Home children

A Moment from Yesterday

July 18, 2018 | Viewpoints | Volume 22 Issue 15
Laureen Harder-Gissing |
Photo: MCC Ontario/Mennonite Archives of Ontario

George Bryant (standing) was a long way from the home of his birth when he posed with the Katie and Christian Bender family in about 1917. George was a British home child who arrived from Liverpool in 1907 and was sent to Stratford, Ont., for “distribution” to a local family. He believed his mother had died, but as an adult he discovered she was alive. Over 100,000 British children, either orphaned or removed from poor families, were sent to Canada between 1869 and 1948. George had a good relationship with the Bender family, unlike many home children who were abused and exploited. How many other Mennonite families took in home children?

For more historical photos in the Mennonite Archival Image Database (MAID), see https://archives.mhsc.ca/

Photo: MCC Ontario/Mennonite Archives of Ontario

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