OK, County Historians, what can you tell me about this place?
It looks like it was quite a grand place. A bit of googling brought me to this document here, that makes it look like it was built around 1900 maybe a little before, and sometime before 1961, became known as the Sun Parlour Home For Senior Citizens.
An old folks home?
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It was a poor house. On the on-line 1911 census you can see the names of the people who were livng there at the time. Apparently there’s a small cemetary out back [no stones but the names are in a book at the library] where the residents were laid to rest. Personally I really like the victorian architecture. It sure doesn’t look the same now.
Does anybody have a recent picture of it? The building seems to be hidden from StreetView availability: http://goo.gl/maps/muOb
Quite the poor house!
In the fifties it was referred to as The County House, possibly it was operated by the county. It was an old age home for people with no one to care for them, this was well before decent pensions or nurseing homes.
Seems as though the land has been used for the elderly for quite some time then.
The father of a good friend worked there for many years ( Sun Parlor ) It looks nothing like that now and has been expanded. It was still low-end Nursing Home in the mid 80’s. I remember visiting on holidays and helping with parties and polka dances.
House of Refuge:
June 1899: County Council voted to build “poor house” at a cost of $24,000 – looking for site
September 1899: Essex site was selected, but then “negotiation declared off”
January 1900: Leamington site chosen
March 1900: Construction work tendered out – architect, H.J. Powell
June 1900: Corner stone laid
February 1901: Dr. Chamberlain, inspector of prisons and charities inspected House and pronounced it satisfactory
May 1901: “The House of Refuge will likely be ready for the reception of inmates by May 20th.”
Of further interest:
January 1900:
“There has been an unwritten law in Leamington that no colored people should be allowed to reside there, but there are breakers ahead now. Leamington has secured the poor house, and now it turns out that there are eight or ten colored people in North Essex who will have to be domiciled in the new institution as soon as it is completed. Robert Manery believes he sees a way out of the difficulty without compromising the dignity of the law by whitewashing the whole lot about three times a week.”
February 1912:
“A.H. Woodbridge, inspector of the House of Refuge, presented his report Wednesday on the House of Refuge, showing that there are 41 inmates now, and the actual cost of maintenance is $1.46½ per week.”
http://www.windsor-essex.info/wps/wcm/connect/COE/COE/Essex+Co...
I hope this works. If not you can see a more recent picture of Sun Parlour if you Google ‘Sun Parlour home for seniors in Leamington Ontario’….go to the Wikimapia site
According to Wikimapia:
“The original Essex County Home For The Aged was built on the outskirts of Leamington in 1900. The name was changed in 1955 and a new building was constructed in 1962. This building was replaced in 1992 by the present facility built on the original 20 acre site. It accommodates 206 long care residents and is operated by the County of Essex.”
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=42.056335&lon=-82.588735&z=17&m=b&show=/10150057/Sun-Parlour-Home-For-Senior-Citizens-Grounds
My 3Xgreat-grandfather was housed there for 3 weeks, after he fell, injured his chest and developed pneumonia….he was 93 yrs old…..He died there in August of 1920. He had children living in the area but I think that because of his fragile medical condition, he needed to be in a facility where he could be taken better care of.