United Church archives ground zero in search for evidence of forced adoptions

By: Kathryn Blaze Carlson

The 4,500-square-foot vault is a temperature-controlled former television studio, maintained at a precise 18 C with a relative humidity of 30%. The shelved boxes — all 23,000 of them — are made of acid-free cardboard and contain information that dates at least as early as 1792.

These glassed-in premises on the main floor of a Toronto office tower are ground zero for what is believed to be Canada’s first major probe into allegations that women were coerced or forced into surrendering their children for adoption decades ago because they were not married.

Four archivists and one researcher, the latter hired especially to help with the massive undertaking, will spend the next several months systematically parsing the archives at the United Church of Canada — one of three churches that has announced an internal review of its maternity homes since the National Post last month launched an investigation into coerced adoptions targeting single women from the 1940s to the 1980s.

The Salvation Army and the Presbyterian Church in Canada are also reviewing their archival records.

Since the first accounts were reported on March 10, at least 100 mothers have contacted the newspaper saying they were coerced or forced by social workers, medical professionals and maternity-home staff into handing over their illegitimate babies at a time when abortion was illegal, birth control was difficult to access, and single mothers were deemed unfit to parent.

The most egregious allegations involve social workers denying women their parental rights and doctors and nurses colluding with children’s aid societies to ensure young, unmarried women surrendered their children. But many women also say some church-run maternity homes played an integral role in what they say was systemic coercion.

Women’s accounts of their time at church-run maternity homes are myriad, but the controversial aspects include: accommodation predicated on adoption; a rule against using last names in order to protect a family’s reputation; forced manual labour and daily chapel attendance; viewings of graphic childbirth videos and mandatory appearances at pro-life rallies; strict curfews and a ban on guests other than family; and no discussion about whether the women would like to keep their babies.

“People wanted babies and we were the baby-givers,” said Karen Marten, whose parents sent her to the United Church’s Victor Home for Girls in Toronto when she was 17 in 1969. “You just felt like your life was on hold. It was a very lonely and very sad place.”

According to a 1965 newspaper article, the Victor Home’s executive director said staff counselled girls not to keep their babies. “I cannot see that it is fair to a baby for a girl to try to raise it without a father,” Mrs. L.H. Doering said at the time.

An Ontario woman named Katie, who asked her surname be withheld because her daughter was conceived in rape and does not know, said her experience at a United Church home in 1965 in Winnipeg was “dehumanizing.”

“I had my eighteenth birthday in that hellhole,” she said, adding that she believes the matron escorted her to the hospital for the sole purpose of telling staff that she came from the maternity home — that this was a girl whose child was up for adoption. Katie said her hospital admissions records say “baby for adoption,” even though she said she never intended on surrendering her daughter.

Several mothers met with United Church representatives in October 2010 to alert them of what happened at church-run maternity homes, but nothing came of that meeting. Bruce Gregersen, a church program director, said he regrets the initial inaction, and said it took the National Post series and an explosive report on Australia’s historic adoption practices to convince the church “this is a serious issue that required significant attention.”

The church plans to prepare a report on its probe by the fall, which Mr. Gregersen said could be helpful in the mothers’ growing push for a federal inquiry: If the movement is armed with official documentation such as a church report, perhaps Ottawa will consider changing its mind that this is a provincial matter not suitable for a national inquiry.

In the three weeks since announcing its review, United Church archivists have already discovered what looks like an additional seven church-run or co-sponsored maternity homes, on top of the Victor Home, which staff already knew about.

Head archivist Nichole Vonk — who is also wrapping up a precedent-setting, two-year probe into the church’s role in the Indian Residential Schools system — has identified what were likely maternity homes in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec, Nova Scotia and possibly New Brunswick.

She has also descended into the basement of the former Victor Home, which is today the Massey Centre for Women, and taken a cursory glance at the records stored in upward of 500 boxes there. She said some of the most interesting records she came across include brochures hinting at the home’s policy on single motherhood.

“It certainly sounds like, although maybe not stated outright, that women had to give up their babies,” she said during an interview in the church’s reading room.

Not all maternity home experiences were negative; some women have said they were relieved to be in the company of similarly outcast women. Ms. Marten said the Victor Home staff were quite kind to her, and United Church records so far show at least one home had a nursery in case the girls returned from the hospital with their babies.

But Karen Lynn, the head of the Canadian Council of Natural Mothers, said maternity homes were more often “warehouses” where unmarried women were prepped for adoption. This week, she submitted 49 questions for Ms. Vonk’s team to explore: Did the United Church and children’s aid societies collaborate on policies aimed at counselling unmarried women into adoption? Could a woman live in the home if she planned to keep her child? Was the primary client the expectant mother, her parents or social workers?

A 1970 United Church report pulled from the vault says parents wanted their daughters “hidden away” and asks: “Is it right that we continue to serve the parents’ wishes, rather than the realistic needs of the girls? Are we in collusion with the parents over this issue?” A 1962 Victor Home brochure, meantime, offers insight into admissions: “In order to discuss plans for herself and her baby, we ask that each applicant, prior to acceptance, contact the local children’s aid society.”

Valerie Andrews, who in 1969 lived in a Salvation Army maternity home and today researches historic adoptions as head of Origins Canada, said after contacting children’s aid and moving into a home, a girl was oftentimes assigned a case worker who pushed adoption.

Katie, the Ontario woman, is cynical of the United Church’s motives and fears it is on the hunt for “incriminating evidence” to shred. Church moderator Mardi Tindal said the church does not destroy records and is committed to “working with those affected most.”

Ms. Marten, for her part, said she is hopeful the church’s investigation will illuminate for Canadians what she and other women experienced all those years ago.

“I would never want my son, or any other person’s child, to think we just tossed them aside,” she said. “That’s so far from the truth. For years, every time I saw a person who seemed to be my son’s age, I would look at their face and wonder if he was my child. … I don’t know, but maybe I’m looking for forgiveness.”

National Post on April 22, 2012

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