*2010* ~ Year of the British Home Child in Canada

Posted in the Leduc Representative by Alexandra Pope

Leduc residents had a unique opportunity to learn about a little-known chapter in Canadian history May 25 when a quilt depicting the stories of British home children in their own words and pictures made a stop at the Civic Centre as part of a planned cross-country tour.

The quilt's creator, Hazel Perrier, hopes all who view it and read the accompanying stories come away with a greater understanding of the hardship endured by the home children and how it shaped their adult lives.

Between 1869 and 1948, an estimated 100,000 children were brought to Canada by charities seeking ways to alleviate the rampant poverty in England's urban centres.

Many of the children were orphans or had no relatives able to care for them, and their only options were to enter a workhouse or find sponsorship for the voyage to Canada.

Perrier, a resident of Claresholm, AB, is twice descended from home children — her grandparents came to Canada on the same ship, albeit four years apart — and originally began researching this little-recognized but significant period in Canadian immigration history as a way of filling in the blanks in her family tree.

"It was a big secret," Perrier said of her grandparents' early lives.

Her grandmother, Rosina Wagner, came to Canada with two younger siblings, Sarah and John. Sarah settled in the same area of rural Ontario as Rosina, but John was sent to Winnipeg and the siblings lost touch.

Using online geneology tools, Perrier was able to trace John's journey to Council Bluffs, Iowa, where he had married and had 11 children. In honour of her discovery, Perrier made a quilt depicting her family tree and unveiled it at a family reunion with John's descendents in Council Bluffs last summer.

When Gail Collins, a member of an Internet message board for home children descendents that Perrier also belongs to, suggested a quilt as a way to commemorate 2010 as the Canadian Year of the British Home Child, Perrier volunteered to take on the project.

Each of the quilt's 56 squares has a story. About 50 of the squares were submitted by home child descendents from across Canada; the rest Perrier created to provide historical context. Some of the squares are elaborate and deeply personal, like the fabric painting of a white cat pawing a butter churn that a Morinville artist created in memory of her grandmother. Some are simply embroidered with the names of. Each square is accompanied by a typewritten story about the home child, their voyage to Canada and their life upon arrival.

The stories of the home children are by turns heartbreaking and uplifting, a fact Perrier discovered firsthand during the quilt's creation.

"It was like Christmas every day when the blocks were coming in," she said. "I'd go to the post office and read the story and sometimes I'd cry, and sometimes I'd think, 'Oh, that's not so bad.'"

Some of the children suffered horrific abuse, at a time when young victims of violence had little to no recourse for justice, especially not children who were thousands of miles away from any living relatives and were regarded in many cases as cheap farm labour.

Perrier heard a story of one boy who was found dead in a barn and whose caregiver was charged in his death.

"She got off — the judge said, 'He was only a home child,'" she said.

Other stories had happier endings, like that of Leduc resident Gwendolyn Ross's husband David.

Although David never identified himself as a home child, Ross said the circumstances of his arrival in Canada in 1928 closely match those of other home children.

"He said he decided to come to Canada when he was 15, but never disclosed why," Ross said, adding upon his arrival in Montreal, David was taken by train to Winnipeg along with a large group of other teenagers.

"I always wondered who paid his way to Canada," she said.

The idea that David, who passed away in 1999, might have been a home child is exciting for Ross's son Lowell, a retired teacher.

"It does give a more complete background of David Ross," he said. "Now we see the whole context of it."

David worked for several years on farms in Saskatchewan before making his way to Thorsby, where he met Gwendolyn in 1937. The rest is history, she said — a history that turned out happily for David.

"He had the initiative to get out and go from one job to the next," she said. "He benefited by coming to Canada, definitely."

Connecting descendents of British home children with their ancestors and shedding light on parts of their family's history that were often kept secret is the ultimate aim of the quilt project, Perrier said.

Over the summer, it will travel east, where it will be displayed at museums in Stratford and Belleville, ON, then New Brunswick and eventually, Pier 21, Canada's immigration museum in Halifax, NS.  (NB: *Update follows below)

Perrier hopes it will stay at Pier 21 as part of the museum's permanent collection, but be made available for future exhibitions about British Home Children across Canada.

"I think it is very important to know our roots and to understand their hardships and what made them the people they were and their accomplishments," she said.

"Life was very hard for most of them and the fact that they never had the parental love and care that we now have, makes us understand why people are the way they are."

*Update from the Middlemore Atlantic Society;
Attempts were made for the final stage protection and displaying of the National Quilts by our Society. However the Museum of Civilization is unable to house these quilts and although extremely interested, Pier 21 has had to respond with the comments that they are unable to house them as well. There are several underlying issues for each party asked. It is the hope that these quilts can travel across Canada for a long time to come so that the importance of this project, which was a brilliant idea, can be shared with as many people as possible.
Marion Crawford
President Middlemore Atlantic Society, NB

Copyright 2010, Leduc Representative, Alberta, Canada