13. Grey Nuns Mother House

Located at 9 Bruyère Street at the corner of Sussex Drive, the Mother House is a landmark in Lowertown dating back to 1849. Its story begins with the arrival of four nuns from Montreal in 1845, the Grey Nuns of the Cross, a Catholic order, also known as the Congregation of the Sisters of Charity. Under the leadership of the formidable Sister Élizabeth Bruyère (1818-1876), they provided nursing services desperately needed in Bytown. It remains the headquarters of the Sisters of Charity of Ottawa to this day.

The four-storey limestone Mother House was constructed in several phases each associated with different architects. The first phase (1849-1851) consisted of a 3 1/2 storey limestone building designed by Antoine Robillard. The original building had a tin clocher on the east end, where the chapel was housed, and dormers along the hipped roof. A surviving feature is the prominent two-faced sundial on the southwest corner, Ottawa’s first timepiece, designed by geometer Father Jean-François Allard in 1851 and considered unique in North America.

Upon their arrival in Bytown, the sisters established a bilingual school for girls on St. Patrick Street, an infirmary, and an orphanage. Before the completion of the new hospital, the Sisters cared for hundreds of Irish famine refugees who arrived in Bytown in 1847. Devastated by the typhus epidemic, the nuns cared for the sick in temporary ‘fever sheds,’ receiving little help from anyone.

The second phase of construction was in 1865 with the building of St. Joseph’s Orphanage. It was linked to the Mother House by a central pitched roof wing designed by Canon Georges Bouillon in 1885.

Architects Werner Ernst Noffke and Lucien Leblanc designed a fourth storey in an Art Deco-influenced style in 1937. They also designed a new, 900-seat chapel for the convent in the form of a latin cross inspired by the French Gothic Revival style, minus the rich ornamentation. It houses a beautiful central stained glass window and Casavant organ, and is rarely open to the public.

The site of the Grey Nuns Mother House eventually evolved to include the Ottawa General Hospital, a Catholic hospital intended to offer care without regard to age, sex language or religion. It was relocated to a new site on Smyth Road in the 1980s, but the original building is now known and used as the Elizabeth Bruyère Continuing Care Hospital.

The Mother House, College of Bytown and Notre Dame Cathedral (see bytes #10 and 12) formed the cultural heart of Lowertown and the Catholic community in Ottawa.

The Grey Nuns Mother House is designated under Part IV of the Ontario Heritage Act (By-law 69-80) and is part of the Lowertown West Heritage Conservation District.

Photos: North American Sundial Society; Sisters of Charity of Ottawa/Cosmos Mariner

SOURCES

Canada’s Historic Places: www.historicplaces.ca

Ottawa: A Guide to Heritage Structures, City of Ottawa, 2000.

Sisters of Charity of Ottawa: https://www.soeursdelachariteottawa.com/en/our-identity/about.html