MARTIN, MALVINA (1876-1955)
MARTIN, MALVINA, Sister Martin of the Religious Hospitallers of St Joseph; pharmacist, x-ray technician, and anesthetist; b. Van Buren, Me, 17 Aug 1876, d/o Joseph Martin and Mary Cyr; entered religious life, 1897; d. Chatham, 23 Dec 1955.
In 1915 Sister Malvina Martin and Sister Martina Maloughney of the Religious Hospitallers of St Joseph passed the required examinations and became registered as New Brunswick pharmacists. They were the first pharmacists of the order at Chatham and probably of any religious congregation in New Brunswick.
Maloughney died in 1916, at age twenty-five, but Martin, who was fifteen years her senior, lived another forty years. In 1922 she went to Quebec to train as an x-ray technician. She later studied anesthesiology. Her many skills were invaluable at the Hotel Dieu Hospital in Chatham, where expertise was always in short supply. She was also stationed for a time at the Hotel Dieu in Antigo, Wisconsin.
Martin celebrated the golden jubilee of her religious profession at Chatham in 1947 and died there eight years later, at age seventy-nine.
Sources
[b/d] official death records / Commercial World 4 Dec 1947; Leader 3 Feb 1911; RHSJ data; Whitty files
Remarques
It has been stated that Sisters Martin and Maloughney were the first women pharmacists in the province, but there was a registered woman pharmacist at Milltown in 1911.