Mrs Marilyn Marsh

Hiring and firing of all staff except for those noted above. I hired nurses and nursing assistants, the drivers, the cooks, the cleaners, and so on.

Supervision of all nurses and their work schedules.

Planning all the meals and ordering all the groceries.

Organizing all the transportation –I would make a list each morning of what the drivers had to do, and who they had to pick up. Arranged all the out patients to be picked up.

Arranging all the Tuesday clinics which were all over the island.

Arranging all the admissions and I always made sure we had 31 patients because there was such a long waiting list and I didn’t want any empty beds with so many children waiting for treatment.

My work day was always very busy and very long – I would leave home between 7:00 and 7:10 each morning and rarely would I get back home before 7:00 each evening. On Tuesday, which was clinic day, I wouldn’t get home before 10:30 or 11:00 at night.

Some of my memories from the Sunshine Camp:

In the winter of, I believe, ’61 we had the storm of all storms! The snow was up above the light polls and staff were stuck at the Camp. I was in charge and there was no way I could leave the staff out there on their own, they were tired. They had no relief as the storm had happened over night. I contacted Frances Jones and asked if she had snow shoes. (Frances was the ADL nurse at the Camp) I borrowed snow shoes from a friend and asked my husband, Baxter, to show me how to snow shoe. Baxter then drove us as far as he could on Freshwater Road and we snow shoed into the Sunshine Camp from there. This was a seven (7) trek and we used the tips of the light polls as our guide as there was no land marks were visible that we could follow. Once we arrived at the Sunshine Camp the staff, of course, were very pleased to see us but we told them we had no way of getting them home. They were not deterred by this as they were anxious to get home to their families - most of them walked or used other means to get home.

Now God bless Tasker (Handyman) & Thelma (Cook) Tucker. Tasker was there when I arrived and he looked after the generator as we had no power and Thelma came and did all the cooking and everything. Between the four of us and the one staff member who lived there – I believe that was Dorothy Foot, we managed the Camp for the next two days when the roads were finally cleared and the power was back on. We never had any less than a full compliment of 31 children at the Camp and while they didn’t get to school or have treatments such as physiotherapy but we did do their “hot packs” – I can say they were clean, well fed and had lots of fun.

I should mention that in the middle of all this going on a neighbour went into labour so I left the Camp to go and assist with the delivery and then went back to the Camp!! Long days but we had lots of fun and great memories to look back on.

I remember that some of the boys were in bed and couldn’t get out around like the rest of the children. Tasker would sometimes bring a goat into the Camp or mice in a ventilated bottle – some of the staff would have a fit – but I was in charge and I didn’t care if they had mice in a bottle. These children couldn’t get out around and this was just one more way of keeping them entertained and included.

I remember Tasker and how wonderful he was creating devices for the children – we would tell him what the situation was, what was needed and he would make exactly what we needed. I recall one instance where one young patient was unable to feed herself as she had ‘flail arms’ so we told Tasker that she needed something to put her arms in that would swivel – he went away and at the next meal time there was a device sitting there for her to use and it worked perfectly.

I remember Dorothy Foote. I believe she was from Grand Bank but I am not entirely sure about that. Anyway I thought I would get some frogs for the kids so I went to Bowering Park and there was someone else with me but I can’t remember who. There was a frog pond at Bowering Park so I got a bucket full of frogs and Baxter drove me into the Camp late in the evening. I can remember going in through the front door and putting the bucket of frogs in the hall. Dorothy came along and I told her this bucket was for tomorrow and I didn’t want anyone touching it – don’t take the lid off I told her! Well that was the wrong thing to say. Dorothy had a fear of most creatures and I knew she would have to know what was in the bucket ….well Baxter and I weren’t in the car before we heard the screaming. We were in the fits of laughter as we knew exactly what happened and when we came back in, here was Dorothy screaming and running down the hall with the frogs close on her heels. We spent sometime catching the frogs and putting them back in the bucket which now was placed outside so that Dorothy would be able to work the rest of her shift – worry free.

Children used to go to church each Sunday morning. Shoes were shined up the night before by the night watchman and he would line them up outside the entrance to the girls and boys ward. The Anglican children went to St. Thomas’s and the Catholic children would go to St. Josephs.

All the children wore their own street clothes at the Sunshine Camp and you can imagine there was a lot of sewing and mending required on a regular basis. The staff would wash and iron the clothes and when time permitted the staff would mend the clothes. I remember Mrs. Gertude Crosbie, a tremendous lady and when she would bring her daughter in for clinic she would sit on the wooden bench in the hall way and while waiting for her daughter would mend clothes. What she couldn’t finish she would bring home with her and send them in when they were all mended.

Christmas at the Sunshine Camp for the children was just tremendous. The American Military personnel at Fort Pepperell would bring gifts for the children and Oh the gifts they would bring. I would have to do up a list of all the patients – their name, age, boy or girl and if they had problems with their hands or intellectual disability. The gifts they brought were always appropriate for the children –they brought in absolutely beautiful clothes, they would outfit the children completely. Toys they brought were also magnificent and again age appropriate for the children. They were something pretty special.

Birthdays were always remembered. There was a small group of wives of the Board Members and Doctors and they would take turns making a cake when one of the children had a birthday. I would make up a list each month so no birthday was missed. I remember Dr. House’s wife baked many a cake and I remember Dr. House being at the Sunshine Camp one day and he said to me “that looks like my wife’s cake tin there” and I said it is. Well he said “how did that get here”? I said it was someone’s birthday today and it was your wife’s turn to bring the cake.

I went to New York in 1960 to do a speciality in rehabilitation and stayed for almost one semester. I took Felix Martin with me as Dr. McCann thought that perhaps the doctors in New York could alleviate some of the spasms he experienced from Cerebral Palsy. We went to the Dr. Rusk Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, which was the leading institute at the time. Felix stayed for the duration of my studies and I was sort of the mother figure because I was his guardian. As his guardian I got to know a lot of people I would not have met otherwise because I had to know the Social Worker, the Doctor’s who were treating him and many more. Unfortunately there was little to be done to alleviate the spasms Felix was having but they certainly tried and carried out many tests and treatments to see what was possible. It was a wonderful experience for me and when I came back I was more knowledgeable on some of the nursing functions in rehabilitation especially in bladder control which was a major problem for some of the children.

We moved from the Sunshine Camp to the Children’s Rehabilitation Centre in 1964 and I was there until 1967 when unfortunately I had to quit work due to injuries sustained in an unrelated work accident. This was an extremely difficult decision for me as I loved my work – they were some of the best years of my life and I would never have left except my injuries prevented me from providing the care I was used to providing to the children and sadly I had to leave.