For the first time since its opening in December 1939, the Bonne Bay Cottage Hospital, located in Norris Point on the west coast of Newfoundland, closed its doors in 2001. Some readers of this book will be curious about life in small rural hospitals, or perhaps about changes in the nature and organization of hospital care in rural communities; yet others will wonder what lessons can be learned from small community hospitals. Cottage hospitals in Newfoundland, which have become an indelible part of its history since the 1930s, offer a rich story. The one in Norris Point has a particularly important history which includes the involvement and contributions of such Newfoundland notables as Nurse Myra Bennett and Dr. Noel Murphy.