During the annual meeting of the Montfort Hospital Association, held on June 15, 2022, Sister Aline Leduc, who is a member of the congregation of the Daughters of Wisdom, gave this testimony on the origins of our hospital.
It gives me great pleasure to present, on behalf of the Daughters of Wisdom, a short summary of an important event that took place 75 years ago, that is to say, the beginnings of the construction of a hospital for Franco-Ontarians in the Ottawa region.
To begin, I am inspired by what Mrs. Marie Josée Martel (NOTE: vice-president of the board of directors of Hôpital Montfort) said in his letter: “we gave birth to Hôpital Montfort and we are its mothers. Beautiful expression that comes with a lot of self-sacrifice and by the same token, a lot of zeal and audacity. We have tried to live up to this mandate.
What was the deep intention of the Congregation when the hospital was founded? I will briefly try to answer it.
In 1947, a group of businessmen from Eastview with Father Edmond Ducharme, Father Montfort, formed a committee to study the possibility of having a Franco-Ontarian hospital to serve the population of eastern Ottawa as well than eastern Ontario. And they turned to us to make their dream come true.
For my part, I have a very personal connection since I was in the novitiate during the construction of the hospital, and my first visit was to go and do some cleaning, with about forty of my fellow novices and postulants, with a view to of the official opening on October 11, 1953. From my profession at the beginning of February 1954, I arrived there and I remained there for 15 years.
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From the beginning of this adventure, all the Sisters of the Province of Canada were involved, either by prayer or by action. Staff recruitment has affected our communities from east to west in Canada. We went to get the nurses and technicians from the hospitals we had in Ste-Justine, Montreal, Val d’Or and Mont-Joli in Quebec; at Sturgeon Falls in Ontario and at Castor in Alberta. The sisters of the general services, such as the kitchen, the laundry, the housekeeping also came from the schools which were ours. Even we, the Sisters of admission, reception, telephone, business office, archives, went to help either in the kitchen for the preparation of the trays, or to help feed the children in pediatrics, or whatever. All the Sisters in Canada contributed to the maximum of their abilities, with dedication and enthusiasm.
We felt part of a great common project and each gave of herself without counting. 6e floor was our place of residence and up to 65 Sisters lived there at the pace of the hospital. In all, 144 Sisters worked at Montfort during the 17 years we operated our hospital.
The doctors and staff were young and equally involved. There was a lot of mutual help, support and friendship between all of us, a big family…
Following our holy founders, Saint Louis-Marie de Montfort and Blessed Marie-Louise Trichet, who worked with the poor in hospitals in France, we heard the call and set out in their footsteps. . As Father de Montfort said in one of his hymns: “The poor and the crippled must touch you the most. This is what we call our charism, drawn from our spirituality.
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The word CARITAS has been etched into the floor of the original main entrance since its opening and has been preserved even after major renovations and reorganizations. This word, also engraved in our hearts, means ‘love of the other’. It symbolizes the care philosophy of the founders of the hospital. Indeed, it is with respect, tenderness and compassion that the Daughters of Wisdom have provided care to the sick since the opening of the establishment. They embodied the love of the other through concrete gestures of devotion and compassion to alleviate physical and spiritual suffering.
And we are still there in a different way of course: Sister Linda Joseph is on the Council of the Association of Volunteers. For my part, I did ten years of voluntary work and when I entered the Hospital for my voluntary work, it was as if I entered my home as I did at the beginning.
We are happy to see that after so many years after us, the same values are still conveyed here at Montfort.
I come back to the fact of having given birth to Hôpital Montfort.
When you give birth to a child, you have to know how to let go so that it can live its life, develop, fulfill itself.
Like a mother, a father, we as Daughters of Wisdom, we are still interested, we accompany by interest and above all by prayer, those who have taken over. The fate of Hôpital Montfort is always close to our hearts. All the more so during this pandemic time with these many challenges. Long live Montfort! Long live Montfort!
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