Old Age
Until the early twentieth century, seniors represented barely 5% of Quebec’s population. Few in number, most were well integrated into family life. As late as 1921, more than 80% of seniors lived with a spouse or as part of an extended family unit that might include adult children, in-laws, nephews, or nieces.
However, in urban working-class neighbourhoods, the need to care for elderly relatives could upset the already fragile balance between employment income and the demands of the family budget. The sometimes very low wages earned by men and the even lower wages earned by women made it impossible for people to save for old age. At a certain point, widowhood, unemployment, a sudden illness, or simply poor health could be enough to push a person into destitution.
Rather than the elderly in general, it was these poor seniors who attracted attention. Public authorities and philanthropic organizations viewed them in the same way as the incurable, the disabled, abandoned wives, and orphans. In other words, they were a group that deserved assistance but did not pose a threat. Until the 1930s, old age and poverty therefore went hand in hand, binding an entire age group to a single social class.
Moving to a Hospice, by Choice or Necessity
From a handful of facilities at the end of the nineteenth century, the number of hospices in Quebec exceeded seventy by 1931. In addition to the elderly, most of these institutions housed a diverse population that included widows, the disabled, and even orphans.
Long before retirement homes became common, generations of poor seniors turned to hospices for a place to live out their days. Life in these institutions could be difficult, with strict rules, a complete lack of privacy, low-quality care and high mortality rates. Men and women—even married couples—were forced to live separately. For many seniors, moving to a hospice represented both their greatest fear and their only hope. New residents arrived either by choice or by necessity, and always with mixed feelings.
A Private Institution Called “Assistance Publique”
Despite what its name suggests, Assistance Publique was a private secular institution created in 1903. It provided destitute men and women in Montreal with emergency assistance or referrals to other institutions that could help. As explained in a 1905 issue of L’Album Universel, “If the destitute person in need of assistance is elderly, [l’Assistance publique] will place him in a hospice or an asylum; or if this proves impossible, as is sometimes the case, the organization will allow him to stay in its spacious and comfortable home on Dorchester Street.” The accompanying photos suggest that the assistance provided was rather basic.
One of the Very First Hospices: The Hôpital-Général of Quebec
Founded in 1693 on the banks of the Saint-Charles River, Quebec City’s Hôpital-Général originally focused on caring for the poor and the elderly as one of Quebec’s earliest hospices. But like many similar institutions, it also came to serve other groups in need. Between 1850 and the late 1930s, the elderly and the poor lived alongside the ill, the infirm, and even young boarding students.
The Hôpital-Général was huge. In the 1880s, its perimeter wall enclosed a host of spaces and buildings that served a variety of purposes: a church, gardens and vegetable patches, several cemeteries, a dairy, a barnyard, a stable, a laundry, a separate wing for cloistered nuns (with a kitchen, a canteen, an infirmary, bedrooms, etc.), separate dormitories for women and elderly men (with a smoking room for the latter), housing for staff, etc. In 1936, this hospice/hospital had 270 beds and some sixty employees.
The Montreal Protestant House of Industry and Refuge
About 200 destitute elderly Protestant women lived in the Ladies’ Benevolent Society’s home during the period 1832 to 1917, many of them until their deaths. A number of other women lived in the Anglican Church Home that opened in 1855 and accepted non fee-paying women until 1889. However, most destitute elderly men and women entered the Montreal Protestant House of Industry and Refuge opened in 1863 on Dorchester (René-Levesque) and Bleury.
Functioning as a typical workhouse, conditions were difficult although both the elderly and the sick were considered permanent residents and lived in a special wing of the building. In 1885, the elderly were moved to the Country House (Old People’s Home) on a farm in Longue-Pointe where they were expected to do farm chores. Slowly more emphasis was placed on domesticity and health needs than on work and a constellation of medical facilities including a Convalescent Home and hospitals was opened on the grounds to address the residents needs. The institution still exists today as the Centre de soins prolongés Grace Dart Extended Care Centre on St. Catherine near Viau.
The Gamelin Hospice
On 2 May 1891, the Morissettes found themselves homeless. Both in their 80s, the poor couple took refuge at the motherhouse of the Sisters of Providence on Sainte-Catherine Street East. Faced with an upsurge in similar cases, the congregation opened the Hospice Gamelin in 1894, around the corner on Dufresne Street. Within six years, this institution was home to 209 elderly men and women.
A fire ravaged several floors of the building in 1924, leading journalists to take an interest in living conditions at the facility. Reporters also photographed some of the elderly residents. In fact, there had been several hospice fires over the years, like the ones at the Notre-Dame-des-Sept-Douleurs Hospice in La Prairie (1901) and at the Saint-Antoine Hospice on Saint-Paul Street (1916). Safety measures were often lacking at these institutions.
The Trois-Rivières Hospice
When they arrived in Trois-Rivières in the 1860s, the Sisters of Providence undertook the construction of a complex that included a hospice. The latter was the city’s first institution dedicated to housing the destitute elderly. Between 1865 and 1890, the hospice admitted a total of 306 seniors.
Younger Hospice Residents
The idea that old age begins at 65 or 70 became widespread in the nineteenth century. But age is more than just a number. Worn out by poverty and disease, some people were deemed elderly and placed in an institution by their 50s. Consider the case of Marie, a destitute widow who suffered from uremia. The Sisters of Providence admitted her to their Montreal hospice in October 1933, when she was just 54 years old. However, the council of her home municipality, Saint-Amable-de-Verchères, refused to recognize her as destitute. In accordance with the Public Charities Act, the decision was appealed before a magistrate’s court, which investigated the situation. Investigator Armini Chevalier determined that Lussier had lived in Saint-Amable-de-Verchères all her life. He also noted that her five children, including two adult daughters who worked at the hospice, lacked the means to care for her. Recognizing Marie as destitute, Judge Tétreau ordered the council of Saint-Amable to reimburse the Sisters of Providence for its share of her living expenses at the hospice.
Pensions for Destitute Seniors
The 1920s and 1930s were an important turning point. One specific question gave rise to heated debates in the National Assembly, at hospices, around the dinner table and in the press: Should poor citizens over the age of 70 receive a small government pension? Most Canadian provinces were quick to adopt the old-age pension program introduced by the federal government in 1927.
However, Quebec’s Liberal government stubbornly rejected the idea until 1936, based on the belief that families should care for aging relatives, and that charitable institutions could step in when necessary. Government pensions were seen as undermining family responsibility and private charity. However, the Great Depression placed seniors and families in an increasingly precarious position. Trade unionists, philanthropists, politicians, feminists, and journalists all argued loudly and clearly that old-age pensions had become essential, in Quebec as elsewhere.
As the debate raged in 1935 and 1936, a few hundred elderly working-class women and men wrote to Premier L.-A. Taschereau. They all bemoaned their advanced age, their extreme poverty, and the destitute state of their loved ones. Many believed that an old-age pension would allow them to avoid moving to a hospice. But others saw hospice life as their only hope for escaping abject poverty, and claimed to have done everything in their power to be admitted.
These letters helped convince the government to participate in the federal old-age pension program. By 1937, nearly 50,000 destitute seniors were receiving payments. Previously, only a few thousand individuals per year had been granted government assistance. Some used their pension benefits to continue living in their own home or with family. Others used them as leverage to smooth the transition to life in an institution.
