Edward Harry Snell

 Ed was born in 1951 at the Gladstone Hospital. About a year later he was inflicted with the polio virus and became very ill. The local doctors were unfamiliar with the treatment for polio and Ed was referred to a specialist in Winnipeg. There were many hospital visits and several surgeries. The family was fortunate to have Blue Cross to help with the medical bills.

When it came time to renew the policy that year, Blue Cross refused to continue coverage. Ed went to the one room schoolhouse, Soudan School, near Ogilvie. When he was in the Children’s Hospital in Winnipeg recovering from surgery, he attended school there. He graduated from Soudan and went on to Plumas Collegiate for grades 9 through 12. He then went to Red River College in Winnipeg where he graduated from the Electronic Technologist program. Employment opportunities in Manitoba at that time were fairly limited and many graduates did not find jobs.

 Ed managed to get a job offer from Canadian Standards Association (CSA) in Rexdale Ontario before graduation ceremonies. He loaded up his life’s belongings and drove there to take the position as a calibration technologist. He was responsible for calibrating all the testing equipment used by CSA in testing equipment to CSA standards. He was a member of the CUPE union where he became the vice-president, chair of the contract negotiating committee and chair of the job evaluation committee. He worked at CSA for 7 years.

 Ed went on to work at the Ontario Crippled Children’s Centre (later to become MacMillan Rehabilitation Centre) in the Rehabilitation Engineering Department where he coordinated the Powered Mobility Program. This program designed, developed and provided specialized control systems for children who were unable to use commercially available technologies. Many disabled children benefitted from this work. He became involved in many research projects which he also coordinated. The Team developed the first powered mobility aid in North America for 2- to 5-year-old children and measured the impact of this technology on children’s overall development. Similar pediatric research concurrently took place in Washington state and Sweden.

In 1983 he was presented with the Walter Dinsdale Award by CRCD (Canadian Rehabilitation Congress for the Disabled) in recognition of outstanding achievement in the development of technical aids for the benefit of disabled persons.

 Ed prepared, presented and published many scientific papers at national and international rehabilitation conferences on the technologies he and his Team developed. He organized and presented instructional courses on powered mobility at these same conferences for rehabilitation professionals. He co-edited a publication “Pediatric Powered Mobility” which was published by RESNA press and first presented in Seattle, Washington.

In 1989 Ed married Hilda Theobald in Toronto. He took an opportunity to work at Bloorview Children’s Hospital as coordinator of Rehabilitation Technology where he headed up a Team developing environmental control systems and augmentative communication devices. About six years later, Bloorview Children’s Hospital and MacMillan Rehabilitation Centre merged to become the Bloorview MacMillan Rehabilitation Centre.

 In 1996 Ed was presented the Thomas William Hopson Award by OACETT (Ontario Association of Certified Engineering Technicians and Technologists) in recognition of exceptional achievements in developing aids for the disabled.

 In 1999 he applied to the Ontario Neurotrauma Program and the Rick Hansen Foundation for 3 year research funding to develop a web based environmental control system. The project was approved. It was the largest approved project in the whole organization and the largest project in all of Ontario.

Post-polio symptoms began to plague Ed’s life and caused him to take early retirement. In 2001 Ed and Hilda moved to Gladstone and assumed a quieter lifestyle. They both became involved in Gladstone Community Access TV channel and Hilda started a regular cable show “Talk About Town”. Hilda was an active member of the Legion Ladies Auxiliary. Ed became involved in the Handi-Transit Committee and prepared a funding proposal to replace the Handivan vehicle. The proposal was successful in obtaining multi-source grants. He also became involved in the Gladstone Economic Development Committee where he prepared a proposal to develop a home hemodialysis training program in Gladstone. While the proposal established a meeting with the deputy minister of health, it was not ultimately successful for Gladstone. Funding was provided to a hospital in Winnipeg to conduct this work.

 Ed was predeceased by Hilda in 2018