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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A true story of baby selling,
In the early 1930's in Canada ,one could actually buy a baby from the Ideal Maternity Home in Chester, Nova Scotia. Unwed mothers- to- be went there for free care and their babies were sold to wealthy people.The Canadian government was seemingly helpless to prevent this....what happened to infants "unfit to sell" is discussed in the true story.It is hard to put this book down once you start reading.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
These Poor Children,
By
This review is from: Butterbox Babies (Paperback)
This book not only keeps you on the edge of your seat thinking what is this woman going to do next, but shares with you the heart ache of being one of the children living in this home. I read this entire book in under 24 hours. I could not put it down! I even called in Sick to work so I could keep reading! A must read for everyone! I still find it hard to believe that two people could be so heartless and creul. I only hope that the mothers that had their children taken and those kids who were illegally put up for adoption find a way to heal.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding,
This review is from: Butterbox Babies - 1992 publication. (Paperback)
A butterbox was a wooden box used by local dairies during the first half of the 20th century in Nova Scotia. It would be "packed with butter and other perishables...The butterbox was 22 inches long, 10 inches wide and 10 inches deep - just the right size for a little corpse." These boxes were used by an East Chester, Nova Scotia, maternity home cum adoption mill called the Ideal Maternity Home - opened in 1928 by itinerant Seventh Day Adventist minister William P. Young and his overbearing and sanctimonious wife, Lila, who privately buried hundreds of babies born to clients of their business.
The clients were for the most part unwed young women who had gotten pregnant, which was a seriously shameful thing during the 20s through the 50s; and one of the home's major selling points was its promise of confidentiality. The babies were also delivered at the institution, and the women were promised, both in newspaper ads and in person, the utmost in modern and competent medical care. The only one of these vows that was truthful was the one concerning confidentiality. Lila, who dubiously called herself a degreed midwife, delivered the babies in unsanitary surroundings. There were no actual doctors or nurses on staff. The infant mortality rate was high, and the health of the mothers often was less than robust as well. For these services as well as the temporary post-natal boarding of the women and infants in inadequate and dirty conditions, the Youngs were paid large sums of money. Many of the mothers would eventually leave the home with their babies. But somewhere along the line, the Youngs, who had from the beginning dabbled in the out of network, black-market adoption business, realized that the real money was in adoption - babies selling for $1000 to $10,000 each - and they subsequently expanded that part of their operation to the point that it became not unlike an infant supermarket where those who wanted to adopt would come in and, perusing rows and rows of children from newborns to 3 year olds, simply select the ones they wanted. And, if the Youngs had a couple who wanted to adopt a particular child, they were not above telling that child's mother that her baby had died. However, not all of the children were desirable adoptees, so one of the benefits the young mothers were promised was that: "If we are unable to find a home for the child we will maintain it for the rest of it's natural life for the remarkably small cost of three hundred dollars, provided the child is white and is not birthmarked, crippled, or deformed. Needless to say this is an outstanding offer." This led to a lot of unwanted children who, in addition to those who died during childbirth, ended up in unmarked and off-the-record graves, their coffins being butterboxes. The book, which also contains case histories of some of the adoptees and their mothers as part of the narrative, as well as segment about the Youngs' legal battles leading to the eventual downfall of the Ideal Maternity Home, is called BUTTERBOX BABIES written by Bette Cahill. Cahill's writing is excellent, presenting the story reportorially with no repetition and no embellishment. Her in-depth research on a story that ended 40 years before the book was published is astounding. That research includes extensive interviews with both mothers who gave birth as well as adults whose first breath of life occurred at the Ideal. BUTTERBOX BABIES is a great read about a little known and fascinating subject. I highly recommend it.
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