Her parents did not approve of a career in medicine for Jennie. At least, they thought it ‘unseemly’ for a young girl to strike out on her own in this field.
They eventually relented, allowing Jennie and her older sister, Elizabeth, who also wanted to become a doctor, to commence studies under the supervision of two doctor friends.
Jane “Jennie” Gray, born Dec. 15, 1862, in Dundas, lived at a time when neither Trinity University nor the University of Toronto would accept women medical students. Fortunately for the sisters, who were teaching at the time, Dr. R.B. Neville and Dr. D.G. Wishart did not share the view the schools took, and arranged for Jennie and Elizabeth to get two hours of lectures from 4 to 6 p.m. each day.
Once equipped and ready for the first-year examinations, the sisters took the exams at Trinity University and passed, following the same approach for their second year of studies.
“By that time, the Trinity University was ready to accept women medical students, seeing we were not utterly stupid even if we were women. So, we went on and both graduated and I won a certificate of honour, being over 75 per cent on every subject, for which, of course, I was very proud and happy,” Jennie recalled.
The Gray sisters were the only members of that graduating class to receive certificates of honour, and Jennie was also awarded a case of instruments as a prize.
Receiving her degree of MDCM at Trinity University in 1892, Jennie Gray was one of the first graduates of the Ontario Medical College for Women.
Doctors Jennie and Elizabeth Gray practised medicine on Carlton Street in Toronto. It wasn’t long before it became apparent a clinic catering to the unique needs of women, administered by women doctors, was desperately needed.
In 1898, a ‘free clinic’ opened in the Sackville Street Mission as a dispensary to serve poor women, and word of the clinic spread among Toronto’s lower- to middle-class women. It was the beginning of important work ‘for women, by women,’ and the start of Women’s College Hospital in 1911. Regardless of an individual’s circumstances, the hospital welcomed women patients at a time when access to affordable health care or social services was not an option for many low-income families.
Women’s College Hospital was the only hospital in Canada staffed entirely by women, providing positions for women doctors at a time when such opportunities were not typically available at other institutions. Women’s College Hospital saw female patients only until into the 1920s.
Jennie Gray, busy physician, Ontario Medical College teacher and head of the original women’s dispensary, drove herself around the city in one of the first five cars in Toronto. She once rolled backward down Avenue Road when the bicycle-type brakes on her buggy-style electric runabout gave out, undeniably a shorter but more exciting ride compared to the time when she and a friend cycled from Toronto to Montreal.
In spite of her busy career, she found time in 1908 to marry James Wildman, a widower with three sons. Wildman’s first wife, Eleanor Elizabeth Vincent, died in 1903. James, born in Hammondsport, N.Y., in 1863, was sent to Montreal to open a Canadian branch of the furniture company he worked for. Following a move to Toronto, he founded the Office Specialty Company factory in Newmarket.
In 1912, the Wildmans purchased a farm and more than 1,000 acres in Wyevale, where James would plant 50,000 young trees. He purchased 200 acres on nearby Georgian Bay as well.
Records show “in 1915, Dr. Jennie Gray Wildman was president of the Toronto Women’s Medical Association, vice-president of the Canadian Purity-Education Association, and president of the Canadian Auxiliary of the Women’s Christian Medical College in Ludhiana, India, a union training college for Indian girls. From 1920 to 1926, Dr. Jennie Gray Wildman was chief of gynecology at Women’s College Hospital.”
In addition, she presented a paper on prenatal care to the Women’s Medical Society of New York in Manhattan. In 1923, Women’s College Hospital created the Community Clinical Association to operate community clinics in Toronto. Dr. Jennie Gray Wildman was one of the Women’s College Hospital doctors who donated her time to provide medical care to the needy and create awareness of the hospital and its programs.
James, after 30 years, sold the company he founded and purchased Crown Furniture in Preston, which he operated until 1925. He retired in 1927.
The Wildmans moved to Barrie about 1928, purchasing the magnificent Thomas Kennedy-designed mansion at 116 Collier St., a spectacular, three-storey Victorian home built in 1886 for tannery owner W.H. Cross. After they relocated to Barrie, Dr. Grey Wildman continued to work in Toronto for a few more years, commuting two days a week.
The Wildmans were busy in their new community. Jennie was president of the Woman’s Christian Temperance Union, speaking to groups such as the Women’s Institute and organizing and hosting the local temperance union’s 65th-anniversary celebration in their beautiful Collier Street home. James participated in several young men’s groups next door at Collier Street United Church. Wildman, actively involved in the Boy Scout movement, donated his land on Georgian Bay to the organization.
The property is still known as Wildman Camp today. The Scouts helped with the tree planting on Wildman’s farm.
Dr. Jennie Grey Wildman and James Wildman donated more than 1,000 acres of their land to the Simcoe County reforestation program. A stone cairn, placed in the village of Wyevale in 1942, recognized Wildman for gifting the forest to the County of Simcoe.
Hikers may be familiar with the Wildman Tract in the Simcoe County Forest. The Wildmans’ 1917 tongue and groove log framework barn, which still stands in Wildman Forest, is a good example of the materials and construction of its day.
The structure is on the Tiny Township Municipal Heritage Register and considered a historic site.
James and Jennie Wildman died within a few years of each other, in their Collier Street home. The house was demolished when the property was sold to Collier Street United Church for its new hall.
Dr. Jennie Gray Wildman’s legacy is partly evidenced in the Museum of Health Care at Kingston, where her physician’s treatment book resides. These little notebooks were common in the 1800s, used by both doctors and medical students for recording useful information or lecture notes. Jennie’s notebook, preserved at the museum, included personal comments, financial accounts and handwritten recipes for medications.
Her treatment book is a particularly important artifact as it belonged to one of the first generation of women doctors in Canada.
Dr. Jennie Gray Wildman, a pioneer in medicine as a woman physician, pioneered health care for women as co-founder of Women’s College Hospital, a hospital for women and children, run by women, and eventually becoming a teaching hospital for women physicians in 1961.
Her role in establishing care, facilities and programs for women’s health and wellness is truly central to the actual history of women’s medicine in Canada.
