Ann’s story: A year at the Queen Alexandra Solarium

Ann was nine years old when she moved to Victoria from Salmon Arm with her parents and three siblings. Not long afterwards, she became ill with rheumatic fever and spent a month in the hospital. It was 1940.

“At the hospital, they told me not to move. Now, I’m 10 years old, and they say, ‘don’t move,’” Ann recalls with a chuckle. “They wanted me to stay calm and quiet and not get worked up.”

But after weeks of staying still, Ann’s condition had not improved. Her doctors told her she was going to be transported to the Queen Alexandra Solarium in Mill Bay.

“I needed better care than the hospital could provide. That’s what it was. Because I had to be under a heat lamp and keep going to school at the same time – a lot of things that just couldn’t go on in the hospital,” Ann explains.

For Ann, this relocation meant leaving her family – all close by in Victoria – and going to a place she’d never been with people she’d never met, not knowing when she would get to return home.

When she first arrived, Ann had to stay in a room by herself to ensure she could rest quietly, just like in the hospital. Before long, though, she was able to join the other children in the ward.

Ann remembers the daily routine of having breakfast, learning school subjects, spending time under the heat lamp, and on nice days, the nurses moving the beds out onto the large veranda overlooking the ocean.

“All the time I was up there, I never got out of bed. But I enjoyed watching the other children. They were all very nice. I remember there was a young girl who couldn’t walk, so she would walk on her hands.”

Ann ended up spending a year at the Solarium, celebrating Christmas and her 11th birthday there. She got to know the nurses well and she remembers them all being very nice and kind – even the one who she described as “brusque.”

One moment stands out for her as particularly special:

“Nellie McClung, the author, would come and visit the children at the Solarium. She was very kind to all of us. I think she must have visited around Christmastime because she had presents for everyone.”

While Ann was never sad during her time at the Solarium, she was glad to get to return home after a year away from her family. Her parents couldn’t afford a car and were only able to make the trip to visit her once during her stay.

After a year of bedrest, Ann had to build up her strength to walk again. Back home in Victoria, her mother would put a string on the floor so Ann could practice walking in a straight line. Later, her mother enrolled her in tap dancing lessons. “I was no star,” Ann remembers with a laugh.

All these years later, Ann remains grateful for the care she received at the Solarium.

“The treatment I got there was very good. I never had any issues with my heart later in life. And here I am, at 95, still going!”