One of three in our collection belonging to Hazel Mae Schwerdtfeger -Photo from the Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum

Hazel Mae Schwerdtfeger was a Carleton Place native who received her nurse’s registration in June of 1935. She eventually became a public nurse in Almonte. After their parents death, sisters Bertha and Hazel, (who never married) lived together in the old family home on Lake Ave West.

Hazel became a registered nurse and the sisters lovingly kept all their mother’s millinery sundries and later donated the collection to the Beckwith and Carleton Place Heritage Museum. A large portion of Hazel’s estate was willed to the Victorian Order of Nurses in Carleton Place, and as a tribute, the former V.O.N. building was named Hazel House with a portrait of her and her sister hung in the foyer.

Here is a letter she wrote to her father. There is no date on it, but I am assuming it is the 30s as she graduated in 1935. Letter courtesy Wanda Lee Morrison and the Joan Kehoe Collection.

Sister Bertha and Hazel-Photo from the Carleton Place and Beckwith Heritage Museum

Dear Daddy,

If Dr. McEwen come to Toronto and wishes to put in a good word for me have him see Miss Austin the superintendent as she is fair-minded. Her assistant Miss Collins sometimes takes her place and she is a devil and no one can talk to her. Whatever he said to her would be to no avail as she hates everybody in creation.

He could see Mr. Bower also as well as Miss Austin. That’s if he wishes to put in a good word for me. Either Mr. Bower or Miss Auston would do. I suppose Miss Austin is best as she is the head of nurses.