This plaque commemorates Colonel Elizabeth Smellie's selfless service during the First and Second world wars, and her many accomplishments as a leader of nursing services in Canada.
Elizabeth Lawrie Smellie was born in March 1884 in Port Arthur/ Thunder Bay, Ontario. After completing her education in Port Arthur, she studied nursing at the Johns Hopkins Hospital School in Baltimore. Graduating in 1909, she worked in hospitals in Fort William as well as Detroit. When war broke out in 1914, she was among the first to volunteer for the Canadian Army Medical Corps nursing section and served in hospitals in England and France, in positions of increasing responsibility.
Following the end of the war, she continued her studies in Boston, after which she became a professor at McGill University’s school of nursing, eventually becoming the assistant director. Concurrently, she held positions in the Victorian Order of Nurses and was appointed it’s national chief superintendent in 1924. In the early 1930s, she was appointed to the Rockefeller Foundation where she led a study on maternal welfare. She was subsequently named the First Vice-President of the American Public Health Association and received the Order of the British Empire, in 1934, in the rank of Commander.
With the outbreak of the Second World War, Elizabeth Smellie was asked to return to military service as Matron-in-Chief of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps. Responsible for over 3,600 Canadian nurses deployed throughout the globe, she was also tasked with creating the Canadian Women’s Army Corps. Promoted to Colonel in 1944, she became the first women to attain this rank in Canada.
She returned to the Victorian Order of Nurses after the war and also served briefly with Veterans Affairs Canada until 1948. Colonel Elizabeth Smellie died in March 1968 and is buried at the Riverside Cemetery in Thunder Bay.
