Mystery of missing wall solved
Moved from Hotel Dieu years ago; hospital foundation plans way to honour patrons
It’s one of those little local mysteries — what ever happened to the donor recognition wall from the old Hotel Dieu hospital?
Nancy Simpson said she became curious in 2016, after the Ontario Street building closed and demolition began.
Some of her friends’ and family members’ names, including her father, Tom Patterson, were on the wall. It was erected in 2000 to honour people who donated $1,000 or more to Hotel Dieu.
In 2005, Niagara Health took over the property, under the province’s health-care restructuring program.
The same year, Hotel Dieu assumed management of Shaver Hospital and Niagara Rehabilitation Centre on Glenridge Avenue, and Hotel Dieu Shaver Health and Rehabilitation Centre was born.
But Simpson was pretty sure the wall wasn’t displayed there.
“I wrote them, I think it was a couple of years later, and someone I talked to there … said it’s in a safe spot, it’s in storage and we’re going to find a spot for it,” she said.
A while ago she came across an old write-up from the St. Catharines Standard from the day the wall was unveiled, and she thought about it again.
Simpson admitted it’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. But it was a nice piece of local history.
Turns out, the person she spoke with at Hotel Dieu was right. The wall panels really had been in storage since the move
more than 15 years ago.
“When we moved up to the Shaver building in our new identity as Hotel Dieu Shaver … because they were so fragile and so heavy, we were unable to put them up on the wall of the Shaver building,” said Tracy Geoffroy, executive director for Hotel Dieu Shaver Foundation.
There are five or six panels, each about six feet tall made of black tempered glass, with several hundred names on them. The panels filled the front window area of the old hospital.
Remounting them at the new site would have been costly and likely require some sort of support structure, said Geoffroy, who joined the foundation about 16 months ago.
So they were safely stored away with a plan to someday do something with them.
“We definitely don’t want to throw it out,” she said. “It’s an historical piece, so I can’t say what was decided at the time.
“I do know that since the day I started, our small team has been working on developing a new donor recognition program … we are looking at different things as to what the costs associated are and what materials we can put up on the wall.
“We really, really want to ensure those legacy donors of Hotel Dieu hospital are recognized.”
She said they are looking through paper and online records for information on the donors, but if there is none they might end up simply copying the names from the plaques.
What shape the new recognition program might take — if it’s another wall, would it be something wooden or glass? — hasn’t been decided, she said.
Hotel Dieu Shaver Health and Rehabilitation Centre, the region’s only rehabilitation hospital, has about 4,000 annual donors, though not all give more than $1,000.
Geoffroy hopes the foundation can soon launch a new fundraising campaign. Shaver has 134 in-patient beds and provides outpatient services, and has applied for provincial government funding to open 62 new beds.
That would likely require building an addition or new wing at the Glenridge site.
“The hospital has applied for funding, so we are potentially looking at going into a new campaign in the future,” Geoffroy said. “We are hoping to receive approval in the spring or summer this year.”