After the votes were weighed, the Collingwood Museum came out on top.
The Collingwood Museum emerged victorious over the weekend as the winner of the Simcoe County March Madness artifact showdown, which has taken place online over the past month. Its artifact – a wicker baby scale used by Collingwood’s Nurse Ethel Dawson – took home bragging rights for the museum after winning all three rounds of the competition against seven other area museums.
The submission beat out the OPP Museum in the last round with its entry: the oldest known OPP patrol vehicle, a 1931 Henderson KL motorcycle.
“When we realized that the competition was launching on International Women’s Day, we thought it was a great opportunity to tell a story about a local woman,” said Elise Barr-Klouman, education programmer at the Collingwood Museum. “The baby scale really spoke to me because it spoke to Nurse Dawson and everything she did in the community. It also represented women and children. Often that history is overlooked.”
Ethel May Dawson graduated in 1900 as one of the first nurses from the Collingwood General and Marine Hospital’s training school. She became a registered nurse in 1903.
Dawson practised as a private nurse in Collingwood and the surrounding district between 1900 and 1913 until her appointment as town nurse, school nurse, and truant officer by the town's board of health. She served in these roles until 1948.
Referred to as Collingwood’s Florence Nightingale, over the course of her service she delivered more than 1,800 babies. She is remembered for serving her community every day of her life, never taking a day off from work, and rarely missing her daily visits to the General and Marine Hospital.
“She was somebody who never seemed to stop working to better the community, and I wanted to highlight that,” said Barr-Klouman. “This is also somebody that people in Collingwood still remember.”
The white wicker baby scale used by Dawson is preserved in the Collingwood Museum’s permanent collection, having been donated by a former patient in 1979. It is currently on display at the museum, which is open Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
“We’re hoping people will come in to see it and share their own stories of Nurse Dawson,” said Barr-Klouman.
Overall, she says she enjoyed the experience of filming the videos and sharing the history.
“It was a pleasure because we were up against some great institutions that had some fascinating artifacts,” said Barr-Klouman. "I’d like to thank the Simcoe County Museum for spearheading this project. We had a lot of fun doing it.”
“We can’t wait to compete and defend our title next year,” she said.
To read more about Dawson and her career in Collingwood, click here.
