52W Mark II – Week 4: Education

My maternal grandmother, Helen Lerner, originally wanted to be a teacher. After finishing high school, she moved to Regina, Saskatchewan to work and earn money to pay to go to Normal School (teacher’s college). Helen applied to the school in Regina run by the Sisters of St. Martha, who were based out of Antigonish, Nova Scotia.

Waiting for her interview, Helen fell into a conversation with an older nun. After chatting for a while, my grandmother was called in for her interview. Following the interview, Helen was told she would not be admitted to the program. However, she was offered the opportunity to train as a lab technician at St. Michael’s Hospital in Lethbridge, Alberta, which was operated by the Sisters of St. Martha. Helen accepted.

One day at the hospital after my grandmother had begun working in her new occupation, there was a great commotion in preparing for a visit by the Mother Superior. When the Mother Superior arrived, Helen recognized her as the nun she had been chatting with before her Normal School interview. It turned out that based upon what Mother Superior learned of Helen during their conversation at the school, she advised the interviewers that she believed Helen was an ideal candidate for the hospital and told them to deny her admission to the Normal School.

The Mother Superior’s directive was significant for me, because St. Michael’s Hospital is where Helen met my grandfather, Leo Burgess. Leo worked as an orderly at St. Michael’s at the time my grandmother was a lab technician. Many years later, I was born at St. Michael’s.