Mary Percy Jackson

Dr. Mary Percy Jackson, OC, AOE (27 December 1904 – 6 May 2000) was an English medical practitioner in the Canadian province of Alberta based in Keg River and the Peace River Country for 45 years.

Background Mary Evangeline Percy. was the eldest of four children. Her father, Thomas Arthur Percy, was a wool merchant and tailor in Dudley, England. Many of her family, including her mother Amy Jane Percy (née Chilton), were school teachers. Despite the family tradition of teaching, at the age of eleven she decided she wanted to be a medical doctor. No-one, including Mary herself, knows why she made this choice; her father suggested that she would have made an excellent lawyer because she argued so much. However, in 1915 women were not allowed to be lawyers.

Education She graduated from the University of Birmingham in 1927 with degrees in surgery and medicine. She took the Queen's Prize for achieving the highest marks in her class. Over the next two years she served as a house physician at Birmingham General Hospital, casualty house physician in the children's hospital, and house surgeon in the maternity hospital.

She wanted to work in obstetrics in Calcutta, India, a post that only came up every third year. As she graduated in "the wrong year", she had to find other work to fill in the time until she would be able to apply for the Calcutta job. A colleague drew her attention to a job advertisement in the British Medical Journal, seeking a female doctor to serve in Alberta, Canada:

23 February 1929. Strong energetic Medical Women with post-graduate experience in Midwifery, wanted for country work in Western Canada, under the Provincial Government Department of Health. Apply in first instance to Dr. E.M. Johnstone, c/o Fellowship of the Maple Leaf, 13, Victoria Street, London, SW1.

In reply to her request for further information from Dr. Emma Johnstone, OBE, the reply added that "The ability to ride a saddle horse would be a great advantage". Jackson had previously taken up horse riding at Sutton Coldfield Riding School in a desire for more exercise, although her family said she rarely, if ever, left the indoor arena. When she learned that Alberta had the Rocky Mountains, she was keen to go, not realising how far north she was to be stationed, or the distance to the Rockies. She originally intended her stay in Alberta to be a one-year adventure.

She was given a remote log shack With her marriage and the move, she lost her wages, as the government decided that there wasn't a need for a doctor in Keg River, and in those days, husbands were supposed to provide for their wives. But even without the government salary, she continued practicing medicine.

Practice in Keg River

The Indians and Métis in the small community were remarkably fit, but were being decimated by Tuberculosis (TB). She managed to almost eradicate the spread of TB in the area with preventative techniques and education. This was before there were any drugs to treat TB, so one of the solutions involved stopping people with TB from spitting on the floor. Prior to her arrival the people had had little idea about germs and how they could spread disease. Other prevalent diseases were rickets, which she treated very successfully with doses of cod liver oil, and goiter due to iodine deficiency. She had two children of her own, and Frank had three from his previous marriage. 1967, Centennial Medal of Canada "in recognition of valuable service to the nation". 1975, Alberta Achievement Award, together with her husband, Frank Jackson "in recognition of outstanding service in the community". 1975, Woman of the Year by the Voice of Native Women.

In 1955 she received a type-written letter dated 28 July 1955 from Clarence House, on behalf of the British Queen Mother:

CLARENCE HOUSE S. W. 1. 28th. July 1955. Dear Dr. Percy-Jackson, I am commanded by Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother to write and say that Her Majesty commands me to send you a brief word of appreciation for the truly great work that you are doing in and around Keg River. I am to explain that Queen Elizabeth reads the magazine of the Fellowship of the Maple Leaf and Her Majestywas deeply impressed to read of your great work, to alleviate suffering and to bring comfort to those who live in such isolated and often almost intolerably difficult surroundings. Queen Elizabeth knows full well that such work cannot be carried out without real courage and self-sacrifice, and I am to finish this short letter by saying how much Her Majesty hopes that you may go from strength to strength in your great undertaking, Yours sincerely, Katherine Seymour. Publications On the Last Frontier: Pioneering in the Peace River Block (1933) Suitable for the Wilds: Letters from Northern Alberta, 1929-1931 (edited by Janice Dickin McGinnis)