KEYS, ELIZA J. (1867-1939)

KEYS, ELIZA J., teacher, nurse and hospital superintendent; b. Red Bank, 1 Dec 1867, d/o John Keys and Anne Sutherland; unmarried; d. Red Bank, 12 Mar 1939.

Eliza Keys had a varied life, in which she lived and worked at home for periods of time, and elsewhere in the province and in the United States as a teacher and nurse. She was living at home in 1894 and serving as worthy patriarch of the Red Bank chapter of the Sons of Temperance. The following year she was teaching school in Ludlow parish. She was a "fine teacher" and was still at work in Ludlow in 1897, but in 1901 she was back in Red Bank working in a store. She later enrolled in the nursing school of the Rhode Island Hospital in Providence, and after graduating she joined the hospital staff as supervisor of probation nurses.

Keys was still in Providence in 1915, but she was back in Red Bank the next year. In 1919 she was appointed "lady superintendent" of the Miramichi Hospital, as successor to Mabel D. Richards, who resigned after three years on the job to undertake postgraduate studies. Since Richards was also a graduate of the Rhode Island Hospital's nursing school, it is not surprising that the nurses' training course at the Miramichi Hospital was patterned after the Rhode Island one. Early nursing instructors, in addition to Keys, were the physician Dr Robert Nicholson and the pharmacist J. D. B. Fraser Mackenzie.

After four years as superintendent Keys retired in 1923. In 1928 she went to Vancouver, where several of her relatives were living. She intended to settle there permanently but changed her mind and came back to Red Bank. In 1934 she resumed her former position at the Miramichi Hospital, but she had to retire permanently in December 1935 because of declining health. Earlier that year she was awarded the King's Silver Jubilee Medal, in recognition of her services to the nursing profession.