WOMEN WORKING FOR HEALTHY COMMUNITIES
By Ada Ducas & Janice Linton,
Neil John Maclean Health Sciences Library
Produced by the Manitoba Women’s Directorate in recognition of Women’s History Month, October 2001

PHYSICIANS

Historically, women were not as free to choose occupations as men were. Medicine was an especially difficult occupation for women to gain admission during the nineteenth century. Even after they became physicians, women found that they had limited options in the practice of their careers. They could be missionaries, pioneers, or take care of women and children. They could also be school inspectors because male physicians avoided this kind of work, although it was considered suitable for women. Several women are notable for their leadership in practising medicine at a time when most physicians were expected to be men. Women such as Dr. Charlotte Ross, Dr. Amelia Yeomans, Dr. Elizabeth Matheson, Dr. Margaret Douglass, and Dr. Elinor Black are often documented in the history of medicine in Manitoba. Each of these women was acknowledged by her male colleagues and by historians as notable and respected for her accomplishments.

Although the first woman physician did not graduate from the University of Manitoba until 1892, women physicians were practising in the province a decade earlier. Those who came from more privileged backgrounds could attend American medical colleges such as the Women’s Medical College in Philadelphia or the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and obtain degrees. At that time women who received their degrees outside Canada were required to attend medical school in Canada for an additional year before they could apply for licenses. Subsequently, a number of women’s colleges were established in Canada to meet the increasing demand by women to attend medical school. These included the Toronto Women’s Medical College and the Women’s Medical College at Kingston.

Manitoba’s Medical School was established in 1883, and Dr. James Kerr was appointed the first Dean. It appears that the Medical School was co-educational from the beginning. The act which incorporated the college refers to "persons" rather than men or women. A newspaper clipping from December 20, 1894 regarding the second annual dinner of the Medical Students Association in Manitoba reports: "The toast of the Ladies was received with an ovation. Dr. Jones, in response, said that he thoroughly agreed with ladies being admitted as medical students."(1) Although in theory women were able to enter the Medical College as early as 1883, it was not until 1892 that Dr. Harriet Foxton Clarke graduated from the Medical College. After completing her first two years of study at the Toronto Women’s Medical College,(2) she came to Winnipeg and graduated in 1892. Two years later, she married Dr. Andrew Clarke of Detroit, Michigan and practised there until she moved to Billings, Montana. While few women were admitted into medical school at the beginning, the women who were admitted were very exceptional students. Most of them graduated with the Dean’s gold medal or other prestigious awards, even though there might have been only one or two women in the class.

Women’s struggles did not end after graduating from medical school. In order to practise medicine legally they had to obtain licenses. This meant taking examinations from the all-male licensing boards of the time. A number of them were forced to practise for a few years before being able to obtain a license and one of Manitoba’s most famous female physicians, Dr. Charlotte Ross, practised her entire life without a license. Another, Dr. Elizabeth Matheson, had her request for a license refused a number of times. After she was refused for the last time in 1904 her husband, John Matheson, angrily wrote a cheque for her registration fee and told his wife to send it back to the Manitoba Registrar. To her surprise, her application was accepted. The only explanation that could be given for the sudden change of policy was that "John Matheson’s name was on the cheque, a name that had become famous throughout the North-West. Elizabeth was no longer one of those difficult women. She was the wife of the famous missionary, John Matheson"(3). Obviously her husband’s name carried more weight with the medical community than her two degrees from medical school.

At the turn of the twentieth century, more medical schools allowed women to apply for admission. However, women were still more "tolerated" than "welcomed". This view changed gradually with the advent of the social revolution in the 1960s, followed by "women’s liberation" in the 1970s. Today, approximately half of the University of Manitoba’s medical class is made up of women.

DR. CHARLOTTE ROSS (1843-1916)

Dr. Charlotte Ross was a woman ahead of her time. Many married women who work outside the home today think that they are the first generation of women who have added professional careers to the full-time job of being mothers and wives. They would be very interested to learn that Dr. Charlotte Ross managed to be a daughter, mother, physician, surgeon, and Sunday school teacher all at the same time, and that she did this one hundred and twenty-six years ago. At a time when women were not allowed entry into medical school in Canada, she enrolled in an U.S. medical school with her husband’s encouragement, following the birth to her third child. Charlotte Whitehead Ross became Montreal’s, and later Manitoba’s, first woman doctor.

