Margaret MacDonald

Island story

Margaret MacCallum MacDonald trained in nursing at Montreal’s Royal Victoria Hospital, entering the program in January 1918 and completing the three-year course about 1921. She later worked in Montreal and Boston before returning to Pictou Island, where she became an important source of nursing and emergency care in a community far from regular medical services. Local and biographical accounts remember her assisting families during births, illness and injury; claims about the number of births she attended remain attributed recollection. Margaret married John Alexander “Jack Happy” MacDonald, and their sons included Keith and Ronald.