Notre-Dame-de-l'Espérance Sanatorium, Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts
In 1914, the Sisters begin work at the Notre-Dame-de-l’Espérance Sanatorium in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts in the Laurentian Mountains. Nuns and lay people go there to rest and treatment of tuberculosis. The modest-sized facility never accepts more than 45 patients depending on the year.
Grey Nuns Sanatorium, Sainte-Agathe, undated. Post Card: author unknown. Grey Nuns of Montréal’s Archives, Our Lady of Hope Sanatorium (Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts)’s Fonds, L085-1F
From its beginning, a vegetable garden is cultivated on the land and a barn is built. The 1916 mission chronicles note a stable with two cows, a horse and a mare as well as a henhouse with around a hundred hens. The purchase of a chicken breeder in 1927 permits increased production of poultry products.
The first seeds are sown in 1916: the farmhand, a certain Mr. Brière, plows and threshes in exchange of half the harvest. A cellar is built to store vegetables.
Vault, undated. Photography: author unknown. Grey Nuns of Montréal’s Archives, Our Lady of Hope Sanatorium (Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts)’s Fonds, L085-YE
The Sisters exploit the maple grove by tapping 175 trees beginning in 1918. Fruit trees are also planted in 1930. However, due to low productivity of the farm and the lack of Nuns to provide services at the Sanatorium, the property is sold in the spring of 1954.
Letter from J. A. Parenteau (agronomist) to Sister Rose-Aimée Gamache, s.g.m., 19 June 1950. Grey Nuns of Montréal’s Archives, Our Lady of Hope Sanatorium (Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts)’s Fonds, L085-A-02