Lulan Royle Chisholm, 1906

A note from Lulan Royle Chisholm that came with the poem:

"The nurse, Margaret Lewis Royle, 1840-1902, was my Mother. She was not really old as we count years now, but I cannot recall her without gray hair. She was over 40 when I was born and never so well after. She was 5 feet tall, and weighed 98 pounds, when I was 16, as I did also. We had gone to Yorkton for the 1st of July celebrations and were weighed and had our pictures taken by a traveling photographer in a tent. Not too good work and the scales may not have been quite reliable. When my Mother was young, she had curly auburn hair and the bluest eyes! None of her children had such eyes, and even though she took no care of it, her skin was pink and white to the end. An Irish beauty they said. L.R.C. 1966"

Margaret Lewis Royle who was "The Prairie Nurse"

She was but a mite of a woman,
This nurse of the western plain;
But strong and eager for conflict,
When she came to do battle with pain.

She had taken no hospital training,
And her knowledge of books was small;
But she knew no fear nor faltering,
When she answered duty's call.

She had nursed through the old time scourges,
When the science of physics were vague;
Through black measles and yellow fever,
And the small pox's deadly plague.

She had followed the soldiers Southward,
For her husband was a Yank;
Had nursed the boys through the typhoid;
And boiled the water they drank.

The microscope was just beginning
Its search for the deadly germs;
And sanitation and antiseptics
Were almost unknown terms.

She had not much science to teach her,
But she knew with an instinct keen;
That the only way to fight sickness
Was to keep things scrupulously clean.

She was old as I first recall her,
But her eyes were flashing still;
And her firm straight mouth and upright back
Proclaimed her indomitable will.

No, she was not the nurse that you vision
As having a saintly grace;
But sick folks were cheered and heartened
By the sight of her fighting face.

My slumber one night was broken,
As it had often been before;
By the sound of horses galloping
And a hurried knock at the door.

"Yes, he's clean raving crazy ma'am,
He was allars a dangerous cuss;
But there's no time to go for a doctor,
An' he keeps getting' wuss and wuss."

"You keep them hands down as you oughter,
And straighten out that face;
And drink down this glass of water,
And never you mind 'bout the taste."

"Bill, you open them nailed down winders
An' let in the good fresh air;
And we'll git some lime and carbolic,
An' sweeten up this lair."

And a spirit of peace like a healing breath,
Creeps over that unkempt shack;
While the hordes of disease and the fear of death,
Are valiantly beaten back.

The burly giant has ceased to curse,
And lies like a little boy;
With his eyes on the face of the tiny old nurse,
Whom he could have crushed like a toy.

All praise be to science in prose and in verse,
For its war on the miseries of man
And God be thanked for the old time nurse,
Who was there when the fight began.

Jimmy & Lil
Chisholm
Links

Margaret Lewis
& Jeremiah Royle