'A man of hope': L'Arche Homefires mourns founding member Keith Strong

Friends and family are mourning and celebrating the life of Keith Strong, a Nova Scotian who left an institution to co-found the L'Arche Homefires community in Wolfville.

"Keith was a man with an incredible sense of himself. He was our founder, and he knew that was his role," said Ingrid Blais, the long-time director of the community where people with disabilities live together with care workers. "He loved to meet people. I often said he worked the room better than any politician."

Bleak house

Born in 1955, Strong had Down syndrome and was sent to an institution when he was four years old. He grew up in Mountain View Home near Waterville. The institution, formerly known as the Kings County Poor Farm, created in him a deep longing for a home to call his own.

At 20, Strong met Jeff Moore. Moore had worked a summer job at a locked-ward psychiatric hospital and was horrified at how people were treated. 

His work took him to Mountain View. "The sounds and the smell, the lack of decor. The doors were locked. Everything about the place seemed damp and dark and dreary," Moore recalls.

Except for one thing: Keith Strong bounded over to welcome him.

"He was such a lively, confident character in the middle of this," Moore says. "He was a real leader. He had an ability to instil confidence in others."

Strong spoke with energy and passion. Although most people could understand only some of his words, he never struggled to get his meaning across. Jeff and his wife, Debbie, invited Strong and his friend John MacNeil, another man with Down syndrome living in the institution, to move into a care home near Waterville. It turned out the house had actually been built by Strong's grandfather, deepening the sense of home.

A few years later, Strong, MacNeil and the Moore moved to a home in Wolfville and founded the L'Arche Homefires community in 1981.

"We really became family," Jeff Moore says. "He loved being in a family, community, in a healthy social setting. Our kids all adored Keith and accepted him fully as their uncle.

"Keith was somebody that when he welcomed you at the door, you really felt welcomed. And when he called you friend, you really felt he was a friend."

"Keith was my family. He almost instantly became my brother," Debbie Moore said. "It was about being lonely, and really finding someone who just accepted me and loved me. We would fight too — it wasn't all hunky-dory."

As they built the community, they learned how to throw a celebration.

"I was kind of shy," she said. "I loved to have parties and celebrations, but I was always in the kitchen. Keith would be the one out animating the party and making sure everyone was having a good time. He was an incredible man of welcome."

Elvis has re-entered the building

A deeply Christian man, Strong began attending the Greenwich United Church, serving for years as a greeter.

As the L'Arche community grew to add new homes, workshops, retirement programs and more people with disabilities, Strong welcomed everyone. Debbie Moore said he gave the same warm welcome to everyone, whether it was little children or the prime minister. "Keith was Keith. He knew who he was. Where he got that self-confidence from, I have no idea."

Core member Lori Chiasson was one of those he welcomed and knew Strong for many years. "Keith was my friend. He is in heaven," she said. "He was a good man."

Strong treasured his role as founder and embraced the duties that came with it. "He took his role and work in life seriously. He also was a joker and he loved to tease. He was an entertainer," said Blais.

He was quick to grab a guitar and launch his Elvis Presley persona. "Whether it was his family, his family at L'Arche, or the paramedics — whoever happened to be his audience at the time. He loved life," Blais says.

Hope

He often delivered stirring speeches. One word always rang out at the end. Some heard it as "home," while others heard "hope."

"In truth, he embodied hope," Debbie Moore said. "You think of the life he led, and really he was a man with no hope when we first met him. He was in that Mountain View hospital, which was just horrible, and he had no hope of much of a life. Things opened up, and Keith was able to take advantage of that."

Today, the L'Arche Homefires community he founded has grown to more than 60 people, some of whom live in its five homes, while others work in the Applewicks shop or other day programs. About half are "core members," people with disabilities. Many of them told warm stories of welcome at his funeral.

His old friend Jeff Moore was there, thinking back to the little boy lost in the big institution who found himself and founded a community. "He was seen to be somebody of little or no value in our society. It's quite astonishing, really."

Debbie Moore says the man she called her brother left a lasting legacy. "Not only did he want community and home for himself — he wanted it for everybody."

Ingrid Blais said Strong dealt with Alzheimer's disease for the last years of his life. She said it takes a village to raise a child, and with Strong, they learned it also takes a community to support a person to the end of their life. On April 16, he died in his home — called Burnside house — surrounded by the community he helped build.  

"He ended his all of speeches by telling his audience — in some ways commanding — that we hope," Blais said. "He lived his life as a man of hope."