October is Women’s History Month. It’s a time to celebrate the achievements and contributions of women and girls throughout our history.
Among the many people who have made lasting impacts on Sundre, we think the more than 260 women who fought to be heard by Mountain View County council in 1967 deserve special mention.
One morning in April of that year, about 265 women travelled from Sundre to the meeting of the Mountain View County council in Didsbury.
Led by local Muriel Eskrick, the women wanted to change the council's opposition to building a hospital in Sundre.
Reportedly, the council of the day refused to see the women.
Historical references to the day have Eskrik insisting that the contingent would then sit on the floor and wait.
While they did not intervene, the RCMP were called in. Eventually, the council agreed to hear what the contingent had to say.
“The women made their presentation and countered the arguments against. Later that evening, the council's decision came. Sundre would have its hospital,” states a summation of the event on the Central Alberta Regional Museum Network.
Their impact that day changed the course of history for Sundre. There’s no doubt it changed the health of the local population, but also the economy with jobs created when the hospital opened a year later.
Hundreds of people in the district had rallied for the cause in the preceding decade, including the chamber of commerce that Eskrik was part of. But it was the women’s sheer show of force that day coupled with their “Hell no, we won’t go” attitude that obviously made an impact.
Eskrik, like many other women of her time, reportedly was no stranger to the dire need for health services to be closer to the local population.
In 1946, the then Bergen-area woman reportedly safely delivered a baby for a neighbour when rains and flooding prevented travelling to the nearest hospital 55 miles (89 kilometres) away.
She, and the group of women who lobbied so valiantly for the region’s health are truly pioneering activists of their day.
They would set the bar for those who came after them, and come they did.
In 2016, the community once again banded together, this time to save the allotment of long-term care beds at the same hospital those 265 women fought to have built. The thought of losing the hospital entirely weighed heavily on people’s minds.
Hundreds of people turned out to meetings, wrote letters and lobbied.
In the end, long-term care beds were saved and new levels of care not previously available were instituted.
Many of the people involved in the 2016 effort probably did not consider themselves activists.
It’s a moniker that those 265 women back in 1967 maybe wouldn’t have used either.
Regardless, their campaign to bring about change taught us that access to health care is important enough to take a stand for.
Lesson learned ladies.
