The Abandoned Pastor Lee House – Ontario

This is the story of the Lee House in Ontario. It’s a mixture of time capsule and bizarre oddities to be seen. The house belonged to the Lee family. Esther Lee Gladstone was born on November 3rd, 1893.  Arthur Lee was born in 1897.

Esther obtained her diploma from the Moody Blue Institute in Chicago. Arthur was a Reverend. On November 7, 1925 Esther departed New York City for Africa as part of a missionary group from Sim International. Arthur Lee graduated from McMaster in 1924 and also traveled to Africa for missionary work.

In August 1927 the couple married in Africa. The couple had a son named Walter who passed away in Africa at the age of five from spinal meningitis around 1938. The couple had three other children: Gordon, Dorothy and Donald.

The Lee family returned to Canada. In the 1960’s Arthur worked as a teacher in Slave Lake. He retired in 1965. Reverend Lee was pastor of Baptist churches in both Manitoba and Ontario. Their son Gordon remained at home while Donald lived in Mount Hope. Dorothy moved to London, Kentucky and was married to Edward Lauber.

Which brings us to the story of their house. At first glance it resembles many other rural homes. However you begin to realize that there’s something different about this house. First there are the bizarre messages painted on the barn and the house.

“Mr. Barry Sheets and his wife R.R.1 Caledonia opened this door without knocking! and sent their small child to ???. I was intending to give away fout prize winning white roosters. However ?? for breeding. ??? was tricked,” reads a painted message on the barn door.

Inside the house are scrap books with articles glued inside pertaining to space travel, UFO’s and aliens. There are photos of two female newscasters that Gordon seemed to be infatuated with. He wrote to them at least twice and received correspondence back.

Then there are the photos of skinned animals and some even decapitated. They included geese, possums and coons. It could be that these were animals injured from passing traffic and Gordon had an interest in photographing them. It seemed that Gordon wasn’t much different than our selves – fond of capturing life as he knew it on film and paper.

Gordon kept a variety of scrapbooks. Some were dedicated to UFO’s while others were dedicated to a television reporter.

The House

March 2023 Revisit

Many of the trees have been cleared and piled. Perhaps there is some truth to the rumour that this house will be demolished in the near future.

35mm slides