With a Common Purpose

Extract

I have been invited, in 1971, at the time of my retirement, to write an article to the International Review. It has taken over two years to gain sufficient perspective to carry out the assignment; for the thousands of incidents to settle into highlights of experiences in that capacity. I, at first, thought that I had to sort out my activities during the period as a full-time Red Cross nurse and the events which occurred when acting as an officer of my professional organization, the Canadian Nurses' Association. It was only when I recognized, in retrospect, that the two were irretrievably interwoven that I could begin to outline the tapestry of my life during those years. It was the common purpose of the two roles that made the time so fulfilling. To paraphrase the words of a Roman philosopher, “So far as I am an individual, my country is Canada; so far as I am a Red Cross nurse, I am a citizen of the world”. The International Red Cross mapped the road I was to travel as well as serving as a backdrop to all that was to come.