WHEN influential members of the island's Friendly Societies set out exactly 105 years ago to put the wheels in motion that helped to take Bermuda's health care services from zero to wherever and whatever they are today, it is almost incredible realizing the challenges they encountered, the obstacles they over came and even insults endured.

Those were some of the factors revealed in the rich history of the Bermuda Nurses Association (BNA) recounted by historian Joy Wilson Tucker at a forum saluting the lodge brothers and sisters who founded the BNA in 1905 and others who continue to this day promoting their ideals.

From its inception and until after 1955 when desegregation took place at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital, the BNA was largely responsible for financing from its own resources the education of black nurses. And also with providing the only facility, the Cottage Hospital Nursing Home in which they as well as black doctors could practice. First it was located in Curving Avenue, then in Happy Valley. Most of the nurses graduating from the nursing home were sent for advanced training at Lincoln Hospital in New York; and later financed at hospitals in England.

Direct descendants of the BNA founders and its stalwart members down through the years, participated in 'the salute.' Among them was 102-year-old Mrs. Evelyn Smith. She has been an active member for more than 80 years. Others officiating were Sis. Joy Wilson Tucker, whose grandfather William Francis Wilson was one of the first executive officers and Sis. Ghayle Conyers Smith, the daughter of another BNA founder Henry Conyers.

Sis. Marlene Smith currently serves as BNA president; Boyd Smith, vice-president; Sis. Valeria Tuzo, niece of the legendary Hon. Martin T. Wilson is secretary; Sis. Lynn Wilson, Sis. Eleanor Crockwell, Sis. Ida Grimes and brothers Stanford Hart and Lawson Lambert.

Sis. Joy in her well-researched presentation, told the gathering that aside from military hospitals and The Asylum in Devonshire now called the Mid-Atlantic Wellness Institute no hospitals existed in Bermuda until 1894 when the Cottage Hospital (CH) opened its doors in Happy Valley. The building is now used by the Prison Services administration. While the CH filled a void, the needs of the mainly black people in the surrounding area were far from met, particularly in regard to the training and practice of black nurses.

A solution to that situation was devised by a military man, Rev. Dr. A.G. Pentreath, D.D. On his initiative delegates from several lodges met October 30, 1903 in the Alexandrina Lodge of the Grand United Order of Oddfellows. That is the historic lodge south of the Bank of Bermuda drive-in branch in Court Street. The delegates agreed to form a nursing association and to finance from their own resources a nursing home.

The Nursing Home in 1905 the NH was officially opened in the Wilkinson Building in Curving Ave. Its first matron was Nurse Loretta J. Williams. She had received her degree in nursing at Lincoln Hospital in New York. In 1920 the Bermuda Government moved its facility at Happy Valley to the newly built King Edward Memorial Hospital in Paget. And the BNA after intense wrangling with Government moved its nursing home to Happy Valley.

The BNA still uses resources from its investments to aid nurses-in-training and to benefit other charitable efforts.