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A Chronological Glimpse
The Ursulines
The Growth of Glengarda
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Photo Album 1919-1997
Windsor Star
May 17 1985
by Dave Pink
Sister Theresa Mahoney
Glengarda main offering is care, love for children.It's a stately building in a well-to-do part of the city. Its lawns are neatly trimmed, its front rooms tastefully furnished.
Inside, 65 pupils attend classes in well-equipped rooms with close, personal attention from their teachers.
An exclusive, private school? In a way. The Glengarda School on Riverside Drive East is a one-of-a-kind facility, for children overcoming learning disabilities. It's operated by the Ursuline Sisters but open to anyone needing its services--regardless of race, religion or financial status.
The school is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year. "There are a lot of skills that other children learn by osmosis, just by being alive," said Sister Theresa Mahoney, the school's director and principal. "Here we have to teach them those skills.
"But we're very proud of the students we have here, and we're proud of the students that have been here. I can't say we're 100 per-cent successful, but we put a lot of love into the children here.
"Children want a lot of love."
There's no such thing as an average Glengarda pupil. They range in age from five to 14 and, for one reason or another, wouldn't be comfortable in a normal classroom. Some are intelligent but need some special help understanding their lessons. There are some with speech impediments and a few with emotional problems or a lack of basic social skills.
"They need more services than can be expected in a normal classroom," said Sister Theresa. "Some come here after being in regular schools and they have a great deal of frustration."
After leaving Glengarda, many will re-enter the mainstream in an ordinary secondary school, while others will attend one of the city's vocational high schools.
"Each of them has an individual program," Sister Theresa said. "There are no two students that do the same things--because each of them have different problems and each of them need to develop certain skills. One might be reading very well at a Grade 3 level, but struggles with Grade 1 math. We let them go ahead with their reading and we work with them in math.
"It doesn't matter at what level the child is able to do something as long as they keep moving ahead.
"We strive for excellence here, even if some of the skills are very simple because it gives them a good base to build on. We expect good work, to the best of a child's ability."
Most of the pupils attend classes on a day-to-day basis, but 20 of them live in residences adjacent to the school building. Some of these live-in pupils live outside the area, according to Sister Theresa, while others need help developing routine living skills.
In addition to the 13 teachers, the school employs nine around-the-clock child-care workers, a social worker and a speech pathologist. They try to make the school as much of a home as possible for resident pupils.
"For some, there is the need for a total program--not just education, but a life-skills and a behavior program," Sister Theresa said.
In the evening, these pupils might take part in Boy Scouts or Girl Guides, or participate in a community minor sports program--anything to keep them in touch with society and keep them motivated.
"There is a lot of structure in our program, and that's one of the reasons why it works so effectively," said Sister Theresa. "They know what to expect, and we try to be consistent with them.
"We want them to develop their own inner controls, and once they develop their own inner controls, then they don't need us anymore. Of course, the same is true for all children."
Each pupil takes physical education once a day, in addition to special motor-skills development programs and regular guidance-counseling sessions.
The school is funded by the Ministry of Education and administered by the Windsor Separate School Board, but it serves the needs of the separate and public school boards in Windsor, Essex County and Kent County. The residence is 80-per-cent supported by the provincial Ministry of Community and Social Services, while the residents' parents pay as much as they can.
The balance is paid by the Ursuline Community.
"No children are turned away because of financial difficulty," according to Sister Theresa.
The Ursuline sisters came to Windsor in 1908 and moved into Villa Clare (formerly the home of Mr. Tracy McGregor), an older and smaller building next door to the school. The convent was built on a patch of farmland given to Clare Gaukler, the original mother superior, as a 50th birthday present from her mother. Glengarda, Brennan High School, Our Lady of Guadalupe, St. Therese Church, and some of the old town of Ford City were eventually built on that land.
Glengarda was the brainchild of Sister Kathleen Taylor in 1935, now retired and living in Chatham. Originally, it was a school for the trainable mentally retarded, in some of the spare rooms at Villa Clare. After the larger building was finished in 1939, Glengarda continued to train the mentally retarded through the 1950s.
With the creation of the Windsor Association for the Mentally Retarded about 30 years ago and construction of new training facilities, Glengarda gradually shifted its focus to those children with learing disabilities. Sister Mary Esther was the school's original principal until 1967 when Sister Mary Hogan took over. After 20 years of teaching experience off and on at Glengarda and at other church schools in Ontario, Sister Theresa was named principal in 1981.
Today, Glengarda's main wing is as elegant as ever. It houses some classrooms, offices and an inter-denominational chapel. Although all of the school's current pupils have Christian backgrounds, that hasn't always been the case.
"We try to give them as much religion and culture as we can, and we try to support whatever belief system they have," Sister Theresa said. "We have celebrated both Christmas and Hanukkah in here."
The new wing, completed in 1973, houses a few more classrooms and a modern gymnasium.
