British Home Children: Canada’s forgotten

KITCHENER — Lori Oschefski’s journey to discover her mother’s roots took her to unexpected places, and today the Barrie woman is on a crusade to have a little known group of people recognized for their contributions to Canada.

Oschefski was at the Waterloo Region Museum on Sunday as part of the Canada 150 British Home Children Family Reunion.

The home children program ran from the late 19th century until 1949 when 118,000 orphaned, abandoned or destitute children were shipped to Canada from Great Britain, through agencies such as the Bernardo Homes. The children would serve as farm hands and house servants. Many were horribly abused and neglected and the only outrage shown by the Canadian public was that these little waifs were somehow sullying Canadian society.

“Poverty used to be considered a disease that could be passed on,” said Oschefski. “They said the children had syphilis.”

She said Canadians wanted a law passed that would “protect us from these children.” But the program continued. “We wanted cheap labour and we got it,” she said.

Many of the children died while in Canada, and in October a monument dedicated to the memory of 75 of these forgotten kids will be erected at Park Lawn Cemetery in Toronto where they were buried together in a mostly unmarked grave.

Oschefski and her volunteers worked for months to get the first and last names of the children who will appear on the monument.

In an increasingly long list of demands on the Canadian government to apologize for atrocious behaviour toward marginalized citizens, Oschefski added one more.

In May 2012 she started a petition calling for a formal apology for the immigration policies that allowed British home children to be brought to Canada where they remained in service until age 15.

“Many died by suicide,” she said.

She is not averse to suggesting the policies allowed for a form of human trafficking of children.

Oschefski first launched her website in 2011 (www.britishhomechildren.com) then created an organization the following year.

She is considered an expert on the topic and speaks at conferences across Canada.

When her research began, Oschefski learned her grandfather had been a Bernardo boy and returned to Britain as an adult, where her mother was born and given up for adoption at age two.

Despite their tragic backgrounds, growing up as indentured servants instead of beloved children, thousands went on to successful careers, raised families in loving homes; though there were also the others, those who could never give love because they’d never experienced love.

“I have interviewed many surviving home children and they told me it was difficult when they became parents,” she said, adding, “My mom was very distant.”

The Canadian government finally delivered a public apology in February, 2017.

Now Oschefski is pushing Veterans Affairs Canada to recognize the thousands of former home children the military had in its ranks during the Second World War, but were never recognized for their sad heritage.

Oschefski discovered that in her own background there were 20 home children, including siblings her mother didn’t know she had having grown up the only child in her adoptive family. Oschefski’s family is only one story.

“There are four million descendents of these kids in Canada,” she said. “We can never forget these children, those who made it and those who didn’t.”