The.Old Ladies Home, Broad St. (formerly Main St.), Saint John, NB, also known as Courtenay House, was for many years a residence for elderly women. It did not have any known affiliation with a church or service club although its origins are somewhat shrouded in time. Graeme Somerville, a benefactor of the Greater Saint John Community Foundation, whose mother was a resident in the 70’s has speculated it could date to the 1800’s. Murray Driscoll, former Board Chair of The Church Home of St. John and St. Stephen recalls attending religious services there with his father, a Salvation Army member, when he was a boy, more than fifty years ago. It was not a nursing home, as we know it today, but rather a stately brick residence in Saint John’s South End, complete with a graceful staircase and drawing room. It is unlikely it ever was a private residence. Residents took their meals at small tables and had their own separate bedrooms. In those days the building did not have an elevator to the second floor, so some mobility on the part of the residents was required. A “matron” supervised day to day operations.
Many of the approximately twenty ladies living there were unmarried and had no close relatives to provide for their care. For that reason, they were generous to the Home and many made bequests to it on their passing. A fund accumulated and was used to help operate the Home and provide for its residents. A board existed at the Home, which helped oversee this as well as ensuring volunteers and meeting other needs of the resident ladies. Some of the volunteers who served on this Board and later the Advisory Committee over the years to the present day include:
Dr. John Bewick, George Clark Q.C., Dr. Leroy Creamer, (Chair), Robert Creamer, (Chair), Mrs. Joanna Filliter, Dr. Leonard Higgins (Chair), Mrs. Lois MacDonald, G.Andrew Oulton, Mrs. Ann Pike, Mrs. Joyce Pridham, Edith Rosenow, Mrs. Jamesie Stead, Mrs. Sally Taylor, Mrs. Janice Waldschutz (Chair),
As social conditions changed, people’s life expectancy increased and the needs of the elderly became greater. Several new nursing homes were in the planning stages, including Loch Lomond Villa and The Church Home of St. John and St. Stephen, which celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2002. It was at this juncture that it was determined a move would be made to close The Old Ladies Home and transfer residents to The Church Home of St. John and St. Stephen in Millidgeville and other similar facilities. Some of the beautiful antique furnishings in the parlour of The Church Home of St. John and St. Stephen came from Courtenay House/The Old Ladies Home.
An application to the courts was made by Deno Pappas Q.C. on behalf of The Old Ladies Home to transfer the funds to The Saint John Foundation. The matter of the transfer of assets of the fund which had accumulated (approximately $753,000) was settled by Judge Stuart Stratton with an order in 1979 to make a gift of $120,000 to the new Church Home of St. John and St. Stephen and establish a six member Advisory Committee to recommend on the disposition of the earnings from the newly formed Old Ladies Home of Saint John Fund, which would be placed in the trusteeship of The Saint John Foundation, now known as The Greater Saint John Community Foundation. “To provide for aged and needy men and women” was the stated purpose of the fund. Present members of the committee continue to keep that purpose in the forefront today.