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9/28/12 Neglected and forgotten history: The Colored Home, part 2 | OpenFile
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REPORTED BYJACOB BOON
UNFINISHED STORIES: THE COLORED HOME, PART 1Wednesday, November 30, 2011
TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION: LOVE ANDLANGUAGE HELP HEAL MI'KMAQ COMMUNITIESTuesday, November 1, 2011
NEGLECTED AND FORGOTTENHISTORY: THE COLOREDHOME, PART 2
(Photo by Helen Creighton, NSARM accession no. 1987-178 album 12 no. 26-27 / neg. no.: N-1502)
REPORTED ONNovember 30, 2011
The Nova Scotia Home for ColoredChildren—an all-black orphanage inWestphal, opened in 1921, and still inoperation today, has a sad legacy ofalleged abuse and neglect. In thisinstallment, Jacob Boon looks at the
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"PAYING FOR A STICK TO BEAT OURSELVES:" THECOLORED HOME, PART 3Thursday, December 1, 2011
history of the Colored Home, and how itcame to be notorious in the province, andthe black community.
At the dawn of the Twentieth Century, there wasn’t much hope for orphaned black children inNova Scotia. Denied by other groups homes due to the colour of their skin, most would end upin poor houses or living on the streets.
While Nova Scotia has always faced its fair share of racial problems, theprovince is also home to strong black communities, and leaders who setout to right the wrongs they saw in orphaned children.
Lawyer James Johnston—the first black Nova Scotian with a law degree—first proposed an institute for black children to the African UnitedBaptist Association in 1908. By 1915, the Nova Scotia Home for ColoredChildren was incorporated, and fundraising began to pay for the buildingof the home on a farm in Westphal.
On June 6, 1921, the NSHCC officially opened with a parade of dignitaries and spectators.According to their own website, it was “the largest gathering of Blacks since the arrival of theLoyalists.”
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Underfunded and IgnoredSadly, from its very inception, the NSHCC was to be a story of an institution often underfundedand ignored by the government. The home’s first manager, James Ross Kinney, became aguiding force in seeking donations in the orphanage’s early years. He was a “lone hand in theraising of funds,” according to then-NSHCC-president Henry G. Bauld.
Kinney would travel far and wide, meeting friends and contacts and soliciting for any help inkeeping the NSHCC afloat—activities that did not always meet the approval of other trustees.Provincial director of child welfare Earnest Blois expressed his disapproval of Kinney’sdonation-seeking in Upper Canada via a 1936 letter to Henry Bauld.
“I feel that we would be not only placing the Home but the whole Province in a very unenviableposition by making an appeal,” the letter reads. “In my judgment, this is no time to give UpperCanadians a chance to say we are beggars.”
Bauld wrote back, saying “no work of any consequence in this City or Province has ever failedto grasp every opportunity to seek funds widely beyond the Province.”
"Men of Wealth die," Bauld continues, "Community Chests are formed, large and generouscontributions are given to EVERYTHING, but The Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children isnever remembered to the extent that others are."
A more inspiring tale would perhaps here feature the institution, fighting to remain open, scrapingby with what little they had. Humbly thankful, they would work bit by bit towards a brighterfuture. In reality, like any institution so radically malnourished, there were real consequences tothe struggles the home faced.
”Poor Trash”The first official report of the poor living conditions at the orphanage comes from a 1948 visit byLillian Romkey, a social worker for the province. She notes the home was suspiciously cleanupon her visit, so much so that “one wonders if the children just sit on the benches in the playroom without moving.”
The children’s dinner for that visit consisted of a fish stew, mostly bones, potatoes and milk,while Romkey notes the staff had “vegetable soup, fried halibut, carrots, sliced tamatoes,pickles, potatoes, fresh apple pie.”
"The small quantities of food kept in this refrigerator would only be sufficient for the staff, not forthe 64 children," she writes.
Perhaps the most troubling aspect of her report though, is Romkey’s observations about thehome’s matron, Elizabeth Fowler.
"Mrs. Fowler seems to have no conception of the children's last names or to know very muchabout them," Romkey writes. "She says she cannot stand children talking.”
Fowler, in charge of the well-being and care of over 60 young children, apparently also spoke“despairingly” of those placed in the home, calling them all “poor trash.”
Misuse of Funds?
Aside from Romkey’s report on the home’s operations, 1948 was also theyear concerns from various Children’s Aid societies throughout theprovince started arriving at the desk of the provincial director of ChildWelfare, Dr. Fred MacKinnon.
