Gone to an Aunt's: Remembering Canada's Homes for Unwed Mothers

Andrea Levan is an associate professor and co-ordinator of the Women’s
Studies Program at Thorneloe College, Laurentian University.

Gone to an Aunt’s is a fascinating and moving remembrance of a social
phenomenon that in its time was spoken of, if at all, only in whispers,
and that today has been largely forgotten. In most major cities in
Canada, homes for unwed mothers—girls who had “gotten into
trouble” and had been unable or unwilling to persuade the father to
marry them—operated quietly, usually under the direction of churches
or religious-affiliated charities. Although motivated by good
intentions, they also reflected the profoundly judgmental attitudes of
society at large. Girls entering these homes were expected to suffer a
sense of deep shame for being pregnant out of wedlock, although
ignorance, innocence, and even rape had brought them there. At the
homes, they endured a range of humiliating conditions—for example, not
being allowed to use their own names, lack of privacy, and restrictions
on the amount of clothing or possessions they could own.

Petrie admits that her study is not meant to be scholarly or
definitive. It is based partly on her personal experiences and memories
and partly on interviews that she conducted in the last few years with
women across the country, all of whom had spent time in a home. Her book
provides a rich glimpse of the experiences of young women living through
their pregnancies in isolation, their desperation, the pressure on them
to give up their children, and their various ways of living with their
loss years later.