Irma Marie Calvert was born December 31, 1917, in Hespeler (now Cambridge), Ontario, Canada. In 1929, her family loaded their old Essex and headed for California, seeking a warmer climate for her brother, a “sickly” child whom they hoped to save from the fate of three earlier children they had lost.
The family eventually moved to Bremerton, Washington, where Irma graduated from high school. After earning a BA from Willamette University, she moved to Moffett Field, California, where she worked as a computer for military aircraft research at the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (now NASA). With her salary from this position and help from her family, she was able to realize her long held ambition to attend medical school.
After graduating from the Medical College of Pennsylvania (now Drexel) in 1947, Irma took her internship and residency training at St. Joseph’s Hospital in San Francisco. She married Dr. Ernest West and they had one child, Michael David, before divorcing. Later, she moved to Berkeley, where she received her Master’s in Public Health and accepted a position with the State Department of Public Health (now Dept. of Health Services). Over the years, she held many positions with the Department, including Chief of Occupational Health Research and Development Section, Associate Director of the Public Health Division, and Chief of Occupational Health Branch. Some of her research on the health effects of pesticides on agricultural workers was provided to Rachel Carson, author of Silent Spring. She authored over thirty scientific papers, contributed to seven books, and was a member of a number of medical organizations, including the American and California Medical Associations.
After retiring in 1980, Dr. West devoted more time to her grandchildren and great grandchildren and pursued her hobbies of medical history and writing. In 2007, she was still a member of the Unitarian Universalist Society of Sacramento.