Butterbox Babies
Baby Sales, Baby Deaths - New Revelations 15 Years Later
A young woman in Nova Scotia gives birth to a child out of wedlock. A childless couple in New Jersey desperately searches for a baby to adopt. These people never meet but their lives become forever linked through a tiny baby girl. Natalie, that baby, spent the first two years of her life in the Ideal Maternity Home on Canada’s rocky East Coast. Louis and Mabel Goldman of Newark adopted her in August 1945.
About the book
A young woman in Nova Scotia gives birth to a child out of wedlock. A childless couple in New Jersey desperately searches for a baby to adopt. These people never meet but their lives become forever linked through a tiny baby girl. Natalie, that baby, spent the first two years of her life in the Ideal Maternity Home on Canada’s rocky East Coast. Louis and Mabel Goldman of Newark adopted her in August 1945.
Natalie was one of the survivors. Many babies born at the home were not adopted. They mysteriously disappeared. They were buried in butterboxes used to deliver groceries to the home.
Since Bette Cahill first wrote about the Ideal Maternity Home in East Chester, Nova Scotia in 1992, she continued to research the story and corresponded with many of the home’s survivors.
Now, in this new expanded edition, we share the author’s new insights and ongoing interest in the story. We are introduced to many of the survivors and learn about their sometimes sad, sometimes happy searches for their birth parents.
What people are saying
The Halifax Daily News“Butterbox Babies is Bette Cahill’s exhaustively researched exposé of the Ideal Maternity Home in East Chester. Cahill, a Halifax journalist, reveals the horrifying tales of abuse, illegal adoptions and even murder.”
Contents
- Preface
- Prologue
- Part l-Birth of a Business: 1928-1939
- William and Lila
- Mothers’ Refuge
- Seeds of Conflict
- Eva’s Misfortune
- Manslaughter
- Fraud
- Stolen Baby
- Suspicious Deaths
- Part ll-Dangerous Fixation 1939-1945
- Mounting Suspicion
- Baby Barons
- Neglect
- Trafficking
- God On Their Side
- Part III-Gathering Storm 1945-1947
- Dirty Politics
- Crack-down in Two Countries
- Surviving Court
- Traders In Fear
- Part IV-Long Shadows 1948-2006
- Bankruptcy
- Nova Scotia—Burying Its Past
- From the Grave
- Family Portraits
- The Forgotten Ones
- Reunions