By Cecilia Nasmith/Today’s Northumberland
Port Hope resident Marg Graham will be looking for special illumination in red, white and blue on Sept. 28 to honour the memory of thousands of displaced children with Beacons of Light tributes.
These children were known as Home Children or Barnardo Children, caught up in Dr. Thomas John Barnardo’s program of exporting some 30,000 British children to other nations in a bid to alleviate overcrowding in UK orphanages and fill labour shortages in other countries.
One of them was Graham’s grandmother, Mary Mortimer. She lovingly documented her grandmother’s story as her contribution to a recent book for young readers, Lori Oschefski’s Lost But Not Forgotten.
Left without any family at age two, when her mother died, Mary was placed in one of Dr. Barnardo’s bleak homes for destitute girls, where the harsh living conditions included being beaten for wetting the bed.
At the age of 11, in 1893, Mary was taken from England and brought to Canada on the SS Labrador. She was told only that she was going on a boat ride, then joined the 123 other children in the bottom of the ship.
“No tender welcomes, no soft landings, only cold floors, endless chores and the quiet expectation that she grow up,” Graham wrote.
“She died not knowing who or where her parents are. She was told nobody wanted her.”
Mary would be placed in 12 different homes across Ontario, Graham added.
“Some provided education, some provided a proper bed and food while others challenged her to live in a barn and eat slop or leftover food and provided severe abuse.”
She was told that, if she left, she would have to repay the cost of her travel trunk and clothes provided for the journey.
Mary’s last placement was 1903 in Hastings, working in the home of a merchant and also in the general store. She was treated properly and got decent bedding and food.
And it was while working at that store that she took a fancy to a handsome young customer, who fancied back. They would elope soon after Mary turned 21, settling in Grafton and later in Canton. They farmed and raised a growing family with a daughter, followed by 10 sons and then a second daughter.
Soon after the birth of the youngest, Mary suddenly became a widow. She took work at a local canning factory, stretching every dollar and exercising every economy to provide for her family. She even saved enough to put a down payment on a home on Victoria Lane in Port Hope.
“She lived to the age of 81, her life a testament to resilience, love and quiet determination,” Graham wrote in tribute.
“By the time she passed, her children were grown, many with families of their own, each one carrying a piece of her strength within them.”
Mary’s name is one of those on the Hazelbrae Monument on Barnardo Avenue in Peterborough, created to honour all 9,000 of the children (mostly girls) who passed through the Hazelbrae Home between 1884 and 1923.
Graham’s mother Helen Trottman was that youngest child of 12, born when her mother was 48 years old.
Though Graham was only six when Mary died, her memories are very clear, and very sad.
“She kept saying nobody ever wanted her, I remember her saying that,” she recalled.
“I remember sitting on her knee, and she just kept saying, ‘Nobody wanted me.’ I can hear her saying that right now, and the number 2818” – which, Graham later discovered, was her Barnardo number.
“She would twirl her thumbs and say that number over and over again.”
Getting Mary’s birth certificate to apply for pensions was a problem, because her school records had her as being born in Canada. Graham’s mother got an MP involved in finding her records, and that’s when the phrase Home Child came up – which Mary at first denied because of the stigma.
While some Home Children were accepted and treated well, Graham explained, the majority were abused, fed leftovers, never included in any family activity.
“You weren’t wanted. The government didn’t want you. Nobody wanted you.”
Graham came up with more information as a young adult interested in her own family tree. She wrote the Barnardo people, who said they would come to Canada and bring records and have a meeting.
“They met Mom and me in Peterborough and told us everything,” she related.
The one thing that stood out in the records she received was an account of young Mary being disciplined for having a “dirty head.” It turns out the girl had sworn at someone, so they figured she was harbouring dirty thoughts.
“She stood 4-foot-10 at the end of the day, and she was one strong lady, I can tell you,” Graham stated.
These days, she honours her grandmother’s journey by doing presentations on Home Children and, in most cases, it’s the first time her audiences are hearing about this.
It is estimated that more than 10% of Canada’s population are descendants of home children – perhaps as many as four million people, from your local YMCA instructor (Graham) to Premier Doug Ford (whose grandfather Ernest was a Home Child).
They were the subject of a stamp in 2010. Ontario Declared Home Children Day in 2011, and Ottawa followed suit in 2017. And still the story surprises so many.
But once in a while, Graham will hear someone voice a memory similar to the ones she has of her own grandmother, and she likes to think that person will check further back on his or her own family tree.
One of her most cherished possessions is her grandmother’s trunk, with her serial number on the bottom. She has acquired a number of other such trunks with mysterious numbers, hoping she can trace their stories, find their descendants and present them with the trunks.
Sept. 28 will honour them with Beacon of Light Day, memorializing the first shipment of children from England. Ontario was the first to observe this anniversary, but now Australia and a number of European countries have followed suit.
Red, blue and white lights (echoing the colours of the British flag) signify support. The CN Tower will be lit up in appropriate colours that day, and the Municipality of Trent Hills has observed the occasion for several years now. The County of Northumberland has made an appropriate declaration, and they have asked Cobourg, Port Hope and Cramahe Township to do so as well.
They also invite people to show support on their own, by leaving on their lights or perhaps displaying sunflowers (Home Children Canada’s floral emblem).
It is interesting to her that, while both Australia and England have apologized for this chapter in history, Canada has not.
“As a Home Child descendant, I think it is important they are not forgotten,” she said.
