Background
Reid was born in Orangeville, Ontario and went to school at Camilla Public School and Orangeville District Secondary School.
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Minerva Reid
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She and her sister, Hannah Emily Reid (b January 19, 1870 - May 27, 1955), attended medical school in Toronto, graduating together in 1905.
Career
In 1915, Reid became the first female chief of surgery in North America. An extremely bright student, she passed her entrance exams at age 11 in 1883. Reid travelled to London, England and Dublin, Ireland to complete her training as a surgeon.
When she arrived at the medical school in Dublin on a dark evening she was met by the house doctor who had no idea what to do with this young woman seeking education at the wholly male institution.
She had to be bedded down for the night in the school dining room, as there was no other appropriate accommodation. The sisters both served on the first Board of Directors for the hospital.
The sisters frequently worked together with Hannah administering the anesthetic while she operated on a patient. Reid was active in the Suffragette cause, and led several rallies to support the establishment of Sunnybrook Hospital for the care of men wounded in the war.
She also ran twice for the Toronto Board of Control in 1942 and 1943.
Politics
She was politically active and ran provincially in the 1929 Ontario provincial election for High Park district as a Prohibitionist candidate and federally in the 1935 federal election for High Park as a Reconstruction Party of Canada candidate.
Membership
As a member of the Toronto Women"s Committee she once wrote to Prime Minister Mackenzie King that "the building is old, cockroach-infested and rat-ridden, and sick and wounded men are suffering there needlessly.".
