Beyond the Plaque: 9 Bruyère Street, Mother House of the Sisters of Charity 

By Nancy Miller Chenier

In 1980, the City of Ottawa gave heritage designation to the Mother House of the Sisters of Charity at the corner of Sussex Drive and Bruyère Street (previously Bolton and then Water Street). A plaque with the following inscription tells a small part of the story of this historic building, one of the oldest in Lowertown, and of Elizabeth Bruyère, the woman who founded the religious community of Catholic nuns. 

“Under the leadership of Sister Elizabeth Bruyère, the Sisters of Charity took up residence in Bytown in February 1845 to care for the poor and the sick and to educate the young. The oldest section of the convent, designed by Elizabeth Bruyère and Father Dandurand, was occupied as early as June 2, 1850. The sundials were added in 1851 by Father Jean-François Allard. Subsequent additions in the 19th and 20th centuries brought it to its current impressive state.”

This Mother House became the principal headquarters for the Sisters of Charity of Bytown with Elizabeth Bruyère as the founder and Mother Superior. It was also the home for the women who promised to live together while devoting their efforts to serve the community. This was a place where nuns lived simply, professed their faith, and planned their daily work as teachers, nurses, and social carers. In a short time, this sisterhood would establish a school, a hospital, a hospice for the elderly, and an orphanage.

Beyond the plaque and the wall surrounding the Mother House is a story of a community of courageous women. The walls along Sussex, Bruyère, and Cathcart Street suggest the separation of a religious group from the outside secular world, but this was not the case for the Grey Nuns in Bytown. 

Elizabeth Bruyère (1818-1876) was only 26 years of age when entrusted with the enormous task of serving the disadvantaged in Bytown’s population. Within three months of her arrival from Montréal, she had established a bilingual school and a non-denominational hospital. From 1845 to 1850 when the Mother House was completed, Bruyère and her expanding group of nuns lived in a very humble residence on St. Patrick Street. By 1847 when the nuns were caring for those stricken by the typhus epidemic, the group had grown to 22 dedicated nuns. Just 20 years after Bruyère’s arrival, there were 100 nuns and 66 novices at the Mother House willing to dedicate their lives to community work.

Éléonore Thibodeau (1811-1883) was one of the original companions to arrive in Bytown along with Elizabeth Bruyère and later to move into the newly constructed Mother House. After entering the Grey Nun’s Montréal convent, she had devoted her time to studying medicine and became known in Ottawa for her knowledge of pharmaceutical remedies for physical ailments as well as for her ability to comfort those in need. She was the founder of the St Joseph’s Home for Orphans and in 1868, witnessed the building of a stone orphanage at the corner of Sussex and Cathcart.

Martha Hagan (1829-1912) was another nun who lived in the new Mother House. She was an early Irish resident of Lowertown, educated initially at her father’s private school on Murray Street. In 1845, she decided to become a nun, assuming the name Sister Theresa. In 1850, when the Mother House opened, she became director of studies at the boarding school for girls located there. In 1869, when the school became too crowded, she moved to the newly opened Our Lady of the Sacred Heart school as its superior and director of studies.

Elizabeth Bruyère initially came to Bytown for three years and then stayed for three decades. She overcame barriers of gender and age and became one of Ottawa’s most important early community builders. When she died in 1876 at 58 years of age, she left behind a well-established religious community with several hundred Sisters serving in schools, hospitals, orphanages, and homes for the aged across multiple communities.