Category: Biographies

A Labrador Doctor The Autobiography of Wilfred Thomason Grenfell

To be born on the 28th of February is not altogether without its compensations. It affords a subject of conversation when you are asked to put your name in birthday books. It is evident that many people suppose it to be almost an intrusion to appear on that day. However, it wa...

Chapters

4. Chapter 4

I have never ceased to regret that there was not more corporate life in our medical school, but I believe that conditions have been greatly improved since my day. Here and there...

3. Chapter 3

In 1883 my father became anxious to give up teaching boys and to confine himself more exclusively to the work of a clergyman. With this in view he contemplated moving to London...

2. Chapter 2

Marlborough "College," as we say in England for a large University preparatory school, is situated in Wiltshire, in a perfectly beautiful country, close to the Savernake Forest-...

8. Chapter 8

Since the publication of the book "Labrador, the Country and the People," the means of transportation to the coast have been so improved that each year brings us an increasing n...

5. Chapter 5

I have dwelt at length upon the experiences of the North Sea, because trivial as they appear on the surface, they concern the biggest problem of human life--the belief that man...

25. Chapter 25

In the fall of 1915, I was urged by the Harvard Surgical Unit to make one of their number for their proposed term of service that winter at a base hospital in France. Having dis...

23. Chapter 23

The year 1912 was a busy season. The New Year found us in Florida with the donor of the ship George B. Cluett, consulting him concerning its progress and future. Lecturing then...

12. Chapter 12

Not one of the many who have wintered with us in the North has failed to love our frozen season. To me it was one long delight. The dog-driving, the intimate relationships with...

17. Chapter 17

On one occasion, as late in the fall we were creeping up the Straits of Belle Isle in the only motor boat then in use there, our new toy broke down, and with a strong onshore wi...

28. Chapter 28

No one can write his real religious life with pen or pencil. It is written only in actions, and its seal is our character, not our orthodoxy. Whether we, our neighbour, or God i...

20. Chapter 20

Contrary to her ungenerous reputation, even if vessels are lost on the Labrador, her almost unequalled series of harbours--so that from the Straits of Belle Isle to those of Hud...

18. Chapter 18

Labrador will never be a "vineland," a land of corn and wine, or a country where fenced cities will be needed to keep out the milk and honey. But though there may be other secti...

14. Chapter 14

The argument for coöperation had been that life on the coast was not worth living under the credit system. A short feast and a long famine was the local epigram. If our profits...

16. Chapter 16

Every child should be washed. Every child should be educated. The only question is how to get there. The "why's" of life interest chiefly the academic mind. The "how's" interest...

1. Chapter 1

To be born on the 28th of February is not altogether without its compensations. It affords a subject of conversation when you are asked to put your name in birthday books. It is...

11. Chapter 11

In the spring of 1897 I was asked by the Council to sail to Iceland with a view to opening work there, in response to a petition sent in to the Board by the Hearn longliners and...

21. Chapter 21

It was now the fall of 1908, and the time had come for me to visit England again and try and arouse fresh interest in our work; and this motive was combined with the desire to s...

22. Chapter 22

No human life can be perfect, or even be lived without troubles. Clams have their troubles, I dare say. A queer sort of sinking feeling just like descending in a fast elevator c...

27. Chapter 27

What is the future of this Mission? I have once or twice been an unwilling listener to a discussion on this point. It has usually been in the smoking-room of a local mail steame...

15. Chapter 15

"What's that schooner bound South at this time of year for?" I asked the skipper of a fishing vessel who had come aboard for treatment the second summer I was on the coast.

6. Chapter 6

Twenty years have passed away since that day, and a thousand more important affairs which have occurred in the meantime have faded from my memory; but still its events stand out...

10. Chapter 10

Returning South in the fall of 1895, business necessitated my remaining for some time in St. John's, where as previously the Governor, Sir Terence O'Brien, very kindly entertain...

9. Chapter 9

We had now been coming for some two years to the coast, and the problem was assuming larger proportions than I felt the Society at home ought to be called on to finance. It seem...

19. Chapter 19

On Easter Sunday, the 21st of April, 1908, it was still winter with us in northern Newfoundland. Everything was covered with snow and ice. I was returning to the hospital after...

13. Chapter 13

Being a professional and not a business man, and having no acquaintance with the ways of trade, the importance of a new economic system as one of the most permanent messages of...

7. Chapter 7

razors are left on hand, for now neither missionary nor Eskimo shaves in the inhospitable climate of this country. A small stock of these razors was, therefore, left on my accou...

24. Chapter 24

After the fall spent in America in raising the necessary funds, it was the now famous Carmania which carried us to England. In spite of a few days' rest at my old home, and the...

26. Chapter 26

My return to the work after serving in France was embittered by a violent attack made upon me in a St. John's paper. It was called forth by a report of a lecture in Montreal whe...