Good January Morning to Everyone! It’s my eldest daughter’s birthday today. Happy Birthday Megan Juanita Thompson! I remember being a scared, barely 21 year old unwed (marital status was still important in 1984) mother in the old Grace Maternity Hospital in Halifax, giving birth to this human being. She was born with perfect nails and a whopping 9 lbs 6 oz. Giving birth to Megan while being an abandoned mom started me on my path to being a first voice in poverty and developing a fascination with the survival strategies of those who were in poverty.
Which segues nicely into a message I received early in the morning. Ed Coleman wanted to share with me his father’s blog post about a woman in a poor house in Kings’ County here in the Annapolis Valley. The woman’s name was Esmorilda and she lived in one of the three poor houses that were in the county at the time. A family member is looking for her burial place and cannot find it. Esmorilda had a rough start in life and it did not get any easier for her. I am sharing her story and Ed Coleman’s blog link here:
I shall take a look in my records but records from poor houses, poor farms, almshouses, county homes were not well maintained nor kept. It is not unheard of to find poor house records tossed in the trash heap of old buildings in the province.
Back to researching and writing!
Keep in touch!
Poor Houses in Nova Scotia 