A native of Saskatchewan, Marion Lindeburgh was born in 1887. While still in her teens, she received a certificate in teaching and taught for 10 years before deciding to pursue her education in nursing. She moved to New York to study at St. Luke’s Hospital of Nursing, and stayed on in the city for several years. Lindeburgh eventually moved back to Saskatchewan where she took on an important role in provincial nursing education.
Lindeburgh arrived at McGill in 1929 to become Assistant Director of the School for Graduate Nurses. It was the start of the Great Depression and more than a decade of financial uncertainty for the School. By many accounts, Lindeburgh was passionate about nursing and devoted to her students. She was a key figure in ensuring the School for Graduate Nurses survived the challenges brought on by the Depression and World War II.
Lindeburgh became Acting Director of the School in 1934 after Bertha Harmer stepped down, and in 1939, she was appointed Director, a position she held until 1950.
As an editorial in the March 1945 issue of Canadian Nurse stated, “Marion Lindeburgh has long been recognized as one of our most forward-looking leaders in nursing education.” In 1932, the Canadian Nurses Association (CNA) published the Survey of Nursing Education in Canada, also known as the Weir Report, which recommended that nursing schools be incorporated into the general educational system of the country. Following the report’s publication, Lindeburgh chaired the CNA’s Curriculum Committee, which worked tirelessly to advocate for upgrading methods and standards of teaching and qualifications in nursing school. In 1936, the committee presented A Proposed Curriculum for Schools of Nursing in Canada, an entirely new curriculum. Lindeburgh eventually served as President of the CNA from 1942 to 1944.
At McGill, with financial support from the School of Nursing Alumni Association and other members of the community, Lindeburgh was able to keep the School afloat during the 1930s. Shortly after the war broke out, the School pledged that its facilities should be made available for any educational purposes connected to preparing nurses enrolled for war service. By 1943, as a wartime measure, the School created a four-month course, which was a full-year certificate course condensed to four months to help maintain essential services in light of wartime adjustments and rapid turnover of personnel.
Despite immense challenges, before the War was over, Lindeburgh had led efforts to establish a two-year post-RN program for a Bachelor of Nursing (BN), a Certificate in Psychiatry, and a course called ‘The Veteran Comes Home’ to support nurses in their care of war veterans.
In 1946, thanks to the efforts of Lindeburgh and faculty member Mary Mathewson, the School received a $60,000 grant from the Kellogg Foundation, which allowed the School to hire new faculty and develop and strengthen the curriculum.
Lindeburgh was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in 1943. She retired from McGill in 1950 due to declining health, and died on March 19, 1955. The Marion Lindeburgh Scholarship at the Ingram School of Nursing is named in her honour.
Resources:
Canadian Nurses Association. One Hundred Years of Service. http://www.cna-aiic.ca/html/en/CNA-ONE-HUNDRED-YEARS-OF-SERVICE-e/index.html#64/z
Canadian Nurse, March 1945: https://archive.org/stream/thecanadiannurse41cnanuoft/thecanadiannurse41cnanuoft.txt
Canadian Association for the History of Nursing, Vol. 15, no 2: https://cahn-achn.ca/pdf/Newsletters/VolXVNo2Fall2002.PDF