(died 13 Nov. 1975), nurse, author; a “near Glengarrian” rather than a Glengarrian. Born at Richmond, Que. Parents: Enos Leroy Banfill and his wife Sarah Augusta Healy. Bessie J. Banfill trained at the Sherbrooke Hospital as a nurse, and served as a nurse in the Grenfell Mission in Labrador, in an Indian residential school in B.C., and elsewhere. In 1945 she settled at Avonmore, Stormont Co. She wrote Labrador Nurse (1945), Nurse of the Islands (1965), With the Indians in the Pacific (1966) and Pioneer Nurse (1967).The books were very widely read, and her obituary states that Labrador Nurse was estimated to have sold over two million copies. She died at Hotel Dieu Hospital, Cornwall. She belonged to the United Church, for which she had done humanitarian work.

Detailed obituary with much biog. information Glengarry News 20 Nov. 1975 * Ian Bowering in Hometown Supplement Standard Freeholder 18 March 1995 * Marin 396 * Worrall 102-103