. estimate,] et 1L:,t,iiate. eleh,•`s is
compared with 11:11,000 in 10a7. A aete
dec•ifne in •production ,f pears is i•1-
dicated, with eomlitions ,u far very
favorable for good sieng and- clean
fruit -producti n Tree and fruit
opulent of of peaches is ntellertt with
minimum of fungus or insect injury
apparent. Whale some early varieties
have shown -split nits, the condition is
not expected to be mote serious than •
usual, The 'preliminary forecast of
Yield placer the crap. at f45,290. bush-
els, as compared with 525,700 bushels.
last c ears While the set of plums is-
very•irregular the exieting crap is
now developing. well, With only nor-
mal ,drop having, taken ,,(:rtes Pests
are well under control Production is
expected to be about the same as a
year ago. Condition of grapes is ex-
cellent for gbud det+elopenutt of her-.
ries and vine growth, with hopper
and other pests well controlled.
He—Dict you ever run across a
man who at the slightest touch would
cause you to .thrill and tremble all
over?
She ---Yes, the dentist,
Want and For Sale Ads., 1 week,. 25fi,