JUST IN TIME
Crossing The Threshold:
}} Lindsay’s House of Refuge During my high school years, I had the opportunity to accumulate my requisite volunteer hours at Victoria Manor, Lindsay’s oldest nursing home. It’s a bright and airy place, complete with a large atrium, a fine chapel, activity rooms and four wings — Elford, MacMillan,Vaga and Victoria — in which residents live and enjoy each other’s company. Known locally as The Manor, it opened about 30 years ago and replaced a much older facility a short distance to the south. Lurking behind stands of tall trees on the former Curtin farm, the “House of Refuge” has been gone for a number of years now, but its long and sometimes tragic history inspires reflection on how much has changed in the field of geriatric care. Constructed in response to provincial legislation passed in 1903, which required county councils to build such institutions to shelter the aged and infirm, the House of Refuge was a far cry from today’s nursing homes. Put yourself in the shoes of a citizen visiting an elderly relative at the House of Refuge in the first decade of the 20th century. Reaching the end of the long lane linking
IAN McKECHNIE
the grounds with the outside world, you are confronted by a large, Edwardian-looking building patterned after a similar “poorhouse” in Lambton County. Three stories in height, it is built of red brick. To a casual observer, it could be a school or a hospital — and in fact, that’s exactly what you first think it is, as the front door opens and an elderly man emerges, looking very frail indeed. Curious, you cross the lawn, and wander around to the southeast of the building. Stretching out before you are several acres’ worth of crops, all being tended by elderly citizens under the watchful eye of Robert G. Robertson, the first groundskeeper.
House of Refuge
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