Enid Bourne
A Bit of a Treasure
Having a conversation with Enid Bourne is a relaxing and uplifting experience. Her classical music plays lightly in the background. She puts you at ease with an easy laugh that is often focused on her own memories and her slight tendency toward forgetfulness. It is easy to ascertain that she is a glass half-full person and that she has enjoyed her life.
Enid is a bit of a treasure to the people who work at Leader Dog. She has used a Leader Dog longer than any other person. Enid arrived in 1949, “it was June 1949, that I remember,” when Leader Dog was just 10 years old. She had applied to another dog guide school but was told that they felt she couldn’t handle a dog. “I wish I had kept that letter. I sure proved them wrong,” she says with a laugh. That she did. Enid is currently working with her 7th Leader Dog, Lilly.
When Enid first came to Leader Dog, she hadn’t had any formal orientation and mobility training. This type of training began during WWII, but didn’t become widespread until the 1960s. Enid mainly traveled with the help of her family and friends. “It’s funny,” she recounts, “I never learned cane travel, I mainly used common sense. I paid attention when people took me places so I could remember how to get back if I had to. Any orientation and mobility skills I have were learned at Leader Dog.” Since getting her first dog Tarsan, Enid has only been without a Leader Dog for three weeks when she had to put down her 6th dog, Drake, due to spinal cancer. Other than that, all her dogs have worked until they retired in time for Enid to come to LDB to get another dog.
In the early 1950s, Enid attended Washington Business School in New York City where she has always lived. She was the first, and only, blind student at the school. Her classes included typing and dictation, “they didn’t have Dictaphones at the time. They just spoke to you and you typed.” Enid began working from a Dictaphone in 1958 when she passed the New York City transcription test and joined the Chief Medical Examiners office typing autopsy reports. “I was the ninth person on the list to be offered the job; the first eight people turned it down because it was so close to the morgue. But I wasn’t afraid of dead bodies. I took the job.” Enid stayed in this position for 41 years going from manual to electric typewriter and eventually to using a computer. She credits learning a little bit every day and the assistance of her co-workers to being able to make these transitions.
In the 1950s not many people were familiar with dog guides; but Enid was never stopped from bringing her dogs into businesses or school. When she first went to work, “everyone accepted my dog right away. I had a place under my desk where
I could keep the dog out of the aisle. The only issue I ever had was one coworker who liked to feed my Leader Dog ‘Rex.’
She would give him food when I left my desk and my other coworkers would tell her not to and let me know when she fed him. I talked to her about it a few times, but it was like talking to a wall. And we all know a wall can’t respond.”
Living in a city as large as New York has its benefits, “I never had trouble getting around,” says Enid, “with all the public transportation in New York it was easy. I’d take the train to 34th Street then get on the cross town bus to 1st Avenue where I’d walk the final four blocks to work. I’m glad I didn’t live rurally where it can be hard to get transportation to go where you need to go.”
Enid avoids the question of which of her dogs was her favorite. She claims she didn’t have one; that they each had their own special place in her life. But she goes on to talk about “Drake” who “was a puppy when we first got home. He would run around with my shoes and socks in his mouth until I told him to drop them – which he did. He was so jolly and loved to play. When we went to Canada on vacation, he loved to swim in the lake.” She quickly follows this with a hearty laugh and relays a story from 1949 when she bought a raincoat for Tarsan. “We were outside when I put it on him, and he refused to move. So I took it off and he moved again. There was a group of men outside who saw the whole thing and were laughing at Tarsan. I couldn’t blame them. It was funny. I laughed too.”
In retrospect, Enid does have two regrets. “I wish I had moved out on my own at an earlier age, and I wish I had gone to Leader Dog in 1946 like my momma wanted me to.”
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