Valerie Andrews - White Unwed Mother : The Adoption Mandate in Postwar Canada

WHITE UNWED MOTHER

The Adoption Mandate in Postwar Canada

WHITE UNWED MOTHER

The Adoption Mandate in Postwar Canada

Valerie J. Andrews

White Unwed Mother:
The Adoption Mandate in Postwar Canada

Valerie J. Andrews

Copyright 2018 Demeter Press

Individual copyright to their work is retained by the authors. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.

Demeter Press

140 Holland Street West

P. O. Box 13022

Bradford, ON L3Z 2Y5

Tel: (905) 775-9089

Email:

Website: www.demeterpress.org

Demeter Press logo based on the sculpture Demeter by Maria-Luise Bodirsky www.keramik-atelier.bodirsky.de

Printed and Bound in Canada

Front Cover: A Resident Looking out of Common Room Window of Victor Home ca. 1950s, United Church Archives, VH14
Back Cover: Victor Home, Toronto, Ontario, United Church Archives.

Cover Design by Ryan Heaney Art + Design
Typesetting by Michelle Pirovich
eBook: tikaebooks.com

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Andrews, Valerie, 1952-, author

White unwed mother : the adoption mandate in postwar Canada /
Valerie J Andrews.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN 978-1-77258-172-0 (softcover)

1. Adoption--Canada--History--20th century. 2. Unmarried mothers--

Canada--History--20th century. 3. Women, White--Canada--History-- 20th century. I. Title.

For my son, Christopher (1970-2008)

Take me outside I want to feel the rain on my face, he said, so we went outside and sat together holding hands and felt the light, warm Vancouver rain fall on our faces. We talked not about our lost past, but our lost future

I remember those days my Beloved
When we danced in the teardrops of the Goddess
And the only Angels I have ever seen
Slid down your cheeks from the windows of your soul
And the rain, the gentle rain so sweet from Heaven
Fell down over the temples of our souls
And we tasted the salt of Her ocean
Her rain washed away our pain

Pete Bernard

For Una and Jennifer, Maureen and Janet

For all the mothersand all the children.

Contents

Section II.
The Impact of Sociological Theories on the Adoption Mandate

Section II.
Race and the Adoption Mandate

Section III.
The Phenomenon of Mass Surrender

Appendix B.
The Unmarried Mother in Mary Richmonds Social Diagnosis , 1917

Appendix C.
Correspondence from Victoria Leach to Betty Graham

List of Tables

Table 1: Daily Schedule of Maternity Home circa 1960s

Table 2: Number of Adoptions from Unmarried Mothers, 1942-1971 Province of Ontario

List of Illustrations

1. Correspondence, Sandfield MacDonald Collection 1812-1872, LAC.

Found Drowned . Oil on Canvas. Watts, George Frederick 1867

3. Ritchie, T. In the Laundrys Steam Mangle. Photograph. 2013.

4. Page, Maria Danforth. Artist/Creator. YWCA WWI Poster. Building for Health, 1914-1919.

5. Humewood House. Residents. Toronto, ca.1950s. Humewood House.

6. Armagh Maternity Home. Series of Photographs of Maternity Home Residents, PA.

7. Humewood House. Babies in Nursery. Toronto. ca. 1950s. Humewood House.

8. (L) McCalls Cover 1942. (R) Ladies Home Journal cover 1946 illustration Al Parker. Sally Edelstein Archives.

9. An ever increasing crop of babies born to unwed mothers in Winnipeg is creating a backlog of babies who have nowhere to go. Winnipeg Free Press , 1963:1.

List of Abbreviations

ACC Anglican Church of Canada

ACC/GSA Anglican Church of Canada General Synod Archives

AO Archives of Ontario

ARCAT Archives of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Toronto

ARENA Adoption Resource Exchange of North America

ASCR Australian Senate Committee Report

CAS Childrens Aid Society

CASW Canadian Association of Social Workers

CCAS Catholic Childrens Aid Society

CTA City of Toronto Archives

HSP Historical Society of Philadelphia

LAC Library and Archives Canada

NCW National Council of Women

OCAS Ontario Childrens Aid Society Association

PANB Provincial Archives of New Brunswick

PCC Presbyterian Church in Canada

PA Presbyterian Archives

SAA Salvation Army Archives

SA Salvation Army

SGS Sisters of the Good Shepherd

SNOOLC A Short Notice on the Origin and Objective of the Sisters of the Lady of Charity Better Known as the Sisters of the Good Shepherd

SPCMT Social Planning Council of Metropolitan Toronto

SSCSAST Standing Senate Committee on Social Affairs, Science, and Technology

UCMF United Church Maternity Facilities Report

UCA United Church Archives

UCC United Church of Canada

VD Venereal Disease

WHO World Health Organization

YWCA Young Womens Christian Association

Acknowledgements

I have received assistance and encouragement from a great many friends, colleagues, and educators, and it is my pleasure to acknowledge them. I would not have embarked on such a venture without the help of mothers of the mandate. To all those in the adoption reform movementespecially the women of Origins around the world: founder Dian Wellfare who sadly died before she could see the fruits of her work, Bryony Lake, who gave me much support and education, especially in the early days, Lily Arthur, Linda Bryant, Karen Wilson-Buterbaugh, Marion McMillan, and all the volunteersyour work continues to be an inspiration. Thank you to Sandra Jarvie for your friendship, mentorship, encouragement, and support, especially over the rough patches. Thank you to Holly and Bernard, always there, always supportive. Thank you to friend, colleague, and mother Eugenia Powell, who was there every day with a word of encouragement. I also wish to thank researchers and friends across Canada who sent me information and shared their stories. Thank you to my professors, Frances Latchford, Andrea OReilly, and Gertrude Mianda, who inspired, challenged, and supported me in so many ways. Finally, thank you to my siblings, Una, David, Elizabeth, and Kathleen, and to my daughters Erin and Shannon, who have shown me unwavering love and support throughout and know all too well the impact of the trauma of these events.

Foreword

T he concept of reflexivity or self-reflection through an evaluation of the relationship between researcher and research by social location and lived experience is valued in feminist scholarship. Feminist Donna Haraway has suggested that the idea of objectivity be replaced with situated knowledge, and has called for epistemologies of location, positioning and situating, where partiality and not universality is the condition of being heard to make rational knowledge claims (589). Models of feminist research have shifted to include the principle of location, lived experience, and standpoint.

My journey to this work has been a long one. In 1969, I became pregnant at the age of sixteen. I spent most of that summer in the basement, half hiding, half hoping, that someone would ask about my self-imposed isolation. The school year was fast approaching and pregnant girls were not allowed in schoolI had to tell. I was brought to the family doctor who immediately arranged for me to be sent to the Salvation Army Home for Girls at 450 Pape Avenue in Toronto, a maternity home where I spent the next four months of my life.