At first people laughed at Wilfred, but they stopped once prefabricated greenhouses started arriving in St. Anthony. Wilfred, in his usual persuasive manner, had convinced many American garden clubs to donate greenhouses, plants, and seed to the mission. The greenhouses allowed the plants to get a three-month head start on spring so that by the time the weather was warm enough to set the plants outside, the plants were strong, healthy, and half-grown. The project was an instant success, as eighteen-pound cabbages and handfuls of plump carrots were proudly displayed in the community rooms.
In 1932 fifteen thousand hothouse plants were sold to local people up and down the coast. The tide of poor nutrition was beginning to turn at last.
During 1932 Wilfred suffered a mild stroke, which, along with his heart attack, reminded him that his strength was beginning to fail.
In 1934 he visited England again, where he was entertained by the Duke and Duchess of York, who would soon become King George VI and Queen Elizabeth. The royal couple heartily endorsed the International Grenfell Association and attended a fundraiser at the Royal Theatre in the association’s honor.
While in England Wilfred visited his brother Algernon. The two brothers, both of them old and gray by now, sat on the lawn of Mostyn House School, looking out over the estuary of the River Dee and reliving the wonderful fishing and hunting trips they had enjoyed sixty years before. The fishing boats were all gone now; the estuary had silted up, meaning that the neap tides no longer splashed over the brick embankment.
Wilfred also visited his son Pascoe. Wilfred Jr. had graduated two years earlier from Oxford University, but Pascoe was still studying at Cambridge. Finally it was time to head “home” from England to Vermont, to see Anne.
Anne was doing as well as could be expected. At times her pain was great and she was unable to do much, but at other times she traveled and spoke to raise money for the endowment fund.
In Vermont Wilfred found himself in a forced retirement. He filled his days as best he could. He swam in the lake every morning, went for long hikes, sketched birds, and caught butterflies, but he was never truly happy away from the smell of salt water. He wrote countless letters to people he remembered in Labrador, often enclosing a check if he thought they might be in a difficult spot. Many of the staff wrote to him regularly, keeping him up to date on the goings-on at the hospitals and the latest research they were applying to their work.
Still, by 1937 Wilfred knew he was too far out of touch to any longer be an effective leader of the International Grenfell Association, and he resigned as superintendent of the association. The board wrote back informing him that he would now be officially known as the founder and that his ideas and suggestions would always be welcomed and considered.
The following year, in October 1938, Anne’s doctors advised her to have another operation. The Grenfells, along with two nurses and a secretary, set out for Boston. The operation to remove a tumor from Anne’s stomach was not supposed to be high-risk, but Anne developed complications and slowly slipped away. As Anne grew weaker, Wilfred wrote to a friend. “Now that the final goal seems not so far away, we are holding hands closer than ever, confident that the final experience of life also will be easier to face then and indeed become another joyous adventure, when these worn-out bodily machines of ours shall be discarded, and on the other side we shall work again in a new field together.”
Lady Anne Grenfell died on December 9, 1938.
For the first time in many years, Wilfred had nothing in particular to do and no one in particular to do it with. After Anne’s funeral he went south to St. Simon Island, in Georgia, and then on to Miami, where he stayed at Dr. Kellogg’s health clinic. Many people still recognized him, and he could draw an extraordinary crowd. The Pan-American League, which was holding a conference in Miami, invited Wilfred to speak to them. Over four thousand people showed up to hear what he had to say. For the first time, Wilfred found himself a little befuddled in front of the crowd. He later wrote to a friend, “I was quite nervous the night before and I never had been that way before until lately. What is happening to my old think box I do not know, but I forget words. I have never had such a fight to give the message I wanted.”
Wilfred knew that his speaking days were numbered, and for the first time in his life, he was content to think of spending the winter quietly at home beside the lake. However, during the winter he came up with a new idea. Anne had asked to be cremated, and Wilfred decided to take her ashes back to St. Anthony to be buried. The thought of seeing his old friends invigorated him, and he set about making plans for what he was sure would be his last trip north.
In July 1939 Wilfred was on board a ship once again. This time it was a tourist ship sailing from Montreal up the coast to Labrador. With him were his daughter, Rosamund, his personal assistant, Wyman Shaw, and another old friend from Georgia. It did not take long for word to spread that Sir Wilfred Grenfell was on board, and the passengers flocked to get his autograph and hear him reminisce. Many passengers confided that they had come on the tour as a result of hearing Wilfred speak years before or because they had read one of the many books he had written describing his adventures in Labrador. This alone made Wilfred happy that he had come. For many years he had tried to get tourism going in Labrador, but it had not been possible until the coast was properly charted and safe for tourists.
