Marion Moodie: From Proper Lady to New Woman‪.‬

The first idea of nursing as a future occupation ... came to me when I was twelve years old. I was visiting a friend who was convalescing after an illness and the little acts of waiting on her which I was able to do appealed to me so strongly that, under a pledge of secrecy, I confided to her that I thought I should like to be a nurse. A few years later it seemed to fall naturally to me to be the one to help my mother with any nursing in the family, and when she was ill to take the responsibility of nursing her, as we were [then] living in the country out of reach of a competent doctor or any qualified nurses.(1) So began the informal preparation for her career, for a woman who would become the first nurse to graduate in what would later become the province of Alberta. Marion Moodie was twelve years old living in Quebec in 1879 when she told her friend her secret. Twelve years later the family moved to a ranch west of Calgary but it was not until 1895, after the death of her mother, that she acted on her childhood aspirations. In the spring of 1895 Marion entered the Calgary General Hospital as the first probationary nurse.