My husband had taken a few minutes to scan The Guardian before he answered the call to dinner.

"Did you see in today's paper that the San had no more T.B. patients?" he asked, as he sat in at the table.

"Yes, wouldn't Aunt Hay have liked to read that," I replied. "She was dietitian there for 27 years. She was there when they opened in 1931. Do you remember how Donald, when he was little, thought that Aunt Hay went back to her "sand box" when the week-end was over?"

"Not much wonder he was confused," said my husband. "Your side of the family had so many nicknames, what with Aunt Hay, Uncle I.E., to say nothing of 'Buss' and 'Bird.' And how your sister got the name 'Bob,' no one seems to know."

"Everybody calls it the 'San', I said. That's all he'd ever hear, so I suppose it was only natural for him to think that way. He was so happy with his own sand box and certainly knew Aunt Hay was fond of her San."

As we ate dinner, my thoughts went back to one wintry afternoon at the Garden of the Gulf Nursing Home. Aunt Hay had been there for several months, and she knew that she would never be able to return to her apartment. Like so many in her circumstances, she had been thinking back on her life.

"I didn't do enough,." she said to me.

"Of course, you did," I replied.

"No, there was so much I didn't do."

"Oh, Aunt Hay," I protested, "you served the public all your life."

What a cold expression: served the public. I wish now I'd been able to put it in a better way. It was never "the public" to her. And she didn't serve for duty or money; she did it because she loved people. I always knew that. Why couldn't I have said it better? I did try to remind her of all the kind things she had done for her family, for the people she worked with, for the patients at the Sanitorium, and for the military boys during the war.

But I didn't know then what I know now. My aunt was a modest woman, and it was only after looking through her letters and papers that I came to know the full scope of her career.

And now that news item in The Guardian reminded me again that I had planned to put it all down for my children and her other nieces and nephews.

But how to begin? There are so many questions I'd ask her now, so many things I'd like to know. What was it like back in the early nineteen-hundreds in a small town in Prince Edward Island? How did it happen that she went to study Household Science in 1909, far away in Toronto? Such a choice was surely unusual, for, even twenty years later, when she was called to join the staff of the Provincial Sanatorium, she was still our Island's only dietician.

Statistics are important in any account of a person's life, so I'd have to put those down for the children. They would go something like this: "Your great-aunt, Hazel Leah Sterns, was born in 1887 to Mary and Charles Sterns of Souris, Prince Edward Island. She attended school there, and went on to obtain a teaching license from Prince of Wales College. She returned to Souris to teach for three years. Then, she studied Household Science in Toronto for one year.

"She returned to the Island in the fall of 1910. Here she taught Household Science for one year in the now historic Macdonald Consolidated School at Mt, Herbert.

"Some of you remember the story Aunt Hay used to tell about trying to get a boarding-house in Mt. Herbert. Everyone was leery of this girl who was something called a dietician. Mrs. Ernest Mutch finally relented, and took her to board, They became life-long friends, and had many a good laugh about it afterwards.

"When your aunt left Mt. Herbert, she received high recommendations from Vernon Crockett, the principal, and Franklin Bovyer, the secretary of The Board.

"The years 1912 to 1914 were spent in social work at Chalmers Settlement House in Montreal. This work among the very poor of the city was sponsored by the Board of Social Service and Evangelism of the Presbyterian Church.

"Aunt Hay was twenty-five then. She and her three sisters and brother had been brought up by loving parents in a home where the door was always open to friend or stranger, where more often than not there was a guest at the table, and where family prayers were held every morning.

"It must have been a great shock to her to see the poverty and misery of the families which Chalmers House tried to help. Many of the mothers would discuss their family problems with her in her sewing class. The snaps she took showed groups of poorly dressed, under-nourished little children, It was all too much for her, Her health broke down, and she had to leave.

"A letter from an A. A. Ross of 53 Ballantyne Avenue, Montreal West reads, in part, as follows:

I have the honor to inform you of a resolution passed last night at a meeting of the Chalmers House Committee as follows. That this committee places on record our high appreciation of Miss Sterns' services in connection with Chalmers House, our sympathy with her in her present impaired health and our hope and prayer that she may speedily recover her full vigor again and in due time be able to resume her duties at Chalmers House.

Your aunt did go back to Chalmers House for two years, 1918 to 1920, but that was after she had spent four years working with the Island Government in the Department of Agriculture. She was Assistant Supervisor of the Women's Institutes in 1914, and Head Supervisor from 1915 to 1918.

.'Here are copies of letters of recommendation, both written by Murdock McKinnon, that give some idea of the work done during those years.

