60 Years for Grenfell

In 1919, Edith Sumner Sloan, a high society girl from New York City, decides to pack up her things and head north, to Newfoundland and Labrador. She volunteers for the International Grenfell Association, and teaches in a one-room schoolhouse in a small fishing community.

Though accustomed to comforts few at the time had, Edith wastes no time settling into the rugged life of the Great Northern Peninsula. She throws herself wholeheartedly into her teaching position, working with tenacity and enthusiasm to help improve the lives of her young students. As well as educating children of all ages, her role sees her providing essential healthcare in an area where doctors and nurses are almost non-existent. After marrying the American ornithologist Ludlow Griscom, she goes on to fund the education of a young Newfoundland boy in the States. Edith later supervises a program that provides clothes to the needy, and late in life helps create and stock school libraries in both Newfoundland and Labrador. In so doing, Edith becomes an integral part of life in several coves along the Strait of Belle Isle.

Based on extensive excerpts from diaries, letters, and photographs gathered by her youngest grandchild, Sixty Years for Grenfell tells the heartening story of Edith’s life, and her legacy more than a hundred years on. Compelling, thoughtful, and deeply researched, there exists perhaps no better firsthand capture of what life was like in Newfoundland and Labrador a century ago.