Documents from the year Sarnia General Hospital was built were revealed in nearly perfect condition during a ceremony at Bluewater Health Friday.
A sealed metal container from 1895 was one of three time capsules recovered by members of GFIVE Inc., during demolition of the Mitton Street site.
Sarnia Historical Society President Ron RealeSmith opens SGH time capsule from 1895.
Sarnia Historical Society President Ron RealeSmith said discovering the century old time capsule was a surprise.
"When we were doing our research, we had only really found news articles from 1929 and 1952, so we just assumed that was it," said RealeSmith. "When we were informed about the third one, I was like 'this is great, this is the 1895 one and nobody knew what was in the 1895 one."
RealeSmith was really impressed by its contents.
"Everything is very clear to read. The 1920's one, a few things had a bit of water damage, but everything from 1895 was fully preserved. It's in fantastic condition."
He's looking forward to going over the materials.
"The most fascinating stuff, once I get reading it, will be the personal letters about the community," he said. "It's a person from that time giving their account of how they perceived society back then. So, that's really going to be the interesting thing for me."
Bluewater Health President and CEO Mike Lapaine skimmed over an annual report from 1952 during the ceremony.
Former Sarnia General Hospital nurse Jean Paisley watches as time capsule contents are revealed.
"I was quite impressed with the amount of detail that they captured," said Lapaine. "Remember in those days, that would have all been done manually. They had a remarkable number of patient days. 48,000 patient days... today we'd have over 100,000, but when you put it into context, that would have been a busy hospital back in the day."
Lapaine said they're hoping to put the contents on display.
"We'll take the more interesting documents and ensure that there's a glassed in display. This is really a celebration of the past, present and even into the future of the hospital."
Over 100 people came to see the time capsules opened in the hospital atrium, including 96-year-old Jean Paisley.
Paisley, who graduated from the Sarnia General Hospital School of Nursing, was credited by Lapaine for being involved with the hospital since 1944.
She worked as an operating room nurse during the war, and spent her Sunday's patching up the sugeons' rubber gloves because of a shortage of rubber in those years.
Paisley worked as a nurse in various departments for decades and volunteered with Bluewater Health and its predecessors for 62 years.
