In July 2019 the Carmelite Sisters made an application to the City of Mississauga for a Rezoning and Official Plan Amendment for the renewal of the buildings at Carmel Heights. For more information about the application and the consultants reports filed in support of the application go to: http://www.mississauga.ca/portal/residents/development-applications Scroll down to Ward 8, 1720 Sherwood Forrest Circle.

MISSISSAUGA – Sister Theresa Byrne remembers being awakened in the middle of the night by the other nuns at Carmel Heights in Erindale nearly six decades ago.

She got out of bed to see what the commotion was on that night in October 1954 and the other sisters were looking out the window, pointing up at the tempestuous clouds as they quickly zipped across the dark sky.

"There's something wrong, someone is having a storm … they'll need prayers," Byrne recalls one of them saying at the time.

So Byrne and the others did just that and returned to bed. When they awoke the next morning, the caretaker of the building rushed in to ask the sisters if everything was OK.

Quizzically, Byrne answered him, "No, we're fine."

The caretaker explained that his basement was completely flooded.

"He said, 'We had a hurricane last night — Hurricane Hazel!'"

Listing off the damage to the surrounding area, Byrne said, "The whole place was a wreck all around, but we weren't touched up here on the hill."

The sisters at Carmel Heights, as well as the residents who stay there at the retirement facility, believe that the building at 1720 Sherwood Forrest Circle is a protected place.

"When people come into this home, they feel this peacefulness, this presence," said Sister Veronica Dobson, who has been at the seniors' home since 2002. "We're able to give this (place a) family atmosphere."

This year, the Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus are celebrating 100 years in Canada. Starting out as an orphanage on Harrison Ave. in Toronto in 1913, which later became a daycare in the '60s, the Mississauga location opened as a Provincial Mother House and retirement facility in 1952 with several renovations over the years.

Early on, the sisterhood also planted Canadian roots in St. Catharines, Welland and Medicine Hat, Alberta.

"We have mass available, we have priests; it's an environment where people seek to be close to God at the end of their life," said Dobson, adding the nine sisters at the Mississauga location balance their prayer life with helping to look after the facility's 37 residents.

The serene grounds, which at one point were blanketed with an apple orchard, are still frequented by wildlife such as deer, Byrne pointed out.

Sister Mary Stella Schiller fondly remembers another aspect from the early years — a loquacious blue budgie named Joey Carmel.

"(Joey) would jump on your head and glasses and then he would look at you and say, 'Hello, how are you today?'"

"One day, when we were having the building blessed … (Joey) jumped over to the cage and started pecking at the bell, just in time," she recalled of the unofficial mascot helping out with a ceremony.

Schiller added that one of the first residents at Carmel Heights, Rose Ann Ireland, taught him the trick.

On May 30, the Carmelite Sisters of the Divine Heart of Jesus will be holding a 100th anniversary celebration at St. Francis of Assisi Church, at 2473 Thorn Lodge Dr.

The event begins at 7 p.m.

"We hope we can continue for the next 100 years," said Dobson.