|
In 1894, the Salvation Army opened a home for unwed mothers in St.
John's. It was called the Cook Street Rescue Home. Unwed mothers could
live there. They could also get medical help while they were pregnant
and for a short time after the baby was born. We know that some women
who wanted to give their babies up for adoption at the Cook Street Rescue
Home were not able to. Maybe the number of couples who wanted to adopt
babies was smaller than the number of babies being put up for adoption.
There were also orphanages, but some of these did not take the children
of unwed mothers.2 Most of the children who grew up in orphanages
came to them as older children after one or both of their parents died.
Young, unmarried women depended on their families for help. What happened
to a woman who had no family to support her and take her child? Life
was so hard that some of these women tried to run away, leaving the
baby behind. The legal term for this is abandonment.3
Abandonment
In 1901, an 18-year-old unwed mother named Jane Porter appeared in
court in St. John's. She was charged with abandoning her baby. She had
left the child at the home of the man who was the father and run away.
She was sentenced to 30 days in jail, but when she said she would take
her baby back the sentence was suspended. This meant that she did not
have to go to jail.
In November of 1923, a 20-year-old former house maid "escaped"
from the Cook Street Rescue Home, leaving behind her 15-day-old baby.
Readers of the St. John's Daily News were
asked to contact the Cook Street Rescue Home if they knew where this
girl was.4 We do not know what happened to this young mother,
or the baby she left behind.
These single mothers had few choices. Women who knew they could not
raise a child alone had no way out.
|