She was born in England in 1843, the daughter of Joseph Whitehead, a railway engineer, and was brought to Montreal, Canada at the age of five. Charlotte received her schooling in Clinton, Ontario, and went to finishing school at the Sacred Heart Convent in Montreal.(4) At the age of eighteen, she married David Ross, her father’s associate in the railway construction business. Her interest in medicine grew when she took care of her elder sister, Mary Anne, who was chronically ill and eventually died of consumption (5). Charlotte was encouraged to apply to medical school by the family physician, Dr. Hingston, who had lent her medical texts when she was caring for her sister. Her father, however, disapproved. He felt he had raised her to do better things than take care of the sick.

In 1870, medical schools in Canada did not accept women students, so Charlotte attended the Women’s Medical College in Philadelphia. It took her five years (6) to obtain her degree. She took two absences during her studies because of a miscarriage and the birth of a daughter. She graduated in 1875 and set up a successful practice in Montreal. In 1878 she gave up her practice in Montreal to join her husband and father who were building section 15 of the Canadian Pacific Railway, with headquarters in Whitemouth, Manitoba (7).

Whitemouth was a railway town surrounded by lumber camps. Working in the isolation of rural Manitoba enabled Dr. Ross to have a full practice beyond delivering babies and treating women’s diseases, the type of practice most female doctors had at the time. She was probably the only woman doctor whose clientele was predominantly male. She often found herself using her surgeon’s skills amputating limbs, stitching wounds, and setting broken bones, since many of the accidents in the community were axe injuries to the feet and legs. She once helped pump a railway flatcar as she hurried to help a homesteader injured by a falling tree. She amputated his leg on the kitchen table with a handsaw.

Dr. Ross was tireless and very dedicated. There are many stories attesting to the fact that after delivering a woman’s baby, she would scrub the floor, do the washing, and cook enough food for several days. She did this so that the new mother would get at least a couple of days’ rest. She was also known to bring new mothers a bouquet of white roses that she grew in her garden. The most poignant story that shows her dedication to her patients is the time she left her dying son to the care of her husband so she could deliver a baby. She had treated her son and knew she could no longer help him. On the other hand, her patient needed the medical care that only she could provide. Although she was a pioneer doctor, she was far ahead of some of her contemporaries in her practice of medicine. She was very strict about antiseptic methods and sterilization, and she convinced the Whitemouth community to be inoculated against smallpox at a time when even the citizens of large cities like Montreal were denied immunization.

Dr. Ross practised medicine for twenty-seven years without a licence. She applied for licences in both Montreal and Winnipeg, but she was denied both times because she refused to go back to medical school in Canada and pass the exam set by the all-male admissions board of the Manitoba College of Physicians and Surgeons. She continued to practise medicine, despite the fact that she knew she could be prosecuted and jailed. She avoided prosecution in Montreal because she worked under the patronage of Dr. Hingston, her original mentor, who later became the mayor of Montreal. She avoided prosecution in Manitoba because her practice was rural and she was the only physician in Whitemouth. Dr. Ross finally did get her licence posthumously in November 1993 when Liberal MLA Sharon Carstairs introduced a resolution to that effect in the Manitoba Legislature. The now Senator Carstairs paid tribute to "this courageous and dedicated pioneer and other women like her, who have never been properly honoured for the part they played in building this country"(8). The Manitoba Legislature passed the resolution unanimously.

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DR. AMELIA YEOMANS (1842-1913)

Dr. Amelia Yeomans and her daughter Lillian were the first women physicians in Winnipeg. Amelia came from a Huguenot family noted for learning and independence. She was born in Montreal on March 29, 1842 and married Dr. Augustus Yeomans at the age of eighteen. When he died in 1878, Amelia did not remarry but decided to join her daughter Lillian at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor to pursue a career in medicine. At that time, medical schools were still closed to women in Canada. Lillian graduated in 1882 and obtained her Manitoba licence on September 22, 1882. Amelia obtained her M.D. degree in Michigan in 1883, and was registered in Manitoba on February 23, 1885. Dr. Amelia Yeomans left no clue explaining her delay in getting registered. However, since she was a strong advocate for women’s right to vote, it is generally thought that she refused the exam because the male licensing boards at that time were known to be hostile towards female doctors.

