Home Healthcare
In the small villages and towns of Mississippi Mills, healthcare was more centered around the home than the hospital. Rural areas did not usually have funding for hospitals, so local doctors made house calls to visit their patients. Druggists and pharmacies offered a range of medicines for the average person to use to treat their ailments.
The Pharmacy – Then and Now
Today’s pharmacies share little resemblance with the drugstores of the past in Mississippi Mills, when glass jars of pastes and powders lined the wooden shelves of local shops.
There was little control over these manufactured medicines or their ingredients. Pharmacists mostly had to rely on the mortar and pestle to make up batches of their own medicines from their “stores of drugs.”
In 1934, Wilf Snedden took over Mr. MacFarlane’s pharmacy at 24 Mill Street in Almonte. Snedden was a graduate of the Ontario College of Pharmacy in Toronto and continued to serve the community for 39 years. The Mill Street storefront had been rebuilt after a fire in 1904, and two storefronts were constructed. Snedden rented the small side of the divided building.
Snedden remembered how everyone was called upon on the evening of the Almonte train wreck in 1942. Anyone in the community who provided healthcare put all their resources into helping that night, and Snedden quickly depleted all his supplies.
Advertisements
Advertisements for medicines and local druggists could easily be found in newspapers like the Almonte Gazette. Companies advertised their medications and local businesses in hopes of drawing in customers. These medications came with a lot of claims. See some examples below.
Advertisement in the Almonte Gazette, 26 September 1890
Advertisement in the Almonte Gazette, 8 December 1899
Advertisement in the Almonte Gazette, 12 January 1900
Victorian Order of Nurses
Lady Aberdeen
A short supply of healthcare professionals in Canada was evident in the late 1890s, not just in remote areas but also in growing towns and cities. In 1897, Lady Aberdeen created the Victorian Order of Nurses. The organization was named to celebrate Queen Victoria’s diamond jubilee. The VON aimed to provide visiting nursing services to areas in Canada that lacked healthcare services.
Marjorie Weir and the VON
Nurse Marjorie Weir
Marjorie Weir was born at the Rosamond Memorial Hospital and has lived in Almonte ever since. Ms. Weir worked as a nurse at the Almonte General for 27 years, and then went on to work for the VON.
In an interview with the North Lanark Regional Museum, she described her experience with the VON. Her job was visiting patients after they had been discharged from hospital, and helping them with their care once they got home.
After dedicating her whole working life to helping Almonte’s residents, Marjorie has only good things to say about working as a healthcare professional in a small town.
“I loved my job. I had a hard time retiring because I loved my job,” said Weir. She appreciated the close bonds she could form with her patients and the relationship she had with her fellow nurses and doctors at the Almonte General.
View this video with a transcript: an interview with Marjorie Weir