I is for Inmate - Blogging from A to Z April 2020 Challenge!

Today - I  is for Inmate - not always as bad as it sounds

Blogging about British Columbia Genealogy Resources

While searching for quite a different story, I came across a 1917 article about the Old Men's Home in Victoria, BC (our provincial capital city). I thought it was worth sharing, as it gives us an idea what life in a 'home for the aged' would be like early on in British Columbia. Recently I've been researching a number of 'bachelor Scandinavians' who lived in the province. Many may have spent their last few years in this kind of accommodation. Doesn't sound that bad really but might be a big adjustment for a fellow who's been living mostly alone in a cabin for decades, beholden to no one.

In addition, it reminded me that I'd been in a census discussion lately and we'd talked about 'inmates'. 

Although to me, "inmate" implies a necessity (physical, legal, medical, social...) to live apart from family or an accustomed neighbourhood and friends in some kind of institutional arrangement, it does not necessarily imply that an inmate would be in jail or an asylum. And in some cases, it might be thought or hoped to be temporary, for example, time spent in a TB hospital; other times, it might be taken as terminal, as if in a hospice, or in this case, a home for the aged.

Hospitals listed, Victoria, BC, Canada, Henderson's Greater Victoria City Directory, 1917, page 38.

Courtesy Vancouver Public Library, British Columbia City Directories, 1860-1955.

From The Week: A British Columbia Newspaper and Review, Victoria, BC, Canada, 19 May 1917, page 2.

The author, The Reverend William Leslie Clay, BA, MA, DD, had been the Minister at St. Andrew's Presbyterian Church in Victoria since 1894. (Family information is at AncestralTrails.ca)  He wrote a similar article about the Home for Aged and Infirm Women, published in The Week, May 26, 1917, page 4. The Week is available on BC Historical Newspapers, University of British Columbia, Open Collections.

“Our Institutional Life

The Old Men’s Home by W. Leslie Clay

Every community has a percentage of its population who, from one cause or another, are unable to maintain themselves. In a young province of such a character and history as ours, the wealth of today frequently depends upon the labors and adventures of men who in their later years are incapacitated for self-support.”

He briefly outlines the history of the home – established in 1891, from 1906, the location was on Cadboro Bay Road.

”Here, at the present time, about 50 men of various nationalities, trades, callings, creeds, tastes and temperaments, are comfortably housed and cared for…..Since the home was opened, 223 men have enjoyed its comfort – the average age being about 70 years.”

Admission required that the applicant be 50 years of age, a city resident for 15 years prior, “incapable of earning his livelihood and free from infectious or loathsome disease”.

Clay says he was surprised to learn J. McIntosh, the home’s manager for 14 years, worked alone. “Out of my thinking grew another question, “What is the cost per day per inmate?” “Covering everything, 68 ½ cents.” [J. McLennan McIntosh]

Residents who are able help in the home or in the garden or with the flock of 150 chickens.  Clay viewed the dining area and kitchen, noting corned pork, beans and potatoes on the range ready for lunch. And food in the pantry and store rooms. Donations of clothing, magazines and the like had “fallen off during the past two years“ though. And a recent Grand Jury had “referred to the inadequacy of the reading and recreation room”. Clay says that that could be taken care of “without serious outlay” and the dining room could be extended to give a larger space for “concerts or entertainments”. And heating “should not be overlooked” since it “is said to be insufficient and expensive”.

Clay ends by extending the thanks of “the manager and the inmates” to those who provide entertainment at the home – “chiefly” the “young people’s societies of the various city churches”.

One issue Clay doesn't mention but it must have been well known is that, unlike Victoria's Home for Aged and Infirm Women, the Old Men’s Home had no infirmary. Sick men at the home were sent to the Jubilee Hospital instead. But the Hospital was now serving returned soldiers. The Friendly Society did offer to assist in some cases.

References

See also, "The Friendly Help, In Women's Realm" by Maria Lawson, The Daily Colonist, 23 June 1917, page 8, and "Jubilee Hospital Aids Returned Men", 24 February 1917, page 7. 

http://www.britishcolonist.ca/

For more about the care of the aged in British Columbia, read Into the House of Old: A History of Residential Care in British Columbia by Megan J. Davies (McGill-Queen's Press, 2004).  Limited search allowed at Google Books. 

Below is the relevant Canadian census information from 1921

Canadian censuses included instructions about recording various kinds of living arrangements, including 'inmates'. 

The 1921 enumerator instructions, available at the Internet Archive, tried to explain that the "meaning" of the Canadian census  "de jure" system, although not "defined" by proclamation or the Statistics Act (or "other statutes",

"must be determined largely by usage, and therefore the practice of former censuses of Canada should be followed with reasonable closeness…the home or usual place of abode is the place where the majority of persons should be counted.” General Provisions, 4, pages 3-4. 

The Instructions for population schedule, 40-68 do include more specific instructions, pages 14-20, while helpfully asserting:

 "It is not possible to lay down a rule applicable to every case..." (page 15) Enumerators were allowed to include people away if deemed necessary; they were to include the person's current post office address.

Provision 48 is clearer and gives some examples - generally noting that if the informant doubts the person will return to the household or if the person in question has been "absent twelve months or more", they are not to be included. Provision 48 (f ) does specifically state that :

"Any person who was formerly in this family but has since become an inmate of an asylum, almshouse, home for the aged, reformatory or prison, or any other institution of a similar kind" should not be enumerated with the family.

Provision 51 Prison Inmates provides that all prisoners, even if serving short terms, should be enumerated in the prison, and the name of their home address included, if in Canada.

 (Luckily for genealogists, enumerators and informants appear to have sometimes forgotten the rules, or erred on the side of caution. We all like to find households with extra relatives or even 'friends'.)

Sixth Census of Canada, 1921, Instructions to Commissioners and Enumerators, Canada, Census and Statistics Office, Ottawa: Government Printing Bureau, 1921). Available at the Internet Archive.