For almost five years now, a newspaper clipping has clung, scotch-taped, to the dusty wall that corners my computer desk.
It was sent to me by one of my readers, who thought kindly of my interest, but I obviously set it aside with good intentions of following it up at a later date. In part, it read: “Private member’s bill was passed in 2011 declaring Sept. 28 to be British Home Child Day in Ont.”
The fact snapped back into my mind when I recently had another reader e-mail, telling me that, though second generation, being descendants, we had something in common. He and his wife would appreciate meeting and have a chat. So meet we did, chatter we did, and never have three more interesting hours passed so rapidly. Though relatively skimpy, on my side of the chat, this is what I could relate from memory, all easily proven by a snoop through the archives.
My father, my daddy, though lacking the English accent, was a British Home Child. He fortunately was not, as so many were, a gutter child from the streets. He was with his maternal mother until he was three. Unemployed, unwed, homeless, with no available support, she willingly burdened herself hour after hour, here, there, wherever, as a domestic, in exchange for a biscuit, though paltry, and a bed to sleep.
Dad often mentioned, probably only to me, that he could remember his mother. He remembered her crying, her tears falling on his face the day she took him to the Home. She had nothing to leave him other than the name she had given, Charles Edward, attached by her surname Hopkins, which we definitely have found no need not to be proud of.
My Little Lady and I, while on a tour to the east coast, dropped around to Halifax, pier 21, and here, in part, is the data we gathered: HOPKINS, Charles E. Age 9. Sex: M. Year of arrival: 1907. Ship: Dominion. Port of departure: Liverpool. Departure date: 21 Feb. 1907. Port of arrival: Portland. Arrival Date: 5 Mar. 1907. Party: Dr. Bernardo’s. Destination: Toronto, Ont.
From Toronto, he went by train to Belwood. He mentioned how frightened he was when the train passed over the raised railway at the cataract. From Belwood, it was just a short horse and cutter ride, exciting for him, to the farm to which he was indentured.
The farm was owned by the Curtis family, noted for the quality and quantity of huge Clyde and Belgian work horses they raised. My father was not a big man – in his words, “Five foot two, and at no time over 137 pounds soaking wet.”
But he grew up with work ethics far beyond the call of duty. He loved the farm, developing a strong respect for the Curtis family, and they for him. I can well remember members of their family visiting our family often, long after we moved from Fergus to the farm where I grew up, three miles west of Rockwood.
Though my father was shifted through multiple child care homes between the ages of three and nine in England, and during his indentured time spent at the Curtis family farms, never did I hear him say that he was abused or mistreated at any one of them. Was he fortunate, lucky, tight-lipped, or simply good at what he was doing? Who is to say?
I knew him as a small-framed, hard- working, round-shouldered man, seeped with a deep-set honesty that never weakened. That was my father, the British Home Child that I knew.
Take care, ‘cause we care.
barrie@barriehopkins.ca
519-986-4105