Both Dr. Yeomans specialized in "Midwifery and the Diseases of Women and Children." There was plenty of work for them in Winnipeg. During the 1880s Winnipeg was being transformed from a frontier town into a bustling metropolis. Many social ills followed this rapid growth. Specifically, "overcrowding in the city’s north end, poverty, unemployment, prostitution, and inadequate sewage, housing and medical facilities were only a few problems plaguing the new provincial capital"(9). Dr. Amelia Yeomans could not sit and watch the misery that many women faced, especially immigrant women. In response, she visited the city’s slums, toured factories and prisons, treated the deprived and dispossessed, and exposed the conditions to the rest of society. Her work with the poor and dispossessed instilled in her the need for reform. Dr. Yeomans started to campaign for the prohibition of alcohol since she considered drunkenness the cause of unemployment, child abuse, and crime. She became a member of the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), serving as provincial president in 1896-97, and delivering lectures throughout Manitoba advocating prohibition. She also worked diligently to stamp out prostitution and close houses of ill repute. To do this, she made many speeches discussing the dangers of prostitution and the effects of venereal disease. Her speeches had a twofold effect. On the one hand, they upset Winnipeg’s upstanding citizens, since this was the Victorian era and some things just were not discussed in polite society. On the other hand, they also enabled her to enlist the help of many politicians, clergymen, and leaders of the community who were sympathetic to her causes. Apparently, she was a very good motivational speaker who kept her audiences enthralled during her speeches and ready for action afterwards.

Dr. Amelia Yeomans thought that giving women the right to vote was another way of curing social ills. This was a very unpopular cause at that time. Not only were most men totally opposed to granting women the right to vote but they were also convinced it would cause the disintegration of the family. Another obstacle that she faced was that most women were either apathetic or hostile to the concept. This did not deter Dr. Yeomans. Having looked at the social ills around her, she concluded, "women were the most adamant protectors of community morals, purity, and righteousness and would use their votes accordingly. Participation in the political process would enhance their authoritative influence over their children and inspire greater respect in husbands, sons, and daughters."(10) She worked tirelessly to bring this about, including establishing a provincial suffrage association. Despite all her efforts, women did not get the vote in her lifetime, and prohibition was not legislated until 1916. However, her efforts paved the way for both.

When she retired in 1906, Winnipeg was no longer the wicked city she encountered when she first moved here. When she died in 1913, over two hundred women had graduated from medical schools throughout Canada. The City of Winnipeg recognized her important role in our history by dedicating a plaque to her on the Broadway median at Hargrave Street.

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Dr. Elizabeth Beckett Matheson (1866-1958)

Dr. Elizabeth Matheson’s life resembled that of Dr. Charlotte Ross in many ways. Her medical education was a long drawn out process, interspersed by the births of many children. She was her husband’s equal as a missionary, schoolteacher, and doctor; and he supported her entry into medical school. She had a very difficult time getting licenced and was forced to practise for several years without one. In fact, she was in the odd position of having been appointed government doctor and health inspector when the College of Physicians and Surgeons still refused to grant her a licence. Like Charlotte Ross, she was never prosecuted because she practised in an area outside the mainstream where deeds were more important than credentials.

Dr. Elizabeth Matheson was born of Scottish parents in 1866 in Burnbrae (near Campbellford) Upper Canada and moved to Morris, Manitoba in 1878 where her father decided to farm. She took her matriculation and teacher’s training in Winnipeg and taught school in Cook’s Creek until 1886. In 1887, she volunteered to assist Ellen Bilbrough at the Marchmont home for orphan boys and girls in Belleville, Ontario. Ellen Bilbrough saw the potential in her and sponsored her studies at the Women’s Medical College at Kingston for one year in 1887-88. Elizabeth returned to teaching in Manitoba in order to finance her studies. This was followed by a trip to India as a missionary from 1888 until 1891, when she came back to Manitoba after contracting malaria. She then married John Richard Matheson, and they moved to Onion Lake, a remote Cree reserve, where her husband had agreed to be an Anglican missionary. There they built a school for their nine children, their adopted Aboriginal and Metis children, and the eighty other children who had enrolled. At her husband’s insistence Elizabeth began her second year at the Manitoba Medical College in September 1895, and she graduated from the Toronto Women’s College in 1898, eleven years after she had started her medical education. She returned to Onion Lake where her practice encompassed a hundred-mile radius. Her early practice was difficult because the white settlers either took care of themselves or would travel one hundred miles to go to Battleford. They still thought of her as the missionary’s wife. Meanwhile, the Aboriginal population preferred to go to their traditional medicine men. The incident that proved her dedication and ultimately won the community’s respect occurred when a young man broke his leg and needed treatment. In order to help him, she travelled with her three-month-old baby for seventy miles in a lumber wagon over frozen ground to reach him and set the broken leg.

