Manchester Visiting Nurse Association
April 4, 1910 – Manchester Women’s Club Board voted to start a fund to employ a district nurse
December 1910 – By-Laws named association Manchester Visiting Nurse Association
1911 – first nurse hired part time – Miss Laura Carney
1912 – nurse paid for by Metropolitan life Insurance Company because she tended to many of their clients
1913 – became affiliated with the American Red Cross Society – Miss Carney’s uniform now includes national insignia
Fall 1918 – great influenza epidemic
Manchester Cricket – “It is Impossible to gauge in anyway the amount of loss and suffering saved to our community by all the care and nourishing food so seriously needed as given from our nursing service.”
1919 – added dental clinic
1934 – purchased first automobile for nurse’s daily visit but “rumored that nurse preferred her bicycle”
1935 – Mrs. Helen Cool joined staff part time
1940s – Mrs. Cool became Head Nurse
1952 – Public Health Service and School department merged into Manchester Nursing Service
July 1979 – joined Danvers, Beverly and Cape Ann to become Visiting Nurse Association of North Shore, Inc.
Again in 1995, three regional Visiting Nurse Associations (VNA North Shore, Cambridge VNA, and Dedham VNA) joined together to become VNA Care Network & Hospice.
The organization grew again when the VNA of Central Massachusetts joined in 2000 and the VNA of Boston in 2013.