Series HF01-S047 - Healthcare series

The records were in the archives at St. Joseph’s Convent in Dundas, Ontario. The majority of records relating to the administration of the healthcare facilities operated by the Sisters was transferred to the St. Joseph's Healthcare Library in Hamilton. The records present in this series are all that remain. These records were transferred to the Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph in Canada consolidated archives when St. Joseph’s Convent closed.

The records are arranged by healthcare facility and function.

The records are located at The Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph in Canada Archives.

The Archives reserves the right to restrict access to the collection depending on the condition of the archival material, the amount of material requested, and the purpose of the research. The use of certain materials may also be restricted for reasons of privacy or sensitivity, or under a donor agreement. Access restrictions will be applied equally to all researchers and reviewed periodically. No researcher will be given access to any materials that contain a personal information bank such as donor agreements or personnel records, or to other proprietary information such as appraisals, insurance valuations, or condition reports.

Permission to study archival records does not extend to publication or display rights. The researcher must request this permission in writing from the Archives.

There is a series and file list available.

No further accruals are expected.

The Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph has provided quality health care to the public. On April 19, 1852, the Sisters founded a new community in the diocese of Hamilton, Ontario. They built St. Joseph’s Convent in Hamilton which opened in 1856. There they cared for orphans, the sick, the poor, and the aged. The convent was used as a Motherhouse and home for novices and Sisters and served as an orphanage and a private elementary school until 1857. In 1951, the second Motherhouse, also called St. Joseph’s Convent, was built in Dundas, Ontario. The Sisters would eventually establish a number of healthcare institutions in Hamilton, Guelph, Kitchener, Brantford, and Stoney Creek, Ontario. The Sisters founded nursing schools connected to these hospitals which they operated until the 1970s and 1980s, when the education of nurses in Ontario became the responsibility of community colleges.

The Sisters’ first healthcare efforts in 1854 were to care for immigrants who became ill following the outbreaks of cholera and typhus, and who were housed in railway sheds.
The Sisters’ first permanent hospital was St. Joseph’s Hospital, Guelph, Ontario, founded on November 22, 1861. It was the first healthcare institution in the area, the sixth hospital in Ontario, and was funded by the sale of surplus produce and livestock that was raised on the hospital lands and by government grants, donations, and fundraising events. The facility was an old farm-house and had a 16-bed capacity. It was nicknamed the “Gate House” because it was located near a toll gate. Several additions were made, and in 1888 an isolated cottage was built to treat patients of the diphtheria epidemic. The original buildings were later used for the House of Providence which began operating in 1861 until 1959 when residents were moved to St. Joseph’s Home. In 1959, the Sisters unveiled St. Joseph’s Home in Guelph, and residents were moved from the House of Providence to the new building which contained a wing for the chronically ill. The programs and services for the aged were delivered in conjunction with the hospital. Soon after, in 1963, the Board of Trustees of the hospital and the Management Committee of the Home amalgamated to form the Board of Trustees of St. Joseph’s Hospital and Home. In 1984, the hospital and home amalgamated as St. Joseph’s Hospital and Home. In 1992, Ontario’s Ministry of Health confirmed the decision for the hospital to become a long-term care centre and in 2001, St. Joseph’s Hospital and Home became St. Joseph’s Health Centre, Guelph. In 2004, the original 1895 buildings were demolished, and a new facility was constructed on the same site.

Alongside the hospital, the Sisters of St. Joseph of Hamilton operated St. Joseph’s School of Nursing in Guelph, which was founded in 1899 by Sister Martina Long and Sister Leo Cass. The first graduating class in 1902 consisted of seven Hamilton Sisters and two London Sisters, and the first lay student enrolled in 1904. In 1948, a new school opened, with its last class graduating in 1974.

In 1879, the Sisters took over the House of Providence in Dundas, Ontario to care for the aged. This facility was renamed St. Joseph’s Villa when a new building was constructed in 1970.
St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario opened on June 11, 1890, under the guidance of Sister Philip Lenaten with 25 beds. Many additions were built over the years, and significantly two new hospitals were built, first in 1947 and then in 1962. The hospital was qualified for standardization by the American College of Surgeons in 1932. In 1951, the maternity wing at St. Joseph’s Hospital opened to replace the maternity hospital Casa Maria which was founded by the Sisters in 1923.

St. Joseph’s School of Nursing in Hamilton opened on September 8, 1911 and operated in connection with the hospital. “Undermount”, the nurses’ residence, was built on John Street and opened by the Sisters in 1922. The residence was rebuilt in 1949. Another residence, Fontbonne Hall, was opened in 1963 and operated until the school closed in 1972. The hospital continued to support the education of nurses and partnered with McMaster University when it opened its new medical school in the 1960s.

