Wednesday, November 5, 2014

Chinatown Calgary

A walking tour of Calgary's Chinatown in the down town core only takes an hour. Chinatown is situated on Centre street where all four quadrants of the city intersect.
Chinatown Calgary     Click on the link to view the short video.
 

Sunday, November 2, 2014

The Galt Hospital 1891-1955

The first Galt Hospital was built to accommodate six patients but soon increased to fifteen. If there were too many patients, patients were housed outside in tents (only in the summertime). This building was considered modern for the time, with sewer and hot water systems. The water had to be pumped by hand into upstairs tanks.

The hospital was run by the Galt family with Dr. Mewburn as superintendent. A staff of four nurses and 3 lay people were hired to care for the sick. The top floor of the hospital was reserved to accommodate the staff. Being so conveniently located, nurses were on call 24 hours a day.
The Galt Hospital had 4 sources of income: (1) a twenty-five cent deduction per month from the employees of Alberta Railway and Coal Company and the Great Falls and Canada Railway (2) Government grant of 29 cents per free patient per day. (3) a Town of Lethbridge grant of $400 per year, and (4) pay patients--meaning those who could pay.

In 1910 and 1930 additions were made to the hospital and increased the capacity of the hospital to 65 beds. Sir Wilfred Laurier the Prime Minister of Canada came to the opening of the hospital but the coordinator of the opening ceremonies mislaid the key to the front door and  the Prime Minister was not able to open the front door to turn the key in the door to officially open the hospital.

The Galt building has continued to serve the community. The Galt has been at different times a Senior Citizen's Home, Rehabilitation Centre and Health Unit. In 1966, the Sir Alexander Galt Museum moved from the Bowman Arts Centre into the Galt Hospital and occupied the top and bottom floors. In 1979, the Galt Museum & Archives took over the entire building. In 1985, the Galt Museum underwent its first expansion.

Our Lee Family held its 100th anniversary of Lees living in Lethbridge at the Galt Museum. The Museum has a beautiful foyer with a panoramic view of the High Level Bridge, the University of Lethbridge, and the Old Man River valley.  The Lee Family had an open house luncheon and invited the general public to attend the event to meet the Lees who had returned for the reunion. In the evening there was a banquet catered from the University Of Lethbridge food services that was operated by Aramark.   The Chef who prepared the meal was Charles Parker who had the distinction for cooking for the Queen of England.   If you look at one of my previous videos in my blog , you will see the foyer of the Galt museum with the Lee relatives.

I recently visited the Galt Museum in October and went on a guided tour of the museum. You can view the tour I took as I videotaped parts of the tour in the video post below .

The Galt Museum