John Gerden was in it for the exercise when he started walking the trail around Marotta Family Hospital six years ago.
But en route to maintaining his physical fitness, the 91-year-old gained something else: friendships with Niagara Health staff.
“You have a lot of great people here,” Gerden says. “I enjoy bumping into people who enjoy working here. They’re people doing the job they were designed for.”
One of those people is Environmental Services Aide Mark Ritchie. Gerden, who walks the trail every morning except Sundays when church beckons, piqued the interest of Ritchie and his co-workers Jessica Harris and Courtney Macrae while on their break one Saturday morning about two years ago.
It was hard to miss the senior when Ritchie and his colleagues stepped outside. Gerden always wears a safety vest. Depending on the weather, he sports earmuffs or comes armed with bug spray to get through his lap around the hospital unscathed.
Although Ritchie and others on his crew were coming outside to bask in the morning sunshine, they now soak up some of the good cheer Gerden offers along with it.
“We just watch the people who walk the path and we were like, ‘Who’s the old guy?’” Ritchie recalls. “John would make a point of stopping to talk with us, and it would come with a story.”
Two years later, Ritchie and Gerden get on like old friends. Ritchie knows Gerden’s birthday. He remembers Gerden telling him one day last spring how photos in his apartment were disappearing and that he couldn’t figure out why.
On his 90th birthday in May 2025, he found out: his granddaughter had turned them into a mural that now decorates his apartment.
Experts have long pointed to physical activity and social connections as cornerstones of healthy aging. Research shows they also feed off each other.
A 2024 study by Texas A&M University found that supportive relationships and a vibrant social life motivate older adults to stay active. In turn, staying active often means getting out of the house, creating more chances to connect with others and maintain a cycle that fosters health and well-being.
Gerden’s hospital trail walks back up those findings.
Living independently nearby, he starts his day early with a cup of coffee while reading the newspaper, horoscopes and obituaries online.
A 2024 study by Texas A&M University found that supportive relationships and a vibrant social life motivate older adults to stay active. In turn, staying active often means getting out of the house, creating more chances to connect with others and maintain a cycle that fosters health and well-being.
“If my name’s not in there, I decide to go for a walk,” Gerden, a retired toolmaker, says with a laugh. “I’m usually past Sunset Grill at 7 a.m. I wave to them.”
A series of familiar faces follows. Sometimes they’re nurses who went to school with his son, Rob. He sees other staff who have come to know him by name. And on Saturdays, as he makes his way around the back of the hospital on his four-kilometre trek, which takes 45 minutes to an hour, he sees Ritchie.
Gerden gets out rain or shine. When the mercury trends toward -20 C in winter, he walks in his building’s parking garage instead.
“We wait for spring and know, ‘OK, if it’s 8 a.m., John’s coming, let’s go see him,’” Ritchie says. “It brings a bit of niceness to the day. It’s not just go, go, go, healthcare, healthcare, healthcare. It’s a nice moment.”
It is for Gerden, too, who grew up on a farm on Eleventh Street in St. Catharines – “There was always walking on the farm,” he says – and remembers when Fourth Avenue came to a dead end where the hospital and his walking route now stand.
“It’s nice they have the path here,” he says. “It gives you a little touch of what you’re surrounded with – the birds, the bees. It’s safe, too. I say hello and good morning to everyone. I have my regulars that I see. It’s nice to get a feel for the people and what they do here.”