The first written in 1918, when he was Commissioner of Agriculture reads, in part, as follows:

The work assigned to her included not only conducting of Domestic Science classes, but also the opening of Women's Institutes in the country and establishing of a Schooi Kitchen in Charlottetown, all of which were successfully performed. On account of her adaptibility to City and Country work, I have no hesitation in recommending her to any position of responsibility, with the assurance that it will be carried out with judgement and tact.

The second, written in 1923, when he was Lieutenant Governor, was to the Stephen Henry Gale Memorial Hospital He wrote, in part, as follows:

When Minister of Agriculture in this Province some years ago, I employed Miss Sterns, as Supervisor of Women's Institues, when all the qualities that go to make success were required. She was given an outline of what we required, a free hand and left on her own initiative. The result was a splendid success. The Institutes took on a new life, difficulties were smoothed out, confidence established and new work undertaken with satisfactory results...

And then there's a very warm letter written by Mrs. Merrill Stewart, Secretary of Kingsboro Women's Institute, the year your aunt resigned, which goes like this:

Dear Friend and Leader, on behalf of the Women's Institute of this place, I was appointed to write you and let you know how much we regret your decision to sever your connnection with the Institute work. We have always felt since you were appointed Supervisor that if our Institute were in danger of going to the wall we had only to call on you and have you attend our Annual meeting and all would be well...

And so in 1918, Aunt Hay went back to Chalmers House for two years, and then on to three years' work with the extension staff of the Department of Education of the Province of Saskatchewan.

For the five years preceding her return to Prince Edward Island, she was dietician and instructress at the Stephen Henry Gale Memorial Hospital in Haverhill, Massachusetts.

Then came the call from the Government of Prince Edward Island to head up the dietary and housekeeping departments in the new 60 bed bed Provincial Sanatorium. She gladly returned to her Island, and made the 'San' her life work until she retired in 1957.

" During those 27 years, she gave many home economics students their initial hospital training; she saw the Institution increase its bed capacity to 135, with facilities for the treatment of poliomyelitis patients in segregated units.

In 1942, your Aunt Hay became the first president of the newly formed Prince Edward Island Home Economics Association, and in 1958 was presented with a citation by the parent body, The Canadian Home Economics Association.

Those are the facts or statistics of her life, but they fail to reveal the pretty dark-haired girl who astonished her parents with her decision to study at Toronto University; the young worker at Chalmers House who managed from her small salary to buy skates for a small poverty-stricken boy who wanted them so badly; the daughter who had saved money to take a course at Cornell University but who spent the money instead on a trip for her father to Western Canada; the kindly dietician who made daily visits to the patients at the 'San' doing some teacup reading, and giving a cheery word; or the beloved aunt you children spent your summers with at Blinkbonnie.

Blinkbonnie, her cottage built in 1940 at Priest Pond on the north shore of the Island, was the only home she ever owned; her 'little shack', she called it. But here she brought her treasures, the things she valued in life. Every item in it had a memory for her, and, before she died, she wrote about them in a small red scribbler. Some of the entries read as follows:

The sign, "Blinkbonnie" above the door was made by a "San" patient. Jack Cummiskey. He worked at woodwork sitting up in bed. He also made the wooden candlesticks on the mantle.

The Audubon picture was framed by Stevens of the R.A.F. He was a patient in the San, was musical. The frame is made from a branch of a tree at the Provincial San. He had our faithfui gardener, Jim Stuart, cut them. I used to do some shopping for gifts to send to his mother. I had very appreciative letters from her.

I took Stevens and his pal, Jimmy Ward to Blinkbonnie one Sunday We had a nice afternoon. Stevens fried tomatoes for his supper.

The poetry. "I Bought a Gay Roofed littie House" was printed by a San patient, Joe Foley, from Souris, a great friend of Arthur MacDonald of C.F.C.Y.

I was with Joe a while before he died, a very clever chap who had very little chance in life. Both Art and I were disappointed that he was not buried from Charlottetown where he had so many San friends. But he was taken to Souris on a cold miserable day and my lone flowers on his casket. He had a very clever mind and was very artistic.

The poem. "Let Me Live in a House by the Side of the Road" was done by one of the girls who came from war countries. Her people were in concentration camp. A very sad girl but clever with her hands.

Perhaps the sad girl was Rosa. Among Aunt Hay's papers was a short note written in beautiful script, in pencil on lined paper. This is the way the note reads.

Why say Rosa uses broken or poor English when the four words, "you have mother heart" capture the quality of Aunt Hay that I've been trying to express in thousands of words?

Truly, as Rosa says, she poured out her great 'mother heart' to all who needed her.

Copyright
Waldron H. Leard