By Nancy Miller Chenier
Imagine the Porter’s Island of the late 1890s when it was the site of the first municipal contagious-diseases hospital. The atmosphere was damp and often foggy, and of the five hospital buildings, all were badly built, one was already condemned, and the administration building was flooded. But it was the City’s choice of place for isolating individuals with smallpox and other contagious diseases, and someone had to be there to watch over the property.
In 1894, John Morton Brady took on the job of caretaker overseeing the maintenance of the hospital cottages. With his wife Charlotte and their family of seven, he moved from Janeville [A1] across the newly constructed bridge to the island. In July of that year, the City’s Board of Health allowed him some money for cleaning the building on the island where the family would live, an old farmhouse previously used by a family that had, according to the Ottawa Journal, grown cabbages there.
It is possible that this caretaker position and the house that came with it resulted through a connection with George Cox, who was mayor of Ottawa in 1894. Both John and George were involved in the printing trade, George as a skilled engraver and John as a plate printer. As well, both were members of the same organization, the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, which among other objectives promoted good will and charity.
John Brady was a printer at the British Bank Note Company and had relocated from Montreal when the company set up at the corner of Wellington and Kent. When the family moved to Porter’s Island, John and Charlotte were in their early forties and their family of three boys and four girls ranged in age from 3 to 20. The family seems to have been free to come and go from the island, with the eldest son, William, working as a machinist and the second, George, as a firefighter. Other family members worked as porters, perhaps delivering supplies to nurses, moving equipment or even collecting waste.
Over the years on the Porter’s Island, John and Charlotte made several requests for funds or support. In the winter of 1898, free fuel was refused by the Board of Health and the bill for cleaning snow off the hospital roofs was referred to the Finance Committee after questions about who had authorized the action. But it was the Rideau River floods in the spring that revealed the harsh unpredictable conditions of life on the island. In March of that year, the river had the highest water in 40 years, putting Porter’s Island under water and leaving four feet of water in the hospitals. When the flood was at its peak, John Brady had two of his carriages carried away, leaving him unable to reach his house. When Charlotte asked for remuneration for goods damaged in the flood, she was instructed to send the bill to the city council.
By 1900, the family was living at 275 Concession Street and the financial situation of the family was precarious. John Morton Brady was seriously ill. The oldest son William had been killed in the South African War and George had a family of his own to support. Shortly before John’s death in 1903, Charlotte made a desperate plea for financial help to the military person helping organize Ottawa’s South African Memorial. The house at 275 Concession was to be sold for unpaid taxes if she could not raise $200.
When John Morton Brady died, the family was living elsewhere and over the years before Charlotte’s death in 1929, lived at multiple addresses in Ottawa. The short interlude on Porter’s Island faded into history, not worthy of mention in any family obituaries. Perhaps the most lasting effect was on Amy Brady, a child who from age 7 to 13 years, would have watched the work of the nurses and who in adult life, became a nurse herself.
[A1]Where is Janeville now? From what I could see it is near present-day Vanier, or near present-day Alta Vista.