Isabel Johnstone

Isabel Johnstone
Isabella Johnston
Born	1872-12-15 Guelph, Ontario
Died	1923-06-04 Fort William, Ontario
Occupation	Nurse; hospital superintendent
Father	John Johnston
Mother	Ann McPherson

Isabel Johnstone ((1872-12-15)15 December 1872 – 4 June 1923(1923-06-04) (aged 50)), born Isabella Johnston, was a nurse and hospital superintendent at the McKellar General Hospital in Fort William, Ontario, where she oversaw the growth of both the hospital and its nursing school during the early twentieth century.

Early life

Isabel was born on 15 December 1872 in Guelph, Ontario, the daughter of John Johnston, a carpenter born in Scotland, and Ann McPherson. Her father died in early 1878 from tuberculosis at the age of 30, leaving Ann to support the family through seamstress work. By 1891, census records show Isabel working as a milliner while her mother was employed at a woollen mill.

Her siblings included Margaret Johnston, who drowned in 1900; John, an apprentice tailor; and Jessie Johnston, who worked as a stenographer and married William John Dollery, a CPR machinist, in 1905.

Nursing career in Fort William

In 1905, Isabel's sister Jessie Johnston married and relocated to Fort William. Two years later, Isabel followed to train as a nurse at the John McKellar Memorial Hospital, which had been built in 1903. The hospital's School of Nursing had opened in 1904; student nurses worked twelve-hour shifts with a half day off each week and lived in the hospital until a separate residence was constructed in 1911.

Isabel graduated in 1910 and joined a staff of five graduate nurses, fourteen student nurses, and two interns. She advanced from head nurse of the surgical ward to operating-room supervisor before being appointed superintendent of the hospital in April 1913.

Superintendency

As superintendent, Johnstone interviewed all nursing applicants personally and organized both their practical and formal education. Under her leadership, the graduate nursing staff doubled and enrollment in the School of Nursing quadrupled. An additional hospital wing was constructed during this period, and in 1922 the institution achieved provincial accreditation.

Her administration was also documented in contemporary nursing publications and local directories.

Death

In June 1922, Johnstone underwent surgery for breast cancer in Rochester, New York. She died on 4 June 1923 in Fort William at the age of 50, just before the nursing class of 1923 graduated.

Her funeral procession, accompanied by uniformed nurses and students, proceeded to St Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Fort William. A further service was held in Guelph at 126 Palmer Street, her childhood home, and she was buried at Woodlawn Cemetery in Guelph.

Jane Hogarth, a McKellar graduate who had been appointed assistant superintendent during Johnstone's illness, subsequently founded the McKellar Alumnae Association in her honour and raised funds to furnish a hospital ward in her name. Between 1907 and 1971, McKellar graduated 1,100 nurses before training responsibilities passed to Ontario's Department of Education.

External links

• Biography at the Dictionary of Canadian Biography