Dr. Matheson practised until 1903 when she applied to the University of Manitoba Medical School to take her last year as a refresher course before attempting the licensure examination. She graduated for the second time in 1904. In 1908, her husband built a three-story log hospital for her use. It included four wards and an operating room. There she treated epidemics and accident cases, and conducted operations. However, the Aboriginals were still afraid of hospitalization and so she continued to attend to them in their homes. This meant trips over muskeg on corduroy roads; camping in the snow or in the summer heat; sleeping in trappers’ shacks; dealing with accident cases, murders and suicides, handling epidemics, and delivering babies in remote locations. On short trips she drove herself, while on long trips an Aboriginal person drove her.(11) She practised in Onion Lake until 1917, the year after her husband died.

She moved to Winnipeg in 1918, where she joined Dr. Mary Crawford as assistant medical inspector. She was ideally suited to this position, since most of her work in Onion Lake had been among poor children and she could recognize signs of malnutrition and children’s disease very easily. In 1948, she received an honourary medical degree from the University of Toronto where they acknowledged her fifty years of practice since her first degree.

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DR. MARGARET ELLEN DOUGLASS (1878-1950)

Dr. Margaret Ellen Douglass was born in New Brunswick and studied medicine at the University of Toronto. After graduation she did some postgraduate training in England and America. She first practiced medicine in Saint John, N.B. and then moved to Winnipeg in 1909 where, except for the war years, she worked for the rest of her career. In 1914 she organized the Winnipeg Women’s Volunteer Reserve. During the First World War she distinguished herself by becoming an officer in the Royal Army Medical Corps (RAMC) and serving with the Women’s Auxiliary Army Corps. She served in France with the RAMC, holding the rank of major, and was awarded the Allies Medal and the British War Medal for her service.

She was a gifted speaker and used this talent in her many public relations endeavours. In 1927, she went on a trip around the world to visit medical centres in places like India and China to teach specifically about better methods for caring for women. During her lifetime, she held a number of executive positions in women’s organizations. She served as president of both the Canadian Federation of Business and Professional Women’s Clubs and the Winnipeg Women’s Canadian Club. She received numerous awards including being made a life member of the University Women’s Club in 1950, and being elected Honorary President of the Federation of Medical Women in 1946. In 1948, she was given the title of Commander Sister of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem by the St. John’s Ambulance Brigade in recognition of her services. She died in her home in Winnipeg in 1950.

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DR. FRANCES GERTRUDE McGILL (1877-1959)

Dr. Frances McGill was raised on a farm in Minnedosa, Manitoba and taught school for several years so that she could finance her education. She started to study law but eventually decided to study medicine. She was exceptionally bright and distinguished herself in medical school. She won the Isbister First Year Scholarship, and when she graduated in 1915, at the age of thirty-seven, she won the Dean’s Prize, the Hutchison Gold Medal, and the Surgical Case Report Prize. After graduation, she began her career in the Manitoba Provincial Laboratory and then accepted the position of Provincial Bacteriologist in the Saskatchewan Department of Health, later becoming Provincial Pathologist for Saskatchewan and Laboratory Director. She was appointed Honorary Surgeon at the RCMP Laboratory in Regina and was a lecturer in forensic medicine at the RCMP Training Academy.

In this position she found her true calling. She used her knowledge of law and medicine to become one of Canada’s best known criminologists. She analyzed specimens, performed forensic autopsies, and helped solve hundreds of murder investigations. She was meticulous in her work and questioned the evidence no matter how straightforward it seemed. Her main motivation was to discover the truth and "she seems to have released the innocent as often as nailing the guilty."(12) In one such instance, she was able to prove that a man had committed suicide and had not been shot by the neighbouring farmer who had bloodstains on his coat. In order to do this, she had the body exhumed and through her careful investigation she confirmed that only the victim could have fired the rifle because the bullet entered under his chin and exited through the head. Other famous cases that she solved included: the Bran Muffin Case, in which a woman tried to poison her father but succeeded in killing her grandparents instead; the Elsie Burden Case, in which a local boy (and not a migrant worker) was found to be guilty; and the South Polar Case, which was not a murder but rather the victim died of a heart attack. She was impressive in her performance in court and she was always considered an expert witness at trials. She answered the Counsel’s questions professionally and could not be tricked into saying something she did not mean.