The next hospital founded by the Sisters of St. Joseph of Hamilton was St. Mary’s General Hospital, Kitchener, Ontario. This hospital was opened October 21, 1924 with Sister Bonaventure Halloran as the first Superintendent. The Hospital Advisory Board was established in 1927. The facility underwent major expansions between 1959 and 1962 and was renamed St. Mary’s General Hospital. In the 1970s, this hospital was known for pioneering family centered maternity programming which allowed fathers to be present in the labor and delivery rooms and infants to remain with their mothers instead of being taken to the nursery. Through the late 1980s, St. Mary’s General Hospital and Kitchener-Waterloo Hospital (now Grand River Hospital) negotiated a division of specializations between the two hospitals. After this, St. Mary’s General Hospital focused on adult medicine and surgery. In 2008, a new clinical and support service space was opened. St. Mary’s is now governed by a Board of Trustees of local citizens.

The Sisters opened St. Mary’s Hospital School of Nursing in Kitchener on October 21, 1924 and a residence was built in 1933. This nursing school remained in operation until 1972. St. Joseph’s Hospital, Brantford, Ontario was opened on August 15, 1955 under the supervision of Sister Irene Bester. In 1980, St. Joseph’s Foundation was established with local citizens and Sisters serving as board members. The hospital continued to operate until 2001, when the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care decided to close the facility. It became a long-term care centre, hospice, and research facility called St. Joseph’s Lifecare Centre in 2004. St. Joseph’s Hospital Training Centre for Nursing Assistants opened in Brantford in 1957. The program was formally integrated into the Hamilton Regional School for Nursing Assistants in June 1980. 

St. Joseph’s Community Health Centre was opened by the Sisters in 1991 in Stoney Creek, Ontario.

In the early 1940s and 1950s, advisory boards were started to help with fund raising and the construction of expanding facilities. These later became, in 1968, Boards of Trustees which took responsibility for the operation of each hospital and home. The first Board of Trustees was formed in 1968 at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hamilton., and in 1969 St. Joseph’s Hospital Foundation was set up with a lay-executive director. In 1988, it was decided to separately incorporate the healthcare institutions.

In 1991, St. Joseph’s Health Care System was established to provide sponsorship to: St. Joseph’s Hospital, Hamilton; St. Mary’s General Hospital, Kitchener; St. Joseph’s Villa, Dundas; St. Joseph’s Hospital, Brantford; and St. Joseph’s Hospital, Guelph. In 1992, the different facilities agreed to work collaboratively to reduce costs and improve efficiencies in administrative services. St. Joseph’s Health Care System was renamed St. Joseph’s Health System after transfer to the Diocese of Hamilton on May 15, 2001.

C. J. Rutty, A Circle of Care: St. Mary’s General Hospital: 75 Years of Caring, Kitchener, 1999, pp. 1-114.

Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph in Canada, ‘History Of The Congregation,’ https://csjarchive.org/about/history-of-the-congregation/2/, accessed 05/04/2023.

P. Savage, To Serve with Honour: The Story of St. Joseph’s Hospital, Hamilton 1890-1990, Toronto, 1990, pp. 8-133.

Sisters of St. Joseph and St. Joseph’s Hospital, Sixty Years: History of St. Joseph’s Hospital and School of Nursing, Hamilton, 1950, pp. 4-22.

Sisters of St. Joseph, Our Ministry of Healing, Hamilton, 1987, pp. 4-11.

Sisters of St. Joseph of the Diocese of Hamilton, JMJ Congregation of the Sisters of St. Joseph, Hamilton, 1943, pp.1-14.

St. Joseph’s Health Care Society, ‘About Us,’ https://www.stjosephssociety.com/about-us/, accessed 05/04/2023.

St. Joseph’s Health Centre Guelph, ‘Our History,’ https://www.sjhcg.ca/welcome/our-history/, accessed 05/04/2023.

St. Joseph’s Health Centre Guelph, ‘The History of St. Joseph’s Health Centre Guelph,’ https://www.sjhcg.ca/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/About-the-Health-Centre-Link.pdf, accessed 05/04/2023.

St. Joseph’s Healthcare, Hamilton, ‘About Us,’ https://www.stjoes.ca/about, accessed 05/04/2023.

St. Joseph’s Health System, ‘History,’ https://www.sjlc.ca/history-of-the-sisters, accessed 05/04/2023.

St. Joseph’s Hospital and Home Guelph, A Short History 1861-1986, Guelph, 1986, pp.1-14

St. Joseph’s Lifecare Centre, ‘History of the Foundation,’ https://www.sjlc.ca/history-of-the-foundation, accessed 05/04/2023.

St. Joseph’s Lifecare Centre, ‘History of the Sisters,’ https://www.sjlc.ca/history-of-the-sisters, accessed 05/04/2023.

St. Joseph’s Villa, Dundas, ‘About Us,’ https://sjv.on.ca/, accessed 05/04/2023.

St. Mary’s General Hospital, ‘Mission, Vision and Values,’ https://www.smgh.ca/about-us/who-we-are/mission-vision-values-history, accessed 05/04/2023.