To this day, Dr. John Maynard can still vividly remember when, as a toddler, he stood in front of the old North Vancouver General and watched his mother emerge, carrying a baby in her arms.
“I remember saying, ‘Who is she carrying?’ And my dad said, ‘Well, your little baby sister,’” the North Vancouver resident recalls.
Meeting new sister Sandra for the first time is a treasured family memory. The reason Maynard has recently been flooded with images from his past is because after 87 years of offering care to tens of thousands of North Shore residents, and employing thousands more, the venerable brick building on East 13th Street that originally housed Lions Gate Hospital’s predecessor is slated for demolition. The deconstruction is intended to pave the way for future redevelopment of the Lions Gate campus in an effort to meet the North Shore’s growing health care needs.
Maynard himself had been born at North Vancouver General, a mere three years prior to his sister, in 1948, delivered by none other than Dr. Carson Graham, a well-known local medical professional, education advocate and community builder.
“He was a very, very popular general practitioner in North Vancouver. He was one of the first full-time general practitioners in North Vancouver. Interestingly, I grew up right across the street from him. I remember, as a youth, going over and visiting him and him showing me his medical equipment. He was just a fascinating man. He died far too young,” says Maynard, now 68.
That early education no doubt helped pave the way for Maynard’s own pursuit of medicine. He initially worked as an emergency physician in Victoria for a decade before going on to open his own practice in Deep Cove in 1984. He served as co-medical director at Expo 86, and went on to hold a number of high-profile positions within Lions Gate Hospital, and the former North Shore Health Region and Vancouver Coastal Health, including head of general practice, chief of staff and senior medical director. Semi-retired, he’s currently the chairman of the VCH medical advisory committee and works as a clinician at the Park & Tilford Medical Clinic.
The long-serving and dedicated North Shore physician is just one of the many community members coming forward to share their memories of the old hospital, as well as say thanks and so long, at next weekend’s The Grand Farewell Commemoration for North Vancouver General, being presented by the Lions Gate Hospital Foundation.
“Because this hospital has been around for over 85 years, it’s touched a lot of hearts,” says Judy Savage, foundation president.
The Grand Farewell, set for Sunday, Sept. 25, at the old hospital site, is intended to acknowledge the connection felt by so many residents, including those who worked, were born, were cared for, or who had loved ones who were treated there. Festivities will include a street party with a barbecue, entertainment, children’s activities, an invitational vintage car show, historical displays and tours of North Vancouver General’s main floor.
“We just thought it was a really great opportunity to set a day aside so the community could come together to really pay tribute and celebrate the North Van General. … That building has historical significance for the North Shore and throughout its history it’s been really well supported by the community. ... We just thought we needed to pause and really acknowledge and celebrate all that that building meant to our community,” says Savage.
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North Vancouver General opened in May 1929 and was the third acute care hospital in North Vancouver, but the first large hospital on the current Lions Gate Hospital site, according to the Lions Gate Hospital Foundation. Architects James Anderson Benzies and William Bow opted for a Period Revival style design, hoping the building’s high-pitched, chateau-style roof “relieved the institutional look.” Built at a final cost of approximately $225,000, the hospital was intended to serve the community, which at that time had a population of 21,110. North Vancouver General was the primary hospital on the North Shore from 1929 until April 1961 when Lions Gate Hospital opened on the surrounding grounds and the building was repurposed.
Former nurse Fran Maynard, a 94-year-old Lynn Valley resident, started working at North Vancouver General in 1944. Born in 1921 in Penticton, the then 23-year-old had moved to North Vancouver upon completion of her nursing training in Victoria. She planned to stay with one of her sisters who called the North Shore home and was excited to start her first job as a registered nurse.
Fran was primarily assigned to the maternity and men’s wards and remembers some of the daily precautions required in light of the ongoing Second World War. “Every night we had to put up big black boards (in the windows) to keep the light out,” she says.
“It was a good place to work. ....” she adds. “We did everything in those days. You were a case nurse, a patient nurse and a nursery nurse. ... I think there were only six doctors when I first came.”
Unfortunately Fran was forced to leave her job much sooner than she desired.
“I was there for only two years and then I got married. In those days when you got married you had to leave because of the nurses coming back from the war. It was a rule. The girls that were already married that were there, they were OK, but anybody that had come in during the war had to leave,” she says.
After Fran left her job in 1946, she still made visits to the building as her children were born there, as well as her nieces and nephews – Dr. John Maynard included.
North Vancouver resident and history buff Tom Bell is yet another local resident who was born at North Vancouver General. The former West Vancouver firefighter (who served for 30 years before retiring in 2000) and founder of the West Vancouver Fire Service Museum and Archives Society, came into the world 69 years ago in 1947.
