Mullowneys revisit their roots in Waterloo
Fall is often a time when family comes together, with members sometimes travelling a long way to spend a day or two together before heading back to their respective homes. No one is keeping score, since this process of gathering is more about celebration and sharing than competition, but if they were there’s a good chance the descendents of Hannah Craven and Michael William Mullowney would come out on top this year in the Townships.
From Friday, September 21 through Sunday the 23, more than 60 great, and great-great grandchildren of the couple came together in Bromont, Waterloo, and Knowlton to talk about their shared heritage and get to know each other a little better.
“My grandmother’s brothers and one sister were all home children,” said Shirley Maynes Beakes of Waterloo, whose grandmother Hattie was one of eight siblings born to Craven and Mullowney. Maynes Beakes explained that the British Home Children came from so called “child migration” programs in Britain that saw over 100,000 poor or orphaned children sent to Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa as domestic labourers between the 1870s and the 1930s. Although the movement was motivated by the idea of giving the children a better life in “lands of opportunity” it has since been revealed that many of the home children were mistreated and abused by the homes or farms that took them in.
Pat Mcdaniel of Fort Worth Texas, Maynes Beakes’ second cousin, said that she is amazed at the way that her ancestors kept in touch with each other despite their cirmcumstances.
“None of them went to the same home,” Mcdaniel said, noting that five of the six siblings who came to Canada were home children who went through the Knowlton Distributing Home. “I have information on all eight of those siblings and the parents. Somehow these kids (my grandfather was eight years old) somehow he knew how to keep in touch with his sister who was older when the family he was staying with emigrated to America and left him.”
The Mullowney siblings, Mcdaniel said, stayed in such close contact that the family has photos of groups gathering together decades after they arrived in North America, despite the fact that each member moved in very different directions.
The last time the family came together, according to the cousins, was more than 20 years ago and in the United States. The idea for this year’s reunion, Mcdaniel said, came together a little over a year ago while she was visiting Waterloo.
“We’d never had one up here,” the Texan said, calling the area the obvious place to have a reunion because of the family’s history in the area.
Mcdaniel explained that Waterloo became a kind of focal point for the family after Hattie Mullowney worked her way to Canada on a ship in 1896. Ill and under the care of her grandmother when the rest of her siblings were sent to an orphanage in Liverpool, Hattie was the only one of the children to come to Canada not as a Home Child. She married Edwin Lloyd Maynes in October of 1902 in Warden, QC, and went on to have three children. Fifteen of those present at this year’s reunion were descended from Hattie and Edwin, including Maynes Beakes.
Although the local members of the Hattie Mullowney Maynes branch of the family took on the duties of hosting the event, a task that included booking hotels, arranging for meeting spaces and food, and planning a visit to the Brome County Historical Society to learn more about the local Home Child story, Maynes Beakes credited much of the family networking to Mcdaniel. When the event finally rolled around after a year of planning and organizing, cousins came out from as far away as Norway and the remote Southern
Atlantic island of St. Helena.
“It was a lot of research,” Maynes Beakes said, explaining that Mcdaniel has become something of a family historian since she retired a few years ago. The work done by the cousin has not only resulted in the publication of a book but also the connection and reconnection of people who might otherwise never have known how they were related.
In a letter sent to the family prior to the gathering, Mcdaniel encouraged the different branches to come prepared to fill in the holes in their collective history and share their stories.
“Our heritage is filled with stories of adaptation, hard work, sadness, loneliness and the fulfillment of dreams. In the past three years I have compiled family pictures, letters and stories, dispelled some rumors, and visited the area where our grandparents lived and worked in the 1880s,” she wrote. “Now it is your turn! We need to update our family stories, filling a 70-year gap and leaving a more comprehensive legacy for our children and grandchildren.”
This past Friday, September 28, marked the first British Home Children Day in Canada, an official day dedicated to recognizing the contributions made by the over 100,000 British Home Children to Canadian society, their service to the country’s armed forces throughout the twentieth century, the hardships and stigmas that many of them endured, and the importance of educating and reflecting upon the story of the British Home Children for future generations. The day was officially recognized in Parliament in February of 2018.