New shine sought for Mountain brow cross
Councillor wants to relight the Hamilton landmark
Terry Whitehead is on a mission to restore a radiant city landmark that’s been dark and dormant for years.
The Ward 8 councillor wants to relight the old Cross of Lorraine, which for decades glowed on the west Mountain brow as a symbol of the battle against tuberculosis that went on at the Sanatorium behind.
He sees the restoration as both a memorial to Hamilton’s historic contribution to taming the killer lung disease and a revival of a neglected piece of municipal heritage.
“I don’t want to lose that history because I think it was a significant part of our national contribution to this country. I want to see it relit so we can celebrate that contribution.”
Whitehead intends to seek council’s approval to study the cost and scope of repairing the towering eight-metre-tall steel-andneon structure.
He also hopes to entice Valery Homes, which is planning a residential development on the surrounding lands, to lend a helping hand in the name of “community spirit and corporate citizenship.”
Now abandoned and overgrown, the cross perches on publicly owned escarpment land, slightly north of the developable Valery lands off Sanatorium Road.
vice president Paul Valeri says his firm is open to helping. He says he and his family are well aware of its history and meaning to the city.
“We know there’s a lot of strong attachment to it and everybody in the area always talks about the cross and how they would like to see it relit. Obviously that’s something we would also like to see, as long as the community is happy.”
The two-barred cross was erected in 1953 at the cost of $2,670. Its red glow, visible for miles around, soon became a familiar and nostalgic marker for longtime Hamiltonians.
In its heyday, the Sanatorium, which later became Chedoke Hospital, was the largest in the British Commonwealth.
After the two world wars, the facility cared for large numbers of soldiers who caught TB overseas. From 1958 to 1963 it treated some 1,300 Inuit patients from Northern Canada. Celebrities like Ella Fitzgerald and Fats Waller even dropped in to visit patients over the years.
As time went by the cross suffered from incremental neglect, but in 2006 Hamilton Health Sciences repaired and updated the lighting to mark the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Sanatorium.
It’s believed the red beacon went out around 2007 when the Chedoke brow lands were sold to a developer and the electricity was switched off. That developer later sold to Valery Homes.
“I really believe (the cross) reflects and symbolizes a significant piece of our past where Hamilton can take pride in helping Inuit and soldiers by providing a good health service,” said Whitehead.
No doubt the councillor is historically correct. But a modern question needs to be asked: Is there still a place for a huge Christian symbol on public lands in these culturally ticklish times?
Whitehead notes that when he recently floated the idea in a newsletter a constituent cautioned him that people might associate the cross with the Crusades, the medieval religious wars launched by Europeans to recover the Holy Land from Muslims.
But Whitehead refuses to view the Mountain cross through a narrow “religious lens.”
“I believe it symbolized the hope of all those patients who were in the Sanatorium, regardless of their religious beliefs.”
Though its origins are rooted in the Middle Ages, the Cross of Lorraine has been asCompany sociated with the fight against tuberculosis since the early 20th century. The Canadian Lung Association and its provincial partners only stopped using it as a logo last year after a rebranding exercise. The American Lung Association still uses it.
It’s served other purposes as well. During the Second World War it was famously the symbol of the French Free Forces. Somewhat quixotically, it also appears on the face of the ever popular Oreo cookie, an irresistible sweetener for conspiracy theorists of all faiths.
Andrew Dreschel’s commentary appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. adreschel@thespec.com 905-526-3495 @AndrewDreschel