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Barry Bickerton recalls the life-altering phone call to his mom Winnifred “Winnie” May Bickerton in 1969. That phone call would lead to Winnie being hired as the first employee of the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (later changed to CHEO) as a bookkeeper.
Friends and family say she was on the ground floor working with the original CHEO Foundation president, H. Hall Popham, as they tried to raise money to build the children’s hospital.
Winnie was the “glue” and the main channel between the hospital and donors, according to friend and former colleague Dan Holland.
Loving and vibrant, she was a mother of four. When her mother died of cancer after Grade 8, Winnie had to leave school and never returned to complete her high school diploma.
As an adult, she worked at CIBC and the National Film Board of Canada. It was later, as a stay-at-home mother, when Winnie received that call, and the subsequent job offer.
The role at CHEO became a “pivot point” in her life, Barry said, and he recalls when she enrolled in night school to learn about bookkeeping.
"It brought her into a very meaningful part of her life,” Barry said. “I think it gave my mother a real sense of purpose.”
Winnie would jump into a robust fundraising campaign for the hospital while construction was underway for its grand opening on May 17, 1974.
“She could see that she was part of a greater cause,” Barry remembers.
His childhood memories include attending many Teddy Bears’ Picnics where his mom was “in her element” introducing her family to CHEO and Foundation colleagues.
They would meet people like Hal Popham, Dan Holland, Noel Kerr and John Sangster — the man who made the initial phone call to Winnie — all became household names in the Bickerton home.
“It was really evident she was just so proud. She was radiant,” Barry recalls.
That’s because, as Holland said, Winnie would treat CHEOalmost like one of her own children.
“She was just genuine, cared so much about the hospital and the kids,” he said.
“She was probably the best person to have as the spokesperson ... when it came to interacting with the public. There were no airs about her.”
Winnie worked at CHEO until 1982 when her health forced her to retire, but her family has continued to play a part in the hospital’s growth and transformation.
Winnie’s daughter, Cindy Bickerton, worked in CHEO’s Community Relations Department. Her granddaughter and Barry’s daughter, Erin Love, recalls a summer job where she would count the parking meter coins for CHEO’s Finance Department.
Cindy and her family, along with Barry and his family, attended CHEO’s 25thanniversary event in 1999 where the hospital’s employee recognition award was renamed after Winnie.
Winnie was also a grandmother figure for Kathy Bickerton, who worked as a nurse at CHEO for a decade. She remembers visiting Winnie on the CHEO campus in the Foundation portable called “the cottage.”
Kathy’s longest connection to CHEO, however, has been with the Oncology Program because her daughter Ella has had cancer twice.
Ella’s health has improved, though, and she is part of the Youth Advisory Committee — a fourth generation of engagement at CHEO — where she also wants to become a nurse.
Tom Burn, Winnie’s grandson, manages PolyUnity — a 3D printing service offered at CHEO that helps several groups in the hospital repair important parts and create new innovative parts.
Erin also has a child who requires complex care at CHEO, and she remains actively engaged with the hospital community, which has become a family trait.
“I think that sense of community runs through all of us,” Erin said.
With CHEO celebrating its 50th birthday in 2024, Barry says the quality of care at CHEO is “evident in every dimension of the organization.”
“If my mom were alive now, she would just be beside herself ... with the prominence that CHEO and the entire team at the hospital has not only in the region, but nationally and internationally,” said Barry.