Grace Phillips

Grace Phillips of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, has lived a full, rewarding life. At 83, she has three grown children, seven grandchildren and six great-grandchildren. This life might not have been possible had Grace's mother, Mary Stevenson, not taken her daughter to Mayo Clinic. But the journey wasn't an easy one.

The Stevenson family lived on a farm in rural Saskatchewan, Canada. Grace was the youngest of six children. At age 7, she began having headaches and nausea. The local physician could not determine the cause of Grace's worsening condition. As luck would have it, Grace's older sister, Ethyl Mary, worked for the local telephone company. A businessman happened into her office and mentioned he was on his way to Saskatoon, the nearest major city with a larger medical center. Ethyl Mary boldly asked the traveler if he might have room in his car to take Grace and Mary with him to see a physician. The man agreed.

Grace was diagnosed with a brain tumor in Saskatoon, but physicians there were not equipped to operate and told Mary to seek more sophisticated care in Winnipeg, Manitoba. Mary and Grace traveled to Winnipeg by train. Physicians there determined that the tumor was too large for them to remove. They operated to remove a piece of Grace's skull and relieve the pressure that was causing the headaches.

The headaches ceased for a time, and mother and daughter returned to their farm.

Soon thereafter, the headaches recurred and Grace's vision began to fade. Mary recalled that the physicians in Winnipeg had told her the only physicians who could possibly remove the tumor were the Mayo brothers in Rochester, Minnesota.

Mary Stevenson with young Grace — looking for hope at Mayo Clinic in 1932.

The Stevenson family was one of very humble means. However, where there's a will, there's a way. The local community helped raise funds for Grace and Mary to go to Mayo Clinic. A neighbor who owned a car provided transportation for the more than 2,000-mile round trip. Along the way, mother and daughter camped in a tent because they could not afford the cost of lodging. Once in Rochester, they continued to sleep in a tent until Grace, by then age 10, was admitted to the hospital. Then Mary boarded with a local resident in exchange for cooking his meals.

On June 27, 1932, Alfred Adson, M.D., Mayo Clinic's first full-time neurosurgeon, performed surgery on Grace. Mayo Clinic had added the specialty of neurosurgery only 13 years earlier. Dr. Adson opened Grace's skull where the piece of bone had been removed previous. There he found a very large cystic tumor in the left lobe of her cerebellum. The tumor was removed completely and was found to be benign. Dr. Adson's clinical notes, which still exist at Mayo Clinic, indicate that he felt he removed the entire tumor and that Grace's long-term prognosis should be very good.

Grace recalls that her physicians showed the tumor to her mother, who described it as the size of a chicken's gizzard. Grace has a large scar on the back of her head as well as scars on her ankle, where surgeons transfused blood from Mary to Grace during the operation.

Grace lost her eyesight as a result of the tumor putting pressure on her optic nerve. Physicians at Mayo Clinic told Mary that they might have been able to save Grace's vision had they been able to treat her sooner.

"My grandmother, Mary, was an incredible woman who would stop at nothing to get help for her daughter," says Grace's oldest daughter, Jean Taylor. "It's hard to believe that from their small rural community they were able to find out about and get to Mayo Clinic at all."

Grace didn't let the loss of her sight hold her back. She attended the former Ontario School for the Blind (now the W. Ross Macdonald School for the Blind) in Brantford, Ontario, and married Orville Phillips.

"I constantly wonder how my mother raised us, especially when we were infants, without being able to see," says Jean. "She led a completely normal life. I'm so proud of her."

Orville died in 1994. In recent years, Grace has lived in a senior citizen apartment complex. She was diagnosed in late 2004 with gastric cancer. Her family was heartened to learn the details of Grace's childhood journey through correspondence with David Piepgras, M.D., professor of neurosurgery at Mayo Clinic.

"Grace's eventual care at Mayo Clinic is a moving account of the medical difficulties and limited care that people faced in the early 20th century," says Dr. Piepgras. "Then and now, Mayo Medical Records does a marvelous job keeping track of and finding former patients. Until hearing from her family in 2005, the last correspondence between Grace and Mayo Clinic was in 1947."

The lesson Jean Taylor learned from her mother and grandmother's experience is to never give up — "even if you have to travel around the world." Jean refers to her mother as Amazing Grace — an appropriate moniker if there ever was one.

Mrs. Grace Phillips passed away on Mother's Day, May 8, 2005 surrounded by her family. Mayo Clinic is grateful to Mrs. Phllips and her family for continuing to share her story on our Web site.