May 28, 2025

People in St. Anthony still tell stories about Wilfred Grenfell, M.D., as if he were a member of their family. Today, there is a hospital that bears his name. But his real legacy is that people are still here, they did not desert the area.

Some industries remanences about the old days. Not medicine. We are not nostalgic about leeches. Nobody brags about having a limb amputated without an anesthetic. There is a reason we don’t say “They don’t stich wounds like they used to.” We have come a long way from Florence Nightingale and a strong drink and biting on a piece of leather to prepare for surgery. Bur every profession has its beginning.

I was able to go to Dr. Grenfell’s home, now a museum, where I was able to go into his original study and research documents where many of these photos came from. I was curious to see the impact Dr. Grenfell’s legacy so I than went to the small current hospital and took a photo of patients waiting to be seen. Of course, I asked their permission to take the photo.

When I left the hospital, my eyes were gazed to the photo below. On the exterior wall of the original hospital these words were inscribed: “Faith, Hope and Love abide but the Greatest of these is Love.”

I was reminded of this parable from the Bible: “A farmer went out to sow his seed. As he was scattering the seed, some fell along the path, and the birds came and ate it up.  Some fell on rocky places, where it did not have much soil. It sprang up quickly, because the soil was shallow.  But when the sun came up, the plants were scorched, and they withered because they had no root.  Other seed fell among thorns, which grew up and choked the plants. Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop—a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.  Whoever has ears, let them hear.”

Thanks for traveling with us.