Musée des Acadiens des Pubnicos et Centre de recherche

The Story of The Callow Wheelchair Coach (ca. 1950)

Fabricated by “Middle West Pubnico Bus Builders.” When spring touches the Annapolis Valley with its pale green fingers, and timid apple blossoms peek through boughs, a crippled child may wonder at the sight. "Who makes this opportunity possible?" you ask. Your answer lies blind and paralyzed in Halifax's Camp Hill Military Hospital. Your answer is Walter Callow.

A man who cannot see, cannot touch, can never walk again, and is after 20 years illness still radiantly living and happy. Walter Callow spends every waking moment dreaming up ways to brighten the lives of crippled veterans and civilians. For 20 years he has lived thus, for the sake of others, and his proudest achievement to date is the Walter Callow Wheelchair Coach.

They call Walter Callow "the human log," because his body is twisted, gnarled and immovable. Without motion or sight, how could a man invent a coach for crippled folk to ride in? Yet the coach is only one of his seeming miracles.

Although he is known as the "genius of Halifax" it takes more than brains to change daring dreams to reality. The dreams of Walter Callow take an iron will, great organizing and executive ability, a godlike patience, and a heart full of love for suffering humanity. "The human log" possesses all of these qualities.

His war services over, Walter turned his active mind to the crippled veteran. Accordingly he started thinking of ways and means to help all invalids called "shut-ins." He hit on the idea of a wheelchair coach. He designed it, and the first one was built under his exacting directions in Pubnico, Nova Scotia that same year. This first coach cost $15000, but the second was less; $13000. Probably mass production techniques would bring the price down still farther. There is nothing our stationary hero would sooner hear, than that his coaches will be mass-produced.

Date: 1950

Reference:  Musée des Acadiens des Pubnicos 2011.69-P2

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