Florian York Wells, nee Fyfe, always wanted to be a nurse. She recalls visiting her aunt in Scotland who was a nurse. "She sometimes put her cape down and treated people right there," Wells said. "That's when I decided I wanted to be a nurse." But her parents weren't keen about her chosen profession. "I was trained in piano and vocals and accompanied my father from when I was 13 at Robbie Burns celebrations," Wells said, adding that her sister had a bad experience when she trained as a nurse. "She just about died so my parents said that I was forbidden."
But the Edmonton native did not lack determination. "I applied to the Vancouver General Hospital (VGH) and the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal," she said. When she was accepted to VGH, Wells learned that she had to have her tonsils out. "I was only 17 years old and I went to a doctor and arranged to go to the Royal Alexandra Hospital to get my tonsils out. My parents didn't know anything about it until the hospital phoned to say my bed was ready," she said.
There were 98 students in Wells' class but, by Christmas, the number had dwindled to 58. "I think people couldn't stand all the gore and the blood," Wells said, adding that the students all received their white caps at that time.
Wells graduated from nursing in 1952. In 2012, she went to her 60th reunion. Two Bowen Islanders, Florian Wells and Pat Elliott, graduated in the same class and attended the reunion together. Wells was surprised that the 500 nurses there (some had graduated in 1952 others in 1962) were in really good shape. "The oldest was 102," she said. "Not one of us was in a wheelchair and only one was walking with a cane because she had her knee done."
After graduation, Wells went back to Alberta to stay with her parents. "My parents had supported me through my training and I felt that I should go home and stay with them for the six months of graduate work. At that time, I was the head of the case room and gynecology." After that, Wells applied to be a stewardess at Trans-Canada Airlines (TCA), partly because she wanted to be close to her boyfriend who was studying mining and engineering at McGill.
"When I went for the interview at TCA, I had to shrink a little bit as they said we couldn't be over 5 foot 8. And they asked us to pull up our skirts so they could look at our legs," Wells says, indicating a height just below the knee. Wells was accepted the following March and took a four-months-training course at TCA. At that time, stewardesses were required to be nurses, she explained.
Wells didn't end up marrying her boyfriend at McGill. Instead, she threw herself into work. She got a masters degree in nursing. On the days she wasn't flying, she worked at the Royal Victoria Hospital in Montreal with Dr. Penfield, specializing in seizures.
One of Wells' fondest memories is being one of seven stewardesses chosen for a Viscount publicity flight. After working for the airline for three years, she got married and raised four children.
In her youth, Wells spent part of every summer on the West Coast. "We were one month in Vancouver and one month in Victoria," she said. "My mother had an apartment at the end of Pendrell Street and when she passed away, she left me that condo." The Wells eventually moved to the West Coast.
Wells is happy to be where she is, and to be in good health. "This chick is still going strong," she says sixty years after her graduation.
