Oscar Chipman Dorman was born on the 2nd of May, 1872 at Lockhartville, son of Charles Dorman and Harriet Smith.
According to a 1904 clipping1 from the Amherst “Daily Press” he was proprietor and editor of the “Hantsport Advance” newspaper before taking up his medical studies and residency at the Victoria General Hospital in Halifax.
Dr Oscar C Dorman of Hantsport, NS, formerly an employee of the Daily Press, published here, and later on proprieter and editor of the Hantsport Advance, passed through Amherst today on his way to Winnipeg, Manitoba, where he will engage in practice. Since leaving the printer’s desk some eleven years ago, Dr Dorman has been pretty thoroughly over the world, having been engaged as surgeon on board the Anglo American Cable Co’s ship “Minia” during four years of this time, Resigning this position in 1901 he has pursued past-graduate studies in London during the past two years, where early last year he received diplomas as member of the Royal College of Surgeons, England and Licentiate of the Royal College of Physicians, London. His old friends in Amherst will be pleased to hear of his success in the new field.
There is a connection to Mount Allison University in Sackville, New Brunswick however Oscar Dorman was not enrolled there as a student.
A volume of “Original Poems” by Mount Allison student William Mortimer Lockhart (1868-1889), also of Lockhartville, was printed by Oscar C. Dorman after Lockhart’s death from a lung hemorrhage in the fall of his freshman year. The item2 includes a poem by Arthur John Lockhart (also known as Pastor Felix).
List of poems:
1. Mors et vita
2. Poetry
3. Lines on the death of Rev. J.A. McLean
4. Lines written on a number of graves found in a pasture now owned by M. Solomon Lawrence at Horton Bluff
5. Blomidon
6. Lines on life
7. Monody – on the death of Wm. Mortimer Lockhart who died at Mt. Allison, N.B., Dec. 7th, 1889 by Arthur J. Lockhart.
Dr. Dorman first appears in the “Medical Register, Province of Nova Scotia 1897-8” as follows:
Dorman Oscar Chipman, M D, C M, Dal Univ, 1897. Vict Gen Hosp, Hfx
Dalhousie University Archives has further clarified that Dr. Oscar Chipman Dorman graduated in 1897 with a M.D. C.M. (Doctor of Medicine and master in surgery). He was assigned to the Victoria General Hospital while a student at the Halifax Medical College. The Halifax Medical College3 was the teaching body while the faculty of Medicine at Dalhousie was the examining body.
Dr. Oscar Chipman Dorman was married5 at Winnipeg, Manitoba on the 10th of November, 1910 to Harriet Troop Day. She was the daughter of Rev. Dr. George Frederick Day and Keziah Mabel Hardwick of Granville Ferry, Annapolis County, NS. Following the death of Rev. Day in 1911, his mother-in-law Keziah Day lived with them in Winnipeg until her death in 1934.
Doctor and Mrs. Dorman had three daughters; Margaret b. 1912, Dorothy b. 1915, and Shirley b. 1920. Dorothy and Shirley later worked as assistants in his Winnipeg practice.
In December 1917, Dr. Dorman became an officer in the Canadian Army Medical Corps6. There is no evidence that he served overseas.
According to the Canadian War Museum in Ottawa, the Canadian Army Medical Corps (CAMC) played an essential role in keeping soldiers alive. Founded in 1904, the Corps underwent massive expansion from 1914 to 1918. Casualties among Canadian troops in France and Belgium were so heavy that more than half of all Canadian physicians served overseas to treat them.
The 1931 Census of Canada7 shows the family living at 83 Ruby St. in Winnipeg.
Dr. Oscar C. Dorman died at his home in Winnipeg8 on August 12th, 1946. He is buried in Elmwood Cemetery, Winnipeg with his wife Harriet who died in 1949 at the home of their daughter Margaret Blanchart in Montreal. He was a well known Physician in Winnipeg for 45 years.
Notes:
- HHS Collection
- The University of Alberta Library, Canadian Institute for Historical Microreproductions (Filmed from a copy of the original publication held by the Ralph Pickard Bell Library, Mount Allison University)
- Dalhousie University Library, History of Medicine
- History of the Atlantic Cable & Undersea Communications, Cable Ship “Minia”. With CS Mackay Bennett, Minia was one of the ships which recovered bodies after the sinking of the Titanic in 1912.
- Manitoba Vital Statistics Branch; Registration Number: 1910,002975
- Library and Archives Canada, Department of Militia and Defence. Certificates of Military Instruction
- 1931 Census of Canada, Manitoba, Winnipeg South Centre, Sub District 0055 – Winnipeg (City), Family No. 141
- The Winnipeg Tribune, Tuesday, 13 August 1946, p.5