Former Grey Sister Mother House

Former Grey Sister Mother House, Pembroke Street East February 21, 1959 6:29 p.m.

The Motherhouse was originally two buildings, one of which was built by Andrew White, son of Pembroke's first settlers, Peter White. The two houses were bought by the Grey Sisters in 1926 and joined together. In the fall of 1958 the Grey Sisters sold the building to Bill Zaduk who was in the process of converting the building into 23 apartments. Just days before the tenants were to move in, the building caught fire and burnt well into the night. The bitter cold hampered firefighters efforts and resulted in five firefighters receiving frostbite to their faces and necks. Three firefighters narrowly escaped major injury or death when they were ordered down from a ladder seconds before a large section of the roof fell where they had been. The Dairy Queen and Kentucky Fried Chicken, now stand where the Motherhouse used to be.

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