MacKinnon would become a lifelong advocate for the poor in NovaScotia. A public servant and political figure for more than 50 years, hewould be influential in passing the Social Assistance Act of 1958, whichessentially decriminalized poverty.In the late ‘40s, however, MacKinnon was still starting out when a letterfrom Colchester County Children’s Aid’s Margaret Payne landed on hisdesk.
Payne had concerns about the family allowances her organization owed the NSHCC. At thetime, children taken to the home received allowances from the counties they were wards of tobe spent on clothing or toys. Colchester had amassed close to $600 for their children at theNSHCC, but were uncomfortable sending the money.
"We have corresponded with the Colored Home on several occasions asking for suggestions or
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vouchers for things the children need but have had no satisfactory reply," Payne writes. "Theofficials of the Colored Home have insisted we turn the money over to them."
Walter Wood, of Annapolis County Children's Aid, also wrote to MacKinnon with a similar story.
"Some time ago, Mr. Bauld demanded the Family Allowances paid over to them, but we refusedto do this,” Wood writes.
"There is a large question in our minds as to what the money we hold in trust for these childrenhas to do with the financing of the Nova Scotia Home for Colored Children."
Physical Abuse“I feel that it is time that a thorough investigation was made as to what is going on there.”
That was the demand of A. P. Hunt of the Yarmouth County Children’s Aid Society after ayoung girl was brought to him from the NSHCC with stripes on her back and bruises on herlegs.
In a series of 1950s Community Services Department documents obtained by the ChronicleHerald in the late 90s, Hunt and others write to MacKinnon with these and other charges.
Claims of children being dressed in rags are mentioned; even of one girl being sent out with anight dress made from an old flour bag. Former wards of the NSHCC mention being beaten withswitches, and broomsticks. One girl was allegedly beaten by a staff member until “she cried formercy.”
MacKinnon forwarded the allegations to James Ross Kinney Jr., now superintendent at thehome after his father’s death, and proposed an investigation. Kinney denied any workers couldhave beat the children, but promised to look into the matter.
In the Herald’s 1998 article, Louise Surette writes that “In a final letter, Mr. Kinney wrote that thematter had been dealt with and strongly insisted ‘corporal punishment was not used at thehome.’”
The RCMP were never contacted. Nor was a formal investigation ever carried out.
Insider TradingAnother scandal to rock the NSHCC came in 1966, when then deputy minister of Public WelfareMacKinnon became aware that the home’s superintendent was placing children into fosterhomes he himself owned.
The NSHCC would make cheques payable to the foster parents for accepting a child, whichwould be hand delivered to the family by superintendent Kinney, “only to have the chequesendorsed and turned over to him for the rent due.”
MacKinnon didn’t mince words in his reaction to this news. He writes, “This is a very seriousmatter and I am disturbed by it!”
Then director of Children’s Aid Alfred Kenney responded to MacKinnon, letting him know that“the arrangement between Mr. Kinney and myself was made with both boards fully informed,and at least from our viewpoint, it was probably the best solution we could find at the time. At notime have I doubted Mr. Kinney’s integrity and sincerity.”
Another Visit
That same year, 1966, the coordinator of foster home services Rosemary Rippon visited theNSHCC to prepare a report on its operations. Rippon inspected the 75 children in the home’scare, the highest the orphanage had ever cared for, and concluded they were a different mixthan the neglected children the home used to look after.
"Formerly the Institution catered mostly to the orphaned or neglected," she writes, "but the typeof child being cared for now includes many more children who could be described as disturbed."
Her assessment concluded that the location was overcrowded, and only “superficial” medicalswere offered to children during intake. At least one child had been admitted with an unnamed buthighly infectious disease.
Out of the 16 employees, Rippon found “no staff members trained in Child Care, and none hashad any nursing experience.”
"There is some dissatisfaction among the staff regarding the wages paid," she continues,
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"which are low and do not meet even the minimum wage scale."
The children, at least, seemed content. Rippon writes that those she saw appeared “happy andhealthy looking youngsters.”
The truth of what life was like in the home at the time is more difficult to determine.
The staff were under-trained, but with the extremely low wages offered by the province, therewas little incentive to working at the NSHCC.
And while the children may have appeared “happy and healthy,” future statements from thosechildren would paint a different picture—one of beatings, psychological torture, and rape thathas led former residents to band together in a lengthy court battle against the NSHCC and theprovince.
The truth of what life was like in the home at the time is more difficult to determine. In part threeof The Colored Home series, we look at a lost opportunity in the 1970s for the province to lookat some of the damage and neglect alleged later by survivors.
Join the discussion on Twitter: We'll be tweeting all week under the #coloredhome hashtag.
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