FOCUS - SEPTEMBER 2018 23 One of the heroes of our local hospital care is Grace Swan who established Scugog’s first ma- jor hospital. Grace was born Grace Benning in Yorkshire, England. She became qualified as a nurse at the Royal Victoria Hospital in London, England. After marrying James Cormack, the family immigrated to New York in 1895. James died 15 years later, so she brought her young family to Canada and settled in Port Perry. She rented rooms above the old Port Perry Star office (now Plum Loco on Queen St.) and established a basic hospital with a surgery and two recovery rooms. In 1921 she married James Swan who owned the Ontario Carriage Works, located where the Old Flame Brewery is now located. Grace Swan and her husband decided to cre- ate a larger hospital to serve the community so they bought the yellow brick house at 96 John St. and converted it into an 11-bed hospital. On the ground floor, it had a surgery, three patient recovery rooms, a kitchen and a nurse’s common room. Upstairs there were three recovery rooms, each with two beds. Several local doctors used the facility. There are Scugog residents living today who were born in this facility and several who had minor surgery or had broken bones treated here. In 1930 Grace sold the facility to Nellie Whitmore and Margaret Fisher, two nurses who were her cousins by marriage. Nellie Whitmore ran the hospital until a group of citizens organized a hospital board for the community, raised funds and bought the John St. property in July 1946. Two years later the board organized an- other fundraising campaign to build a new and larger facility. The John St. property was closed in October 1948 and sold in 1949. To replace the John St. facility, the hospital committee bought two acres of land at the north end of town on Lila St. (now Simcoe St.) and purchased an old war building in Ajax and had it moved to the property. The building was redesigned to accommodate a 29-bed facil- ity with an operating room, a maternity room, bathrooms, doctors’ rooms, and an office. Thisfacilityservedthecommunityuntil1969 when the first phase of the present Paxton St. Community Memorial Hospital was opened. The Lila St. property was later renamed “The Villa” and became a nursing home. By Paul Arculus, Focus on Scugog Grace Swan and our First Hospital 96 John Street. Nellie Whitmore. Grace Swan.