'He was our village healer': L'Arche Homefires mourns founder John MacNeil

John MacNeil was born facing a hard road that seemed doomed to end with him locked behind bars. 

The co-founder of L'Arche Homefires began his life in Cape Breton, N.S., in 1956. He had Down syndrome at a time when doctors often encouraged parents to place such children in a large institution for the rest of their lives. People with Down syndrome weren't expected to outlive their 20s. 

His parents, John Angus and Elizabeth MacNeil, decided to keep their son at home. They made the same choice for his sister Florence, who also had Down syndrome. But his mother died when he was 10, his father died a year later, and the province split him from his sister and put MacNeil into an institution called Mountain View Home, which was previously called the County Poor Farm, in Waterville, N.S. 

Jeff Moore was a social worker and met MacNeil in the institution in the 1970s. He found the young man living behind locked doors in bleak conditions. 

"John was such a beautiful and gentle person; it made no sense for him to literally be locked away in such a dark, noisy and dreary place," says Moore, who remained close with MacNeil until he died earlier this year.

MacNeil only used a few words, and never shared what those years were like. "Clearly it was traumatizing for him to lose his parents at such a young age, to be separated from his sister, and then spend the next 16 years in an institution," says Robert Rose, who worked closely with MacNeil in his final years. 

Devon Edmonds knew MacNeil for more than 20 years in L'Arche Homefires. She says he showed a fear of doctors and medical professionals. 

"The idea of going to an emergency room was very terrifying for John, which is an indication that in his early years there were likely some very difficult experiences," Edmonds says. 

In 1976, the government closed Mountain View Home and MacNeil was shuffled through a series of smaller care facilities. He met another young man with Down syndrome, Keith Strong, and the two formed a lifelong bond. 

"Keith was like John's older brother and he looked out for John," says Moore, who worked as a supervisor at one of the facilities the two men shared.

Strong approached Moore and his wife, Debra, with a new idea: why not create a real home, rather than just a smaller institution? Inspired, the Moores, Strong and MacNeil founded L'Arche Homefires in Wolfville, N.S., in 1981. L'Arche is an international network of communities founded in 1964 on the idea of celebrating people with intellectual disabilities. 

"With Keith's indomitable spirit and John's Irish charm, we couldn't have picked two better co-founders. They were leaders, each in their own way, and built a great life for themselves and many, many others," Jeff Moore says. 

Strong died in 2018. MacNeil died in April, leaving behind a thriving community that now includes dozens of people in several homes and workshops across Wolfville. 

"He was a man of community," says Edmonds. "John wanted people around him. He wanted to be on the dance floor. He wanted to be at the table and at every party. That Cape Breton spirit was in John."