His strongest memories of the hospital are the two times he was hospitalized as a child. The first time occurred when he was six years old and a student at Queen Mary elementary, requiring a tonsillectomy.
The worst part of the ordeal was the hospital food served during his recovery period: apple juice and pea soup.
“To this day I absolutely detest apple juice and pea soup. I just won’t eat it. We even went to the pea soup capital of the world down in California and I never tried it. Never even got tempted,” he says with a laugh.
Bell’s second hospitalization occurred six years later at age 12 after his doctor suspected he suffered from chlorine poisoning due to swallowing too much water while swimming in Mahon pool. “We were all pretty good swimmers so we’d play tag and run around and chase each other and dive in and out of the pool. And of course in the effort of getting away from the guy who’s chasing you, you’d end up swallowing a gulp here and a gulp there. I swallowed so much water over the course of the summer it built up in my system,” he says, explaining he had a late start to the school year as a result.
North Vancouver General continued to serve the residents of the North Shore and as the population grew, so too did the hospital, seeing additional wings added and upgrades conducted at different times over the years to increase occupancy. When the community eventually outgrew the old hospital and Lions Gate opened its doors, the Activation Building, as it came to be known, went on to house a variety of programs, including physical rehabilitation, coronary care and chronic obstructive lung disease and mental health.
It was the mental health unit that Fran joined when she made a triumphant return to nursing in the late-1960s, once again finding herself working in the old hospital building as a member of Lions Gate’s psychiatry unit. She moved up the ranks and eventually came to serve as a head nurse.
During those years she recalls the building beginning to show its age. “I don’t know how many times they painted it and tried to fix it up. Often the pigeons got in the window. … It was quite funny at times,” she says.
Fran, however, was fulfilled by her work, passionate about her patients and had a fondness for her co-workers. She remained part of the unit until her final retirement from nursing in 1982.
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From 2002 to 2014 the Activation Building solely housed Lions Gate’s in-patient psychiatry unit. At that point the department was moved into the new Greta and Robert H.N. Ho Psychiatry and Education Centre (The HOpe Centre) next door. For the last 18 months, the building has sat vacant. “It is an old building, it’s passed its useful life,” says Savage.
“One of the reasons that there’s such an urgency to take the building down is that it is very costly to maintain,” she adds, further citing issues like potential threats of vandalism and “things taking up life in there.”
Fencing is slated to be installed following The Grand Farewell, with the demolition set to begin as early as December.
“It’s going to take some time to do the deconstruction because of the materials in the old building. There’s asbestos and there’s lead in the paint and things like that. I understand it won’t be until early in 2017 until the whole building comes down. It will be done in phases,” says Savage.
A further reason for moving forward with the deconstruction is to allow for redevelopment of the site.
A concept plan has been sent to the provincial government. “We are planning for a future development on that site, but there’s nothing that we’re able to announce at this point because it’s before the government,” she says.
Plans are also underway to incorporate aspects of the old building into the eventual new construction. “There’s been extensive discussions with the City of North Vancouver and the (North Shore) Heritage Preservation Society and every effort to appropriately remember the North Van General is underway,” says Savage.
While final preservation plans will be brought to City of North Vancouver council prior to the building being deconstructed, at this point there is an intent to salvage bricks, which are hoped to be incorporated into the new facility in some way, along with the bronze cartouche currently installed at the front entrance that reads “NVGH: 1929.”
In the lead-up to next weekend’s event, representatives of Lions Gate Hospital Foundation are currently looking to connect with North Shore residents who were born at North Vancouver General as they have buttons for them to pick up that read, “I was born at North Van General.” As well, they’re going to post a large sign at the event listing people who were born at the hospital by decade.
For Savage, The Grand Farewell offers an opportunity to not only pay tribute to the past, but to the present and future of health care on the North Shore, illustrating just how far we’ve come. To that end, she encourages community members from all walks of life to attend.
“Lions Gate, I hear from people in the community, really means a lot to them,” says Savage. “We have a great sense of community at this hospital: the people who work here, the people who come here as patients. It’s just a community celebration recognizing the great health care that’s provided in our community. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Likely taking down a building is not going to happen again in our generation on the North Shore. I just hope that people will join with us to thank all the professionals who worked in that building and to thank all the professionals today who provide the excellent health care at Lions Gate.”
The Grand Farewell Commemoration for North Vancouver General, presented by the Lions Gate Hospital Foundation, Sunday, Sept. 25, 10 a.m.-4 p.m., on 13th Street East (closed to traffic) between St. Georges and St. Andrews avenues. Free. Donations accepted for the foundation. lghfoundation.com