She was respected and admired by the male members of the RCMP who thought she was a "real lady" but also considered her "one of the boys" for the way she was able to endure the hardships and fatigue of her job. In some cases they travelled thousands of miles by dog team, snowmobile, and rickety floatplane in order to reach the most remote parts of the province. She was also an avid horsewoman, which endeared her to the Mounties. When she died at the age of eighty-one, the Province of Saskatchewan decided to honour her memory by officially naming McGill Lake, north of Lake Athabasca, in her memory.

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DR. ELINOR FRANCES ELIZABETH BLACK (1905-1982)

Dr. Elinor Frances Black was born in Nelson, B.C. in 1907. She attended school in Calgary and Winnipeg (Kelvin High School). She grew up to be a strong-willed woman with presence and charisma who did not let obstacles stand in her way. She wanted to be a doctor, and despite her physician brother’s disapproval, she went to medical school because to her "there is no more tragic person than the individual forced to work at a job he dislikes because of financial reasons."(13) She graduated cum laude from the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Manitoba. After an internship in the Winnipeg General Hospital, Dr. Black pursued further studies in hospitals in London, England and returned to set up her practice in Winnipeg in 1931. In 1933 she was appointed Demonstrator in the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology. In 1937-38, she returned to London, England for more postgraduate education, and in 1938 she became the first Canadian woman to gain membership in the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in London. She was extremely proud of this last achievement and stated that she had achieved membership "on my own and through hard work and examinations."(14)

Dr. Elinor Black was awarded many honours during her lifetime and most of them were firsts for a woman. In 1949, she was admitted as a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada, ad enudem gradum, and in 1950 she was elevated to the Fellowship of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists in London. In 1951, she was appointed Head of the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Manitoba, thus becoming the first woman in Canada to head a medical department. She held this position for thirteen years. She was also honoured as Winnipeg’s "Woman of the Year" in 1951, and in 1960 she became the first woman president of the prestigious Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada. Today, when women in medicine are no longer limited by their gender, it is difficult to appreciate her accomplishments. Dr. Elinor Black’s many struggles and victories made a secure place for women. Her accomplishments are best summarized in a letter she wrote describing newspaper articles about her: articles are an "attempt to make you a trail-blazing feminist and a Famous Woman rather than emphasizing that you are a first rate obstetrician and gynecologist and an eminent person quite irrespective of gender."(15)

Late in her life, Dr. Black remarked that she did not get along with women. This can be attributed to the fact that in order for her to win acceptance as a doctor in the 1920s, she had to completely blend in, to become invisible in terms of gender, just to become a doctor. In those days "women were women, men were men. And doctors were men."(16) To survive she not only did as well as the men, she did better. She succeeded so well that thinking of her as a woman did not come naturally to her colleagues. One of the "in-jokes" in the General Hospital was that Elinor was the only doctor in the obstetrics-gynecology department who was not an old woman. For 27 years, she was the only woman in her professional group.

Dr. Black attributed a lot of her success to hard work. When she retired from her position as Department Head of Obstetrics and Gynecology, she knew that she had worked harder than her male predecessor and had received less support than the male doctor who succeeded her. When she retired from the University, she refused the prestigious title of Professor Emeritus so that she could continue to serve both the University and the Hospital Department. She worked until two days before her death on January 30, 1982.

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PHYLLIS JEAN McALPINE, Ph.D., F.C.C.C.G (1942-1998)

Dr. Phyllis McAlpine was born and grew up in southern Ontario. She graduated with a B.Sc. (Honours) degree from the University of Western Ontario, where she received the Gold Medal in Zoology, an M.A. in Human Genetics from the University of Toronto for muscular dystrophy research, and a Ph.D. from the Galton Laboratory, University College, London, England. Dr. McAlpine thought that she was predestined to study genetics. She had originally wanted to be a zoologist, but a snowstorm that hit southern Ontario in 1964 changed her life. In an interview with the Winnipeg Free Press she stated: "I missed the appointment because of the snowstorm, but when I eventually got there, I met another professor who told me about an opening in genetics. So instead of being a bored stiff zoologist peering into a microscope at animal cells, I ended up studying human genes. I believe I was destined to be a geneticist."(17)

