Dr. Helen Peel has been practicing chiropractic for the past 60 years
in the town that she was born, raised and educated.
If 30 years pursuing a vocation represents a very satisfying career, imagine 60 years at one profession. That, represents a true calling in life.
Six full decades have passed since Port Perry’s Dr. Helen Peel graduated from the Canadian Chiropractic Memorial College (CCMC) to begin the practice of chiropractic.
“I knew I was born to be a healer,” she said. “I also wanted a job where I could be my own boss. My choice reflected those two attitudes. If I hadn’t become a chiropractor, I wanted to be a vet.”
The first of three children born to Ron and Jean Peel, Helen grew up surrounded by animals on her parents’ poultry farm on Queen Street West. One of Canada’s largest at the time, the Peels employed 75 workers, shipping both chickens and eggs across Canada, as well as 17 other countries.
“We supplied broilers to Swiss Chalet when that chain first started. Our hatchery’s annual volume ran over five million.”
From her youth, Helen remembers the Port Perry of another era.
“Gone are the days when you knew everyone,” she remembered. “When I was young, the town had a population of only 1,500. And there were no buses. We walked everywhere.”
A doctor’s care for a sick animal, witnessed at a tender age, pointed clearly to the young girl’s future.
“We raised foxes, and I took one for a pet. When he was sick, we took him to a chiropractor. He sat up and was better straight away. I decided right then that’s what I wanted to do. My father believed in doing everything as naturally as possible, so that kind of treatment was a logical progression.”
After graduating from Port Perry High School in 1945, Helen began four years of arduous study at CCMC, becoming one of only six women in her graduating class of 132.
Her parents offered a room in their home where she could begin her practice, relying solely on word of mouth to expand her client base. Her father constructed a treatment table (which Helen still uses when she treats people at her getaway home in Florida).
Dr. Helen Peel with her daughters, Robina (left) and Reva.
She firmly rejects any suggestion that she felt discrimination as a woman in a “non-traditional” role during the early days of her practice.
“No, I didn’t experience that,” she said without reservation. And with the beginning of a smile: “Of course, I was making people better.”
Attitudes about chiropractors – both among the public and the “regular” medical community – were quite different in 1949 than they are today.
“The practice wasn’t well known like it is nowadays, and there were only a few chiropractors around,” Helen commented. “Medical professionals from other disciplines came to understand we took the same classes they did. We often get referrals from MD’s now.”
She and husband Chuck Bathie, also a chiropractor, opened a shared practice where Suny’s gas station now operates (Queen Street West at 7A). The building doubled as home: with expansion during the 1950’s, living quarters occupied the upper level, doctors’ offices the lower. The couple would raise three daughters, Rhonda, Reva, and Robina.
Helen found time, beyond her increasingly busy professional life, to curl. She also learned to play the organ.
“Your education’s not complete until you’ve played organ in a pub during sing-along!”
In addition, she also raised, trimmed, and trained dogs: first poodles, later Borzoi. Helen knew that animals, like people, benefit from chiropractic treatment.
“One dog used to push at my leg with her muzzle when she needed realignment. It worked, just like it did with that fox.”
She served the local church, the national Chiropractic College as a long-time teacher, and the international Chiropractic Association. But her desire to help people remained her driving force. Helen’s thirst for chiropractic knowledge exposed her to a less traditional treatment method, ‘Sacro-Occipital’ technique (SOT).
“It’s non-thrusting, slower, and gentler. I experienced its power first-hand: its founder realigned my bad back, and I’ve had no problems since. I thought I knew chiropractic…then I studied SOT!”
Asked to name her greatest accomplishment during her lengthy practice, Helen muses long and hard. Initially, she responds the daily helping of so many is her work’s greatest satisfaction, but quickly adds that she had also seen many memorable cases. She recalls the recovery of a young man from St. Catharines.
“He was badly cross-eyed,” she remembered. “It took four months of work, but he’s fine today.”
Helen points proudly to two of her daughters who’ve joined her on the staff of her current practice. Reva has been a chiropractor 26 years, while Robina has provided massage therapy for 24.
She’s witnessed greatly increased demand for chiropractic services over 60 years. The postwar rise of sedentary office jobs and repetitive factory work created new stresses on the body. That trend continues with today’s electronic technologies, and the impact they’ve had on countless lives.
“Everyday living pulls the spine out of alignment. And computers are the worst hazard because they’re not set up properly for each person.”
Helen Peel moves fluidly, with the step of a much younger person, belying her years. She credits her ongoing good health, not surprisingly, to regular chiropractic treatment.
Beyond the physical, she maintains her youth through positive attitude and continuing commitment to her lifelong ideal of “helping people.”
“Some days I wonder ‘why am I up so early?’ But I get going, come in here, and feel good when I see people feeling better as they leave.”
Recent revisions to her practice are subtle: implemented not as surrender to age, but as a new phase in a remarkable career.
“I do two long days every week, maybe ten hour days, and two more maybe half that. I’ve spaced the appointments 15 minutes apart instead of ten. It’s nice to work at a little more relaxed pace. And this winter, I’m going to take seven weeks down south.”
But outright retire…? Not on your life.
“No, I have no plans to retire. I come from good stock. My grandfather retired, then went back to work at 93. He worked in the hatchery until he was 95.”
Somehow, it’s not at all a stretch to picture Helen Peel following in those footsteps.
By Scott Mercer
Focus on Scugog
Personalities