Wilfred arrived in St. Anthony on August 31, 1939. It had been five long years since he had seen the village. Hundreds of people were waiting patiently on the pier for him. They cheered and waved evergreen tree boughs to welcome him. Wilfred, with Rosamund on his arm, disembarked from the ship and walked slowly up the path that led to the hospital. Memories flooded his mind as he looked into the faces of so many colleagues and friends.
Wilfred stayed in his old house, which was now being used by Dr. Charlie Curtis, the new superintendent of the mission and the doctor in charge of the St. Anthony Hospital. When Wilfred had rested, Dr. Curtis took him on a tour of the settlement. They inspected the cavernous barns where dairy herds wintered over and the rows of greenhouses that supplied the hospital with fresh vegetables. Wilfred visited with the disabled fishermen who now made adequate livings carving ivory and polishing labradorite, a local semiprecious stone, and the women and children who made garments out of deerskin.
Wilfred strolled through the school and orphanage, recalling the seventy children who had been orphaned as a result of the influenza epidemic of 1919. It was hard for him to believe that that was twenty years ago. Dr. Curtis left the best for last: he took Wilfred on a tour of the hospital, which had been expanded since the last time Wilfred had seen it and now had two hundred beds. The equipment and care Wilfred saw rivaled anything he had seen in the best hospitals in Boston, an observation that made him proud. He had always said that God intended to give the people of Labrador the very best, and they certainly had it.
On the second day, Wilfred, Rosamund, and their friends held a service to remember Anne and lay her ashes to rest. The spot Wilfred chose was high on a hill overlooking the cove and the home she and Wilfred had shared. It was a moving moment for Wilfred as he recalled how Anne had made his mission her own as well.
Dr. Curtis had a special treat in store for Wilfred. He gave him command of the Northern Messenger, one of the mission’s tenders, and told him he could take it where he pleased. With an engineer, a pilot, and his companions, Wilfred set off across the Belle Isle Strait to Red Bay. As he took the helm, the years seemed to fall away, and Wilfred was once again that twenty-seven-year-old seeing the Labrador coast for the first time.
Red Bay, the site of the first cooperative society on the coast, had prospered. Many people remembered Wilfred, and those who were too young to do so had heard many tales about his kindness and courage.
When he returned to St. Anthony, Wilfred was invited on a cruise to Hare Bay. Once again the memories flooded back. This time he was on the ice pan, floating out to sea, with only his dogs for company and his faith to keep him from giving up hope.
Finally, in late August, it was time for Wilfred to board the steamer and head south. Everyone in St. Anthony came to see him off. They sang “Auld Lang Syne” as the steamer pulled away, and Wilfred took off his hat and waved it at everyone. It had been the most extraordinary visit of his life, and he was glad he had lived long enough to see so many of his plans come to fruition. He wiped his eyes as the music faded and the ship steamed out into the open ocean.
Back in the United States, Wilfred kept himself busy, though his mind often wandered back to those special days that summer. He attended an alumni dinner in New York City, where 250 former WOPS came together to raise money and greet their beloved leader. Over thirty-five hundred WOPS had gone out to serve with the mission over the years, and Wilfred knew that they had played a significant role in propelling the mission forward. Then Wilfred took a train across the country to accept an honorary degree from the University of California, lecturing at various stops as he went.
Wilfred was back in Vermont when the Second World War broke out. He recalled his days in France in 1915, and it upset him to think that another round of bloodshed was in store for Europe. He had no thought of visiting England again, as Algernon had died the year before, but he kept up with the news on a daily basis.
On the afternoon of Thursday, October 10, 1940, Wilfred played croquet with some visitors. After the match he felt tired and excused himself and went up to his room for a nap before dinner. He drifted off to sleep with his mind full of plans for the International Grenfell Association. An hour later he was dead.
News of Sir Wilfred Grenfell’s death reverberated around the world like the salute of a battleship’s cannon. Wilfred’s funeral, which was held in Boston, was a huge ceremony, complete with representatives of the king of England and the governments of the United States, Canada, and Newfoundland. But it was the simple ceremony a year later, on that rugged hill above St. Anthony, that reflected the life Wilfred had chosen. Aged fishermen, doctors, nurses, orphaned children, and two blind twins all stood arm in arm singing Wilfred’s favorite hymns as they placed his ashes into the stone vault. Below them, the North Atlantic Ocean crashed against the rocks. Wilfred was home at last.