Dr. McAlpine was appointed as Research Associate in the Section of Genetics, Department of Pediatrics and Child Health, University of Manitoba in 1972, and in 1993 she was appointed head of the Department of Genetics. She was always a little ahead of her time, and she carried out strong independent research in the mapping of human genes well before it became a fashionable exercise and before the Human Genome Project existed. She was a very successful and highly productive researcher and published 100 papers during her career. She was one of the founding members and co-chaired the Human Gene Nomenclature Committee from 1977 until 1991. From 1992 to 1996, she chaired the committee on nomenclature for the Annual Human Gene Mapping Chromosome Coordinating Meetings. She devoted countless hours and much energy to formulating guidelines and naming the genes as they were described. It was under her care that human gene nomenclature became a single language and not a series of dialects.(18) Dr. McAlpine typically worked six-and-a-half days a week, but she still had time for outside interests like attending the opera and growing flowers. Such was the effort that she put into her work that when she retired from the Nomenclature Committee in 1996 she was replaced with the equivalent of three full-time staff.

Some very notable women had mentored Dr. McAlpine when she was a student. As a result she was particularly committed to helping women in science, where she felt it was often difficult to get recognition as a female. She was a keen teacher to many medical students and was an advocate for women’s increased participation in the sciences. She once noted: "There are still disadvantages to being a woman scientist. We are still a minority in many areas. Females were not the protégés of men. We had to learn how the system worked by ourselves."(19) One of her students, Armansa Glojo, remembered her fondly: "Dr. McAlpine had a great impact on my life. She was my friend and mentor, which was something she took very seriously. She taught us never to be afraid of asking questions, and inspired us to pursue our love of science."(20)

Dr. McAlpine served as President of the Canadian Association of Women in Science, Manitoba Chapter, 1993-94. She was presented with the Founders Award in 1998, given by the Canadian College of Medical Geneticists: "In recognition of her outstanding achievement and exceptional commitment to medical genetics in Canada and worldwide."(21)

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NOTES

1. Letter from Jean Currie, Archivist, Medical Library, University of Manitoba to Ms. Carlota Lemieux, November 20, 1974.
2. Hacker, Carlotta. The indomitable lady doctors. Toronto: Clarke Irwin, 1974, p.133.
3. Hacker, Carlotta. Ibid., p.136.
4. Hacker, Carlotta. Ibid., p.79.
5. Edge, Fred. The iron rose; The extraordinary life of Charlotte Ross, M.D. Winnipeg, University of Manitoba Press, 1992, p.4.
6. Edge, Fred. Ibid., p.112.
7. Douglass, Ellen M. "A Pioneer Woman Doctor of Western Canada - Dr. Charlotte Ross." University of Manitoba Medical Journal, v.18 no.1 (1946) p.14.
8. "News Release" University of Manitoba Press, November 8, 1993.
9. Dr. Amelia Yeomans. Manitoba Culture, Heritage and Recreation, Historic Resources Branch, Winnipeg, 1985, p.2.
10. Dr. Amelia Yeomans, op.cit., p.6.
11. Kesserling, Margaret. "She prescribed for the Aboriginals more than half a century ago." The Leader Post, Regina. Wednesday, September 6, 1952.
12. Hacker, Carlotta, op.cit., p.203.
13. The Winnipeg Tribune, January 12, 1957.
14. unnamed newspaper, Saturday December 29, 1951.
15. Vandervoort, Julie. Tell the Driver: A Biography of Elinor F.E. Black, M.D. Winnipeg, University of Manitoba Press, 1992, p.203.
16. Vandervoort, Julie. Ibid, p.35.
17. Zelig, Martin. "Meticulous U of M scientist vital cell in international human gene project." Winnipeg Free Press, February 10, 1992, p.31.
18. Cox, D.W, S. Povey, and T.B. Shows. "Phyllis J. McAlpine, Ph.D., 1941-98: In Memoriam." American Journal of Human Genetics 64 (1999) 1254.
19. Cox, D.W, S. Povey, and T.B. Shows. Ibid. p. 1254.
20. University of Manitoba Financial Planner, Spring 1999, p.6.
21. Hamerton, J.L. and Chudley, A.E. "In Memoriam – Phyllis Jean McAlpine, Ph.D., F.C.C.M.G. (1942-1998)." Genome, vol. 42, no.2, April 1999, p.iii-iv.

ESSAY CONTENTS
Acknowledgements / Introduction
Physicians
Nurses, Health Care Advocates and Community Leaders
Conclusion /  Bibliography