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Memorable Manitobans: Marion Patterson Ferguson (1911-1993)Nurse. Born at Brandon on 29 April 1911, she took her early education in Brandon before completing nurse training at the St. Boniface Hospital. She worked as a private nurse from 1926 to 1932, and during the depression years in Manitoba. In 1932 she took some postgraduate education at the Brandon Mental Hospital. In 1936 she went to St. Mary’s Hospital in Minnesota, where she worked with Charles and Will Mayo. She worked on research for sulpha drugs, and developed an interest in neurological disorders. In 1940 she enlisted in the Canadian Air Force as a nursing sister. She established a hospital at Yarmouth, Nova Scotia for the Fleet Air Arm before getting an overseas posting to England. She worked with Italian POWs before being moved to a burn and plastic surgery hospital in East Grinstead, England, also known as Buzz-Bomb Alley. After the Second World War, she returned to Canada and became part of the teaching unit at Brandon General Hospital, and worked in the Children’s Ward during the polio epidemic. She became the Medical Surgical Supervisor at Brandon Mental Hospital and then became an administrator there. She taught psychiatric nursing for eleven years, and helped establish the policy for a two-year training program for registered nurses. She died at Brandon on 21 May 1993 and was buried in the Brandon Cemetery. Sources:Voices of Yesteryear [Audiocassette], 1982. Westman Oral History Collection by the Westman Oral History Association (Effie McPhail, Chair). S. J. McKee Archives. Brandon Cemetery, Online Search. This page was prepared by Angela Graham and Gordon Goldsborough. Page revised: 25 January 2015
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