Series C: Overseers of the poor, welfare and social services records. — 1927-1986. — 2.07 m of textual records.

Series contains records relating to the provision of financial and/or practical aid to municipal residents who were unable to support themselves due to unemployment, ill health, family circumstances, etc.

The records are arranged into 6 sub-series including:

• hospital accounts and correspondence
• municipal relief
• welfare expenditure and related material
• joint welfare committee and joint social services records
• municipal home records
• bonds of maintenance and settlement records
• child welfare records and associated material

Note:
Title taken from the names of the various groups and departments which were responsible for providing social assistance within the municipality, and which created the records contained in the sub-series.

Sub-series 1: Hospital accounts and correspondence. — 1927-1973. — 70 cm of textual records.

Sub-series consists of correspondence and accounts to be paid by the municipality to various hospitals within Nova Scotia and other parts of Canada for the care of municipal residents. Some of these accounts were eventually passed on to and paid by the patients or their families, but many of the accounts ultimately became the responsibility of the municipality due to the patients’ inability to pay for their own hospitalization.

Also included in the sub-series is a folder of medical reports on tuberculosis patients in the Nova Scotia Sanatorium (1944-1946); and a “Brief on Hospital and Diagnostic Services from Nova Scotia Section Maritime Hospital Association to the Planning Committee of the Government of Nova Scotia” and associated correspondence regarding the “new Hospital Plan” due to come into effect in 1959 (1956).

Hospitals whose accounts appear within the sub-series include:

• Yarmouth Hospital
• Children’s Hospital, Halifax
• Victoria General Hospital, Halifax
• Grace Maternity Hospital, Halifax
• Nova Scotia Hospital, Dartmouth
• King’s County Hospital, Waterville
• Nova Scotia Sanatorium, Kentville
• Payzant Hospital, Windsor, N.S.
• Digby General Hospital
• Halifax County Hospital, Cole Harbour
• Roseway Hospital, Shelburne
• Municipality of Lunenburg (Dayspring Hospital)
• Annapolis Royal Municipal Home.

The records are arranged into alphabetical order by title of hospital and into chronological order in groups of one year.

Notes:
Title based on contents of sub-series.

Periodically, a folder entitled “Other Hospitals” is found in the sub-series. These folders were created by municipal staff to contain records of hospitals which were not frequented by municipal residents and for which there are consequently few items. Seven such files exist in the sub-series and are dated 1932-1940, 1947, 1950, 1951, 1952, 1953, 1957-1959.

An account book of hospital accounts passed to patients for payment (1930-1938) is located in Series B, Sub-series 3.

Sub-series 2: Municipal relief, welfare expenditure and associated material. — 1928-1986. — 93 cm of textual records.

Sub-series contains material documenting the methods by which the municipality provided assistance to its more needy residents; the cost of providing, variously, “municipal relief”, “social assistance” and “municipal assistance”; and the changes that occurred to the “welfare system” as responsibility for providing such aid moved from the local overseers of the poor to the Department of Public Welfare and, later, the Department of Social Services.

The sub-series consists of orders for municipal relief (July 1958, sample file); receipts for goods and services provided to municipal residents and paid for by the overseers of the poor (1928-1955 : sample files for March and August exist for most years); Social Assistance claim forms for federal and provincial sharing of relief costs for municipal relief/assistance and homes for special care: ie nursing homes, homes for the disabled, homes for the aged, and residential care facilities (1958-1986); resolution and agreement between the Government of Nova Scotia and the Municipality of Argyle to provide Direct Relief aid in the form of articles, commodities and services to residents in need (1934); correspondence and related reports, guidelines, etc.

Notes:
Title based on contents of sub-series.

Prior to appraisal, this sub-series consisted of monthly folders (ca. 1955-1970) containing orders for municipal relief (white); monthly folders containing carbon copies of the orders for municipal relief (pink), each stapled to receipts provided by the supplier of the goods specified by the orders to the amount allowed; and claim forms for sharing of relief costs (1957-1986). Since the claim forms provided the names of those receiving assistance as well as the amount and type of assistance they received, these were retained while the orders for relief and receipts for goods provided were deemed redundant and destroyed. Samples of municipal orders were retained, and where only receipts existed as evidence of assistance provided (1928-1955) these were retained for two months each year (March and August) to indicate summer and winter levels of local relief.

Sub-series 3: Joint welfare committee and joint social services records. — 1973-1974, 1982-1986. — 13 cm of textual records.

Sub-series consists of minutes, policy documents and correspondence of the joint welfare committee (1973-1974), and joint social services records (1982-1985) including minutes, correspondence, briefs, financial forecasting statements, budgets and other financial documentation, Juniper House statistics, homemakers program records (1983-1985), etc.

Notes:
Title taken from committees which created the records.

Sub-series 4: Municipal home records and related material. — 1927-1972. — 9 cm of textual records.

Sub-series consists of minute book (1935-1972) containing minutes of meetings of the overseers of the poor, 1935-1961 / welfare officers, 1961-1967 / Tidal View Home management committee, 1967-1972; reports and budgets of the board of overseers of the poor / board of welfare officers (1927, 1947, 1961, 1965-1967); expenses claimed by overseers of the poor for services provided (1928-1930, 1940-1956, 1965-1966) minutes and reports of the board of visitors to the Argyle Municipal Farm (1962-1972); correspondence relating to the municipal home buildings, its staff and its residents (1947-1972); and folders containing information about each of the municipal home’s residents during the 1960s-1972 when the surviving residents were transferred to the new facility at the Yarmouth Regional Hospital.

Notes:
Title based on contents of sub-series.

Since the overseers of the poor and the board of visitors reported to the Municipal Council their reports are sometimes found within the minutes of the Council’s meetings.

A financial journal of the Municipal Farm (1928-1972) may be found in Series B, Sub-series 3.

Sub-series 5: Bonds of maintenance and settlement records. — 1927-1948, 1977-1979. — 5 cm of textual records.

Sub-series consists of bonds of maintenance (1927-1943) wherein an individual agreed to pay the maintenance costs of his illegitimate child so that the responsibility would not fall on the overseers of the poor; depositions of individuals that their place of settlement is Argyle Municipality (1932-1948); and correspondence and a pre-hearing memorandum relating to a legal dispute between the Municipality of the District of Argyle and the Municipality of the District of Yarmouth regarding the settlement of a mental health patient (1977-1979).

Notes:
Title based on contents of sub-series.

Sub-series 6: Child welfare records and related material. — 1928-1980. — 17 cm of textual records.

Sub-series consists of accounts for the maintenance of children whose settlement was in the Municipality of Argyle by the Children’s Aid Society (1928-1971), the Director of Child Welfare at the Nova Scotia Training School for Mentally Defective Children (1938-1956), the Interprovincial Home for Young Women (1938-1941), the Maritime Home for Girls (1951-1953), the Religious Order of the Good Shepherd at the Monastery of Our Lady of Charity of the Good Shepherd (1928-1965), St. Patrick’s Home (1947-1953), the School for the Deaf (1951-1960), and the School for the Blind (1953-1956); records relating to the Children’s Protection Act including Notices Determining Settlement and Expenses of Apprehension of Neglected Child, and orders for delivering neglected children to the Children’s Aid Society (1928-1956); records relating to the Child Welfare Act, including notices of hearings in the Provincial Magistrate’s Court and the Juvenile Court relating to the provisions of the Act, transcriptions of such hearings, notices of apprehension, orders for wardship and notices of settlement (1961-1977); notices of hearings relating to the Children’s Services Act (1978-1980), correspondence, etc.

Notes:
Title based on contents of sub-series.