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Pharmacist Dr. Irving Cleghorn

 

 




Dr. Irving Moffat Cleghorn practised medicine in Baldur for over 30 years. He was born in  Dumfriesshire,  Scotland,  Aug.  22,  1863. After graduation from the University of Manitoba in 1894, he married Katherine Ann Murray, a pioneer school teacher in the area. Miss Murray was born Oct. 31, 1868 at Lochaber Antigonish County, Nova Scotia. She taught school in the Belmont area prior to her marriage and was the first teacher in the school. Dr. Cleghorn and Katherine were both of the Presbyterian faith and subsequently United Church. They built and resided in the fine old home at the corner of Elizabeth and Government Road. In 1927 Dr. Cleghorn was elected as the Liberal representative for the constituency of Mountain and was a sitting member at his death, Nov. 19, 1929. Katherine lived in Baldur for several years after his death, and passed away in Winnipeg, Sunday, July 17, 1955. Both are interred in the Baldur Cemetery.

Irving Murray Cleghorn, their eldest son,graduated in medicine from the University of Toronto in 1922 and, after a period of post-graduate work at the Winnipeg Geneial Hospital and the New York Lying-in Hospital, returned to Baldur to practise with his father. He then moved to Winnipeg in 1930 and spent the rest of his career with the Department of Health of the Province of Manitoba.

Their second son, Raymond, graduated in 1925 from the School of Pharmacy at the University of Manitoba. In 1930, after a short period as a druggist in Winnipeg, he returned to Baldur. Raymond owned and operated Cleghorn's Drug Store, which had been founded by his father, until his retirement in 1968. The drug store was one of the oldest family-operated stores of its kind in Manitoba. 

Adapted from Come into our Heritage, page 348.


Cleghorn’s Pharmacy
Note the partially obscured sign near the top right of the photo. It appears that it may say, “SURGERY”
Photo from the S. J. McKee Archives

More than just prescriptions and aspirin, the modern drug store in 1904 seems to have stocked quite a variety of merchandise. The soda fountain contributed to its popularity as a meeting place.

It was quite normal for a Doctor in Pioneer times to supplement his income through the operation of a drug store. Dr. Cleghorn had the town’s first telephone installed in 1899 to connect his house with his store.

 The Manitoba Government telephone office was located in the downstairs of Dr. Cleghorn's office in 1904; then later in 1910 moved upstairs until the Telephone building was built in 1928.


 

The Cleghorn House
Photo from the S. J. McKee Archives
   

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