Family business runs on care, compassion

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This article was published 10/06/2019 (2611 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Herman Thorvaldson keeps a letter-sized plaque mounted on the communal living room wall of his intermediate care home in Osborne Village. With the well-worn phrase ‘For all of the little things you do that make such a big difference,’ carved into the plaque, Herman carries the gift close to his chest before placing it on a table to reflect on his 60 years in business.

As he explains the significance of the engraved piece of wood — a gift from the family of a former resident of Thorvaldson Care Center — tears pool in the 84-year-old’s eyes.

“She came in at 96 and died at 100. Her next of kin gave us this for the staff,” Herman said. “To us it’s really touching, because it’s just that, it makes a difference, of somebody feeling needed and wanted.”  

In 1959, Herman and his parents bought the convalescent home his elderly aunt had operated in St. James, and later Fort Rouge, since 1932. At 25 years old, Herman and his parents ran the 38-bed Thorvaldson Nursing Home on Mayfair Place until the mid-1970s, when they moved operations to the current property at 495 and 505 Stradbrook Ave.

“We certainly had no money to pay yourself,” Herman said, recalling working multiple jobs alongside running the care home.

“Every Saturday we were in the wagon going to a market garden to pick up food, from one step to the next,” he said. “Whether it was a snowstorm or bad weather, you just kept going.”

The family-run business, in which Herman’s three young children were raised, continued to operate despite nearly a decade of thin to no profits. The longevity, Herman explained, is a result of the family’s sense of duty and an ingrained need to be of service.

“Sometimes you almost wonder, how did it come out this way?” Herman said. “I always look at one thing: we decided a long time ago that there’s only two ways to be in business.

“We weren’t making any money, we weren’t even breaking even, so we decided, as the saying goes, to be good, not well off.”

In 1994, the property was redeveloped into a 70-bed intermediate care home, operating under the current Thorvaldson Care Center name. An estimated 2,000 residents have lived in the facility, which daughter and administrator Jocelyn Thorvaldson said gives elderly folks another option to age in the community.

“Personal care homes are not the answer, necessarily,” Jocelyn, 54, said. “The idea would be to try to keep people in the community and not institutionalize them.”

The provincially licensed Thorvaldson Care Center falls in between the supportive housing and personal care home models, she explained. Residents are provided meals, around-the-clock care by an onsite registered nurse and health care aides, housekeeping and laundry, and recreation services. Currently, the intermediate care home model is not funded by government.

For two decades, the family has advocated for the government to formally recognize and fund the care home model, Jocelyn said, and with the baby-boomer generation anticipated to hit 75 years of age in just a few years, the intermediate care home model can fill gaps in senior community health.  

“We’re ahead of the curve,” Jocelyn said.

The Thorvaldsons will mark their 60th anniversary on June 13, one day before Herman’s birthday. The octogenarian has yet to retire and continues to do payroll and maintenance around the centre. Looking back on a lifetime working for others, Herman said the responsibility to the business is tightly knit into the fabric of his family, for better or worse.

“I care a lot, I care a great deal about the work I do,” he said.

“It’s not a nine-to-five job for us,” Jocelyn added. “We’re obviously very invested in the business. It’s our livelihood and it’s our reputation.

“If you stop to think about it, it can be overwhelming. We take it for granted. This is just what we do. It’s all my family knows.”