LETTER: MUSKOKA CENTRE SHOULD BE ‘HERITAGE SITE,’ WRITES RETIRED NURSE WHO GREW UP, LIVED AT ‘SAN’ WITH HER DOCTOR DAD, FAMILY IN 1950S

LETTER TO EDITOR: Eds. note: One reader who is keenly following Gravenhurst’s proposed Cliff Bay development at the former Muskoka Centre is Torontonian Elizabeth Kalinowski, who grew up there for a time in the 1950s when her father was a doctor at the “San.” She was born in 1939 and her family, who were Holocaust survivors, moved to Canada in 1951 from near Warsaw, Poland. Her experience led her to become a nurse and she submitted this exclusive letter to MuskokaTODAY.com.

On Saturday Aug. 8, I read in the Toronto Star, with interest decisions being made about the stretch of Lake Muskoka that was once home to Gravenhurst’s last tuberculosis sanatorium.

It really caught me.

My father, Maurice, was a doctor there in the 1950s and we lived on the site.

My brother and I both went to Gravenhurst High School.

I had quite a history living there.

I am aware that the area has been left vacant for decades.

I would like to see part of it as a heritage site.

Elizabeth Kalinowski is following the ‘San’ saga with interest and thinks part of it should be a heritage site. PHOTO Elizabeth Kalinowski

I lived on the grounds of the sanatorium from 1952 to 1957 after which time I left to study nursing in Toronto.

As a teenager it was a great place to go to school, grow up and participate in many activities.

It was a beautiful spot and a great community.

Elizabeth moved to Canada as a teenager in 1951 with her brother Richard and parents Irene and Maurice and lived in a cottage at the “San” and also worked for her five years there.

My father was on staff as one of the physicians — a general practitioner of sorts — and had a very good working relationship with his colleagues. Including head doctor C.B. Ross, through whom he got the job after being a specialist in Poland.

My mother, Irene, adapted very well. Made friends and socialized.

Unfortunately she became ill and spent some time at the San as a TB patient and passed away in 1959 of among other causes cancer.

The hospital closed a short time later and my father moved to Toronto to continue his work with tuberculosis at the Gage Institute.

My brother, who was four years older than I was, also went to high school in Gravenhurst, but for only one year. He finished Grade 13 then and moved to Toronto to attend the University of Toronto to study medicine. And became a radiologist, later moving and settling in California.

According to a cherished family newspaper clipping he was an accomplished high school student during his only year at GHS. He “set a new record” for the school “and possibly in the province” in 1953 — by writing “the greatest number of (final exam) subjects at one time in the history of the school” attaining an amazing 13 firsts and two seconds. (See clipping.)

While in high school I spent most summers working at the San in various jobs, which familiarized me with most staff and nurses.

I appreciate the opportunity to share those foundational years.

Elizabeth Kalinowski

Retired nurse, Toronto

Dr. Maurice Kalinowski was a general practicioner at the tuberulosis centre and went on after it closed to work further on TB at the Gage Institute in Toronto.
His wife, Irene, who adjusted to life well at the San later died there in 1959.
Richard Kalinowski, “a new Canadian,” was a prized 1953 student at GHS with the top grades in his one year in Grade 13 at the local school.
Elizabeth, front left, also graduated from GHS and still speaks fondly and highly of the town, school and her old home at the San.
The 70-acre former Muskoka Centre with its distinctive waterfront gazebo in Gravenhurst, seen here last Friday Aug. 14, is the site of the proposed Cliff Bay resoort with 1,300 units that could significantly alter the lakeshore. And it has people around the Muskoka Lakes buzzing about its pros and cons. PHOTO Mark Clairmont