Looking back on storied optometrist clinic's 100 years in Ottawa

When young Rodney Goodwin pulled down the lever on one of the newest machines in his family’s optical lab, it closed in on a piece of industrial diamond.

Rodney’s father, Dr. Grenville L. Goodwin, learned of his son’s mishap from lab technicians, who found that someone had tampered with their lab equipment.

Then 10-year-old Goodwin had been fascinated with the latest technologies of the 1980s.

But the diamond had exploded.

“I didn’t know the difference between an industrial diamond and something that was very valuable,” Goodwin recalled. “So … I was kind of traumatized by that, but I always found it kind of funny.”

The incident has since been a core memory for Rodney. In the 1980s, Dr. Grenville L. Goodwin must have been the first, and perhaps the only, optometrist to make contact lenses on site, Rodney said. That was why, in many ways, the memory embodied the excitement Rodney felt when Goodwin Vision Care got new tech.

“It was like a science lab,” Goodwin recalled. “It was very exciting to go into this environment and be like … a mad scientist.”

Goodwin has come a long way since his days of pretending to be a mad scientist. And so has Goodwin Vision Care. This year, the 171 Sparks St. business is celebrating 100 years of keeping its eyes peeled on an ever-changing downtown Ottawa.

Over the century, the business has grown famous for providing exclusive and high-quality eyewear brands. Goodwin says they obtain their products from independent and specialized European manufacturers.

The brick and mortar location has now been in the family for three generations, with Rodney’s grandfather, who had a stint as Ottawa’s mayor, starting the business.

In many ways, Grenville William Goodwin lived a double life, Rodney says. After returning home from the First World War, he worked as an optometrist and would serve as Ottawa’s mayor in 1951. But his time in office was tragically cut short when he died of heart failure at age 53.

“He practised (as an optometrist) kind of during the day and was mayor by night,” Rodney said. “I guess he worked and weakened himself after the war … it was too much for him.

“He passed away, and my father managed to get his licence and take over the practice. He was just finishing university at the same time,” Rodney said.

Rodney’s father practised for more than 65 years, and built a strong following.

It was not uncommon for former prime ministers such as William Lyon Mackenzie King to frequent the family’s mom-and-pop shop. More recently, politicians like Justin Trudeau and Pierre Poilievre have been customers, Rodney says.

With a client list that includes senators, federal judges, reporters and countless Ottawa citizens, Rodney says he is “always up to date because you’re in very close proximity to these very interesting people.”

Rodney remembers being 14 years old when a salesperson came to sell his family the latest lens edger machine.

“He set it all up, and when he was on lunch, I cut myself a pair of glasses without any guidance from him,” he recalled.

When the man came back, Rodney was wearing the pair.

“How do you like these?” Rodney had asked him gleefully.

The man was shocked, Rodney recalled. “You actually did that on your own?” he recalls being asked.

Rodney was impressed with himself, too.

But while Rodney, his sisters and his brother all contributed to the family business while growing up, Rodney had spent most of his teenage years making other career plans.

“I was told as a child that I would be running the clinic, and I did resist it through my childhood,” Rodney said.

It wasn’t until he went to university to study physics and psychology that he changed his mind.

“Optics involves, obviously, perception, sensation and the physics of optics,” he said. “So it all kind of worked together quite beautifully.”

And now, perhaps ironically, at age 57 it is a dream of Rodney’s to have another generation of the family take over the clinic. “I’m working on it,” he quipped.

Rodney says the family had preserved a lot of Ottawa history over the century in business.

“It’s almost like I could build a small museum of a lot of the artifacts and the things that have happened over the years,” Rodney says.

Their house was one of the 4,500 Ottawa homes that had flood damage from the Canada Day rainstorm, and the family had to get rid of many possessions that his father and grandfather had accumulated over the years.

But letters posted on a wall in Goodwin Vision Care still document the political figures who have visited.

Today, Rodney’s father is 98 and his mother is turning 87.

“He would have dignitaries come from all over the world just to get eye exams from him, with people coming from India, Africa, and I have all of these artifacts now in my house.”

The industry has changed with the times, Rodney says. When he was young, the business had no real marketing strategy, he said.

“My father was always reluctant to do advertising and, you know, have too bold of a sign or anything like that, to have frames visible from the street,” he says.

There was a consensus to protect the profession from over-commercialization.

However, today, things like Google reviews and SEO are vitally important, “as opposed to in the past, you would just post a very large page in the yellow pages, and your reputation kind of carried things.”

Goodwin says the business had to change to a have more aggressive internet presence, catching up with modern reality.

If his grandfather were alive today, Rodney says he would be excited.

“He was very engaged with civic life and it was society’s way of advancing. You have to kind of embrace these things and appreciate the benefits that (they) bestow on people.”

The job, however, remains as rewarding as ever for Rodney.

“I remember this one woman who came in and she had very, very low vision, and I was able to give her some advice … and she came back to tell me that she sailed around the world and it was because of me,” he said.

“You get that sense of gratification of helping people all the time, every single day.”

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