THE family home of a former Footscray mayor and one of Footscray’s oldest residents has kept its history alive after being transformed into a $36million aged-care home.
The 68-bed Kingsville Uniting Care home caters for low- and high-care residents, and includes a specialised dementia unit.
The home, opened last week, was built on the site of the home of Charles and Ida Beever.
Mr Beever, born in Footscray in 1889, married another Footscray local identity, then Ida Verity, in 1913.
The couple ran a grocery business on Williamstown Road where they lived and worked for almost 30 years before buying land on Geelong Road to build their dream home.
Mr Beever was first elected to the Footscray Council in 1934 and served as mayor from 1939-41.
Research conducted showed that most older people – and their families and carers – preferred to age well in their homes for longer, to live independently and at the same time have access to support services that bring greater quality of life.
After Charles’s death in 1956, Ida and her neighbour Myrtle Mason approached the Uniting Church and offered their joint properties for the development of aged-care accommodation. The offer was accepted and soon Gwennap Hostel for the Aged sprang up.
Ida had lived in her Geelong Road home for more than 50 years, and she was the first resident to move into Gwennap and the first to reach 100 years of age. She died in January 1992, aged 102, having lived all her years in Footscray.
Uniting Aged Care executive director Sharon Donovan says offering a greater choice is now the main priority in planning and providing services to older Australians.
“Increasingly, our focus is to help people maintain greater control of their own lives,” she said. “Kingsville shows a model for how older people can remain present and active in the community, with rehabilitation services, home visits or relocation to on-site apartments or residential care.”
