Family Beginnings
The Palmerston Hospital has a very unique history in its own right. Unfortunately dates are very hard to to determine, but to date Palmerston has had the pleasure of three separate facilities. I thought it appropriate to take excerpts from an article in the Palmerston Observer to tell you the beginnings;
It all started with a wealthy man of considerable prestige in early Palmerston. He was J. R. Hamilton, who was big in real estate, and all business transactions when the town was young. He is described as an astute and scholarly type, and was credited with amassing considerable wealth. The scope of his home would seem to indicate this, and the fact that he had a driving shed that would accommodate four “rigs” and a small barn that would stable six horses, and possibly several cows, would seem to bear this out. This home was located at 420 Main St. West (current home of Dr. Cressey). His widow survived him for many years, and lived alone in the large house. She is described as a demanding, imperious, shrill woman by those who remember her, and she was lonely. In those days, a person suspected of commanding considerable wealth, like Mrs. Hamilton, was treated with deference. After all, the old gal might pop off and remember you in her will. Thus it was that she “commandeered” the lives of two nieces who lived in a distant city. And they like dutiful nieces, who felt they must “toady” to their rich and imperious old aunt, came to make their home in Palmerston. The eldest of this pair of McGee sisters was Carrie. She was a Registered Nurse, back when such professionals were found only in large city hospitals. Her younger sister, Maggie, learned much from Carrie, and was a skilled “practical nurse” as they called them in those days. The McGee sisters took up residence in Palmerston and their original intention must have been just to keep house and comfort their aging aunt, Mrs. Hamilton. |
Palmerston Doctors, and other professional men in distant towns were pleased to have the McGee Sisters on call to help them with their work. For this was the era when surgery was just coming into its own, and hospitals as we know them today were almost unknown. A hospital was a place where they put you when all hope was gone. A sick person went to the hospital for but one reason. To die.
Babies were all born at home. Appendix, gall bladders and mastoids were removed in kitchens hurriedly improvised into surgeries, with the kitchen table, on which the family had just breakfasted, as the operating table. Small wonder the local physicians and surgeons welcomed the knowledgeable and efficient McGee sisters to town. The medical men started using the services the McGee’s offered more and more. The Sisters were out of the Hamilton home for days at a time, and old Auntie Hamilton didn’t take too kindly to the neglect that she felt was being inflicted upon her. No indeed she didn’t. Her demands for attention became more and more querulous.
So the sisters compromised. The big Hamilton home had something like fourteen rooms. They would move the patients in there. This they did, and more and more the Hamilton residence became known as “Palmerston Hospital.”
But the now quite aged and senile Mrs. Hamilton didn’t appreciate all the strangers invading her privacy. Doctors coming and going at all hours of the night. People visiting and people being sick, and dying in her home. She set up such strenuous objections that nieces Carrie and Maggie finally persuaded the doctors that this must stop. It is interesting to note here that the rather famous physician-surgeon of this area in those days, Dr. Groves, for whom Groves Memorial Hospital in Fergus is named, plied his profession in this building.
Finally, bowing to the pressures Mrs. Hamilton created, the McGee sisters, with financial help from the Medical Men and other citizens, purchased the house on the north-east corner of Main and Brunswick Street, and in this large red-brick building, established the hospital there. When their effort fell upon hard times, the people of Palmerston voted to have it saved by contributions from their tax dollars. A special act of parliament was necessary to allow a municipality to get into the hospital business. But this was arranged and Palmerston became one of only two towns in Ontario that owned their own hospital.
The Main Street building soon proved too small. It was added to during the years, and finally expanded to connect with, and engulf the white brick home to the east of it. When all of this proved insufficient, the present modern hospital was built on White’s Road, with room for almost limitless expansion.
So there you have it! Two sisters and a cranky old aunt can be credited with the early beginnings of the Palmerston Hospital. One thing of interest is the McGee sisters were never listed in the Palmerston census up to 1911, Mrs. Hamilton shows at the age of 75 in 1911 and her death was roughly 1914. Dating from photographs would put the Hamilton home as the hospital around 1900-1912, with the move to the Main and Brunswick location around 1913.
Babies were all born at home. Appendix, gall bladders and mastoids were removed in kitchens hurriedly improvised into surgeries, with the kitchen table, on which the family had just breakfasted, as the operating table. Small wonder the local physicians and surgeons welcomed the knowledgeable and efficient McGee sisters to town. The medical men started using the services the McGee’s offered more and more. The Sisters were out of the Hamilton home for days at a time, and old Auntie Hamilton didn’t take too kindly to the neglect that she felt was being inflicted upon her. No indeed she didn’t. Her demands for attention became more and more querulous.
So the sisters compromised. The big Hamilton home had something like fourteen rooms. They would move the patients in there. This they did, and more and more the Hamilton residence became known as “Palmerston Hospital.”
But the now quite aged and senile Mrs. Hamilton didn’t appreciate all the strangers invading her privacy. Doctors coming and going at all hours of the night. People visiting and people being sick, and dying in her home. She set up such strenuous objections that nieces Carrie and Maggie finally persuaded the doctors that this must stop. It is interesting to note here that the rather famous physician-surgeon of this area in those days, Dr. Groves, for whom Groves Memorial Hospital in Fergus is named, plied his profession in this building.
Finally, bowing to the pressures Mrs. Hamilton created, the McGee sisters, with financial help from the Medical Men and other citizens, purchased the house on the north-east corner of Main and Brunswick Street, and in this large red-brick building, established the hospital there. When their effort fell upon hard times, the people of Palmerston voted to have it saved by contributions from their tax dollars. A special act of parliament was necessary to allow a municipality to get into the hospital business. But this was arranged and Palmerston became one of only two towns in Ontario that owned their own hospital.
The Main Street building soon proved too small. It was added to during the years, and finally expanded to connect with, and engulf the white brick home to the east of it. When all of this proved insufficient, the present modern hospital was built on White’s Road, with room for almost limitless expansion.
So there you have it! Two sisters and a cranky old aunt can be credited with the early beginnings of the Palmerston Hospital. One thing of interest is the McGee sisters were never listed in the Palmerston census up to 1911, Mrs. Hamilton shows at the age of 75 in 1911 and her death was roughly 1914. Dating from photographs would put the Hamilton home as the hospital around 1900-1912, with the move to the Main and Brunswick location around 1913.