Golden anniversary celebrations will continue throughout the year at Glengarda, but will peak October 19 when former staff and pupils will gather for a reunion.
Coincidentally, 1985 is the 450th anniversary of the founding of the Ursuline Order in Italy and the 125th anniversary of the Ursuline beginnings in Ontario.
Windsor Star
Oct 12 1985
by Karen Hall
Glengarda still stirs young mindsSister St. Maron knew two things when she went to teach at Glengarda School in 1938: It would not be teaching in the traditional sense and she'd probably last three years.
Three years and out, they told her. Working 24 hours a day, seven days a week, would take its toll.
She did stay three years but never left exhausted. "I had to teach downtown to get my permanent teaching certificate, and then I ended up back and forth across the border for the rest of my years," she says. "I never got back. But I always liked it. Glengarda was my first appointment and it was a challenge. I thought of it often, no matter where I was."
"But it was difficult, oh yes," says Sister Noreen, who arrived in 1945 and stayed two years. "We taught and supervised the pupils, and they lived here all the time. We slept in the same small building with them and only had relief on the weekends. The children were here seven days a week--and what would you do with them? Sometimes we just didn't know." "We were just getting started, and we didn't really know the ropes," nods Sister St. Maron, "that was hard."
"Yes," says Sister Noreen. "I broke down. We were all tired. It was just too much."
They were pioneering education back then. Not that they knew it. They only knew Sister Kathleen Taylor had this dream; this notion that mentally handicapped children could function--perhaps thrive--in this world if given half a chance.
The schools tried but didn't have room for them; the children didn't learn the right things at the right pace. They called them "dull" and put them in special classes. They all did their best. But it wasn't enough. "I often thought how much more would be done for them if one had them for 24 hours a day instead of five hours," Sister Kathleen would say later. "So much was undone by the environment in which they lived, which was geared to the normal child."
Her idea would simmer on a back burner for almost 10 years, becoming reality in 1935. Suddenly Glengarda, a quiet residence for the Ursuline Sisters, was a bustling boarding school for a bunch of kids. "The poorest of the poor, that's what we thought of them," says Sister Noreen. "Nobody wanted them. Even if they had a normal IQ, their learning disability made it impossible for them to fit in."
Inside, space was at a premium. But outside there was land--almost 70 acres in the early days, stretching from the Detroit River right down to Tecumseh Road. The old farm, where Our Lady of Guadalupe Church now stands, was tended by the older boys, who worked off their excess energy and got practical experience at the same time.
Sister Noreen says at one time they thought the boys might graduate and go work the farm full time. But Wyandotte Street met up with progress and plans soon changed.
But we're getting a little ahead of our story. Back in '35 there was still the farm, and the school was just getting off the ground. You couldn't say the community gave it a rousing welcome. The first students came not from Windsor, but from Detroit, Cleveland, and the State of Wisconsin.
"If it wasn't for our friends across the river, Glengarda wouldn't have lasted the first year," says Sister Noreen. "When it opened, parents were not ready to admit their child might be a slow learner, or mentally handicapped. Why, I remember we had two children in London who desperately needed help, and we begged--we begged--the parents to let them come here."
The powers that be weren't exactly generous, either. Glengarda, said the local Roman Catholic General Council, would serve "until something better might be provided."
This is as good a time as any to mention Glengarda is celebrating its golden anniversary today, which is just about the best proof possible that nothing "better" has come along in 50 years.
There will be parties and dignitaries and an open house this weekend, but the highlight will be the appearance of the perseverant Mother Kathleen herself, now in her 80s and retired at The Pines in Chatham. Sister Noreen, 79 and known as "the fish lady" because she still tends the school aquarium, will also be there. And so will Sister St. Maron, 83, who they say can collect any item for any needy group anywhere at a moment's notice.
The strong will and founding principles of the sisters have never changed in all these 50 years, but Glengarda itself has changed radically--seeming to anticipate the needs of special children long before the rest of us knew they would ever exist.
"We started out with the trainable retarded and the slow learners," says Sister Theresa, now the school's principal and executive director. "The 'grey area' children, you could call them. We served that group until the '50s, when a strong association of parents developed. Those parents insisted their kids had the right to an education, and as their influence grew, we weren't as needed as we had been."
Glengarda shifted its emphasis to a higher functioning group of children called the educable mentally handicapped. The goal: Teach them enough skills so they can be self-supporting--so they can survive comfortably--in the outside world.
"That served us until the '70s," says Sister Theresa. "As the school systems started setting up classes in the regular school stream we moved into specific learning disabilities. Then the schools picked that up, too.
"Now, we have children with severe learning disabilities, serious language deficiencies...children who, because of this, may have emotional and behavioral problems."
And if the school system decides to one day teach these children? I'm not too worried about it. We're not in the business to stay in business. We're here to serve the child. And there will always be a group of children who don't fit somewhere. Even the school system, with all the good will in the world, can't meet their needs. We'll just pioneer some more new ways."