Horace Wrinch on the right in Ontario, before he came out to British Columbia in 1900.
Hazelton Hospital Operating Room
Alice Breckon, Horace Wrinch's wife, at Grace Hospital, Toronto
Nurse Alice Breckon is standing third from the left in this photograph of the nurses and student nurses at Grace Hospital, Toronto, in around 1898. Note the black bands on the caps of most of the nurses. What did that connote? Does anyone know the names of anyone else?
Canadian Artist Mary Wrinch in 1892, when she was 15.
Mary E. Wrinch the artist (1877-1969) was Horace Wrinch's sister. She was exhibiting with the Ontario Society of Artists as early as 1894 and with the Royal Canadian Academy of Art in 1895. She was elected as the first female executive officer (treasurer) of the Ontario Society of Artists in 1913. She became an Associate of the Royal Canadian Academy in 1918. She was prominent in the Ontario Art community for many years, marrying the artist and her teacher George Reid in 1922, after his first wife , Mary Hiester Reid , died.
Dr. Wrinch on a hike with his family on Rocher de Boule in the early 1920s.
Hazelton Hospital-Open Air Ward in 1912
Premier Oliver Visits Hazelton -1920
In September 1920, Premier John Oliver visited Hazelton with his Minister of Lands, T. Duff Patullo, who himself later became premier. After spending the night in a private rail car, the party spent the morning touring Hazelton and making speeches. They stopped for lunch with Mrs. Wrinch at the Hospital. (Dr. Wrinch was on the coast attending the funeral of his friend Dr. Large). The visit to the Hospital farm was captured by a photographer. In the back row, left to right, are Mr. Dawson, Mr. Pattullo, Mr. Walker (from the Province), Premier Oliver (with cap and beard) and Miss Beatrice Uren (matron at the hospital and superintendent of the nursing school). In the front row are Miss McLean, an unknown nurse, Harold and Arthur Wrinch and fifteen year-old Ralphena Wrinch.
Dr. Horace Wrinch (1866-1939)
Dr. Wrinch and the Spanish Flu Pandemic of 1918.
“Inevitably the flu slipped along the railway lines, the roads and the rivers to Hazelton, arriving there in the second week of October. By October 25, the Herald was reporting that influenza had closed the town. The schools and churches shut their doors, and the railway gangs almost completely stopped working. With the hospital filled to capacity and more sick people being brought in all the time, Horace persuaded the manager of the hotel in New Hazelton to open as an emergency hospital. Harold recalled that his father also arranged for several railcars to be parked on a siding in South Hazelton, where they were used as an additional hospital. “The well are helping the sick,” the Herald said, “and the doctor and his staff are putting in many extra shifts.” Horace reported that he had treated well over a hundred cases and that the flu was now spreading to the Gitxsan.”
From Service on the Skeena: Horace Wrinch, Frontier Physician
Horace Wrinch in Ontario
Horace Wrinch is standing second from the left. But when was the photograph taken, and who else is in it? In view of the patriotic sentiments, it could well have been taken on Dominion Day, July 1, some time before Queen Victoria died on January 22, 1901. Note the maple leafs on their jackets. Was it at Albert College, Belleville, Ontario? Or Trinity Medical College in Toronto? And why are there no women present? Was it, perhaps, a gathering of missionaries before leaving for their missions? Could the man on the far left be the Rev.J.C.Spencer?
