Eileen Carroll, nee Hodgson, was born in 1937 to a family of proud Saskatchewan farmers. Although she grew up in rural Saskatchewan, Eileen would grow up to be a nurse who worked through three major public health crises during her nearly 40 years of service.

Eileen grew up the eldest of eight children on a small farm outside of Oxbow, Saskatchewan. Her family was poor at the time due to the fallout from the Dust Bowl and the great depression. Life was not easy on the farm. Between the lack of money, many mouths to feed, and the distance from the city, life on the farm was lonely.  

   

“We worked hard. We were very poor. We didn’t have much money but neither did the people around us. We were a big family so we had to get along. I was a little bit lonely. We didn’t get to do a lot of things. We didn’t get to go to movies and dances. There was only one car per family. We were kind of stuck out on the farm. We had happy times too. As I look back on it, I think it was a bit lonely. We didn’t have a library to run out to. We all helped on the farm. The girls helped in the house with babysitting and canning, and the boys helped out on the field. Mom baked her own bread. We would go to town Saturday night to get groceries and they would last until the next Saturday night. If you forgot something, you’d have to go without until the following week,” said Eileen in a phone interview.

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During her childhood, Eileen would see members of her community whisked off to fight in the Second World War, as most of her early childhood was spent watching the war from afar. During this time Eileen helped out around the farm where she could as well as help her siblings.

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By the time she was 16, Eileen had graduated high school and was making plans to continue her education. In the 1950s there weren’t many socially acceptable jobs for women and they often had to pick between nursing, teaching, or secretarial work. So, after graduating, Eileen spent some time working at the local hospital to help earn money for her education. 

“I definitely knew I didn’t want to be a teacher. I think I always wanted to be a nurse from the time I was little. It was certainly the most appealing,” said Eileen.

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So, in 1955, Eileen left her home to move to Winnipeg, Manitoba where she began her nurses’ training and Saint Boniface Hospital. At the time, the hospital was run by a group of nuns who had originated from Montreal. 

    

“The nuns were strict. They were very strict. Some of them were pretty unfair actually. We had to go in the morning to get inspected by the nuns. It was like military training. We had to look perfect. Any infraction could have us sent back to our rooms. There were a lot of nuns. But now you hardly ever see them,” explained Eileen.  

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But despite the strictness of the nuns, Eileen and her fellow students found joy in the little things.  

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“We would write letters back home all the time. Every once in a while, mom would send a $5 bill to me and I knew it was special. We all helped each other. My brother Clarence bought me a little red radio. It was so special. So precious. That little red radio he bought. When I finished training, I helped him and we just helped each other. Taught us some good lessons.” 

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Back in the 1950s when Eileen was pursuing her education, not only was the way education was conducted different, but the cost for everything was drastically different.  

 

“Tuition was for three years was about $250 and that included everything. Food, residence, books, uniform. ($2,420.77 in today’s currency) I made under $100 a month when I graduated. You didn’t get rich on nurses’ pay that’s for sure,” said Eileen. 

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However, even with the more cost-effective tuition, things were not easy as Eileen prepared to graduate. Eileen entered her nursing program at the end of both the Polio epidemic and Tuberculosis. Eileen herself had experience dealing with Polio as her younger brother, Clarence, had once been afflicted with the illness.  

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“When I first went to training it was at the end of the Polio epidemic. We had the iron lungs, similar to the COVID ventilators. The iron lung was worse. You were totally enclosed in the iron lung. We had the vaccine and things were going down but that was an interesting scary thing. Polio needed a vaccine to get it under control. People were afraid of getting it. In some ways, it was a little bit like COVID. The whole scenario is pretty similar. But those iron lungs were big things. But I think we saved lots of lives. TB was an issue too. It was contagious and there were sanitariums in South West Manitoba. It affected your lungs too. It’s interesting how these diseases all affected your lungs. We sent people to the “San” for 2-3 years until they were healed. Lots of stuff affecting the lungs. There’s a lot of respiratory illnesses,” explained Eileen.

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After she graduated in 1958, Eileen met a steelworker, George Carroll, with whom she fell in love with. The two met at a Christmas party where Eileen originally went with a man named Roger. By the end of the night, she and George were holding hands in secret under the table. The two got married six months later in June, and soon after they had their first child. Six years later they would adopt their second child. All the while, Eileen continued to work at Saint Boniface Hospital, working her way through most of the major nursing departments.

 “Back when my brother and I were growing up, other mothers were stay-at-home moms. It was unusual for mothers to be working. So that was different for her being a nurse. Because she was a nurse and she wasn’t there, most other kids would go home for lunch, but not Kevin and I. We were like latch-key kids. The rules for being able to stay at school for lunch were different. It left very little options,” said Eileen’s daughter, Sherri Van Aert in a phone interview. 

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Because Eileen worked as a nurse, she took a very no-nonsense approach to how she dealt with her children being sick.

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“There wasn’t a lot of pampering when we were sick. When it came to illness it was different. We could never fake being sick to get out of school. It never worked. Never!” said Sherri.  

As Eileen continued to work her way around the departments of her hospital, she also found the time for personal growth. Eileen took it upon herself to learn how to swim despite a fear of water. The hard-working attitude she had with her nursing translated well into the discipline she needed to learn how to swim.  

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As well, Eileen became more involved with her community. She gave lectures at her church frequently all the while continuing to work full time as a nurse.

But, just like how the beginning of her career was during the Polio and Tuberculosis epidemics, the end of Eileen’s nursing career would be bookended by the AIDS crisis.

“AIDS was a scary time. We didn’t know what caused it at the time. It was just men who seemed to be getting the aids, or at least they were the patients we had. We kind of tried to isolate them but that was hard. We didn’t understand what was causing it and we didn’t understand how contagious it might be, that was difficult. It was difficult for them too. We didn’t want to be too hands-on but we wanted so desperately to help. It must have been hard for them. We gradually got a whole wack of medications. It came upon us fairly suddenly too like with COVID. There were a few things like that,” said Eileen as she talked about the crisis.

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Eileen ended up working at the same hospital until her retirement in 1997, just one year before the birth of her fourth grandchild.

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“When I was retiring, they were just starting to bring computers into the hospital. I got out just in time,” said Eileen.

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But even though Eileen had retired, she never stopped acting as a positive influence on her community and her family, with Eileen often hosting family dinners and holiday outings.  

 “I remember fancy family dinners. Grandma always had very elaborate décor and made every dinner feel fit for a queen,” said her granddaughter, Twyla, in a phone interview, “I also loved her nutcrackers at Christmas and loved that we got all dressed up to go to the ballet. I think I was around 7 and we took Grandpa’s limo.”

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Eileen lived with her husband George until he passed in November of 2007. From there she continues to be a positive influence in her community and her grandchildren.

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If there is one thing that can be taken away from Eileen’s story, it’s that we as a society need to look at the work of medical professionals and appreciate their efforts. The medical workers working during today’s pandemic deserve the same respect that those in the past received. Doctors and nurses who work during global health crises are some of the strongest people and they deserve the utmost respect.

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As well, we need to listen to the stories of those older than us. So many stories deserve to be told so that we can better understand our present. Stories like Eileen Carroll’s show us that no matter the challenges one faces, there is always room to be good.