Eliza Challener was a young nurse who had come west
from Toronto in response to an invitation from Reston's doctor, A. B.
Chapman. One of her assignments was looking after a man whose
disposition was reportedly unpredictable if not uncontrollable. He
might be violent. Consequently, the municipal council decided that the
attending nurse should herself be attended by a man during her night
duty at the sick man's house. Reluctant to delegate the task, a young
Councillor named A.E. Smith took duty himself. While the patient got
expert care, Mr. Smith made Eliza's acquaintance and, before long,
married her.
Their four children were not yet teenagers — in fact, the youngest was
only four — when the 1919 influenza epidemic placed heavy demands on
Mrs. Smith, one of very few fully qualified nurses in the district. For
a time she quarantined herself, living in a shed at the farm, separated
from her family to diminish the risk of spreading the dreaded
killer-flu of her
patients.
The Smiths' friendship with Dr. and Mrs. Chapman paralleled their
mutual interest in community affairs: both families took leading roles
in municipal government, recreation and the local fair among other
community enterprises.
In 1904 Mrs. Smith was the first lady to curl in Reston, and it is
reported that she still would throw a few rocks into the 1970’s.
Adapted from Trails Along the Pipestone, page 509, 602
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