Angels Are Watching Over You !

Good Shepherd Nuns

ADOPTION.

The children who had no parents were lined up each Sunday morning outside for adoption. We would all set up on a long stool and were looked over by adults, as though we were cattle. The feelings we had when no-one picked us are something that I will never be able to explain, but I felt it again last year. May 1999.

4 May 1999. l-phoned Sister Teresa in Auckland and requested details of the time, I spent at St. Joseph's orphanage. I never expected what I received in the mail to my request and experienced again the feelings of rejection when I read the report: I was put up for adoption not three times, but four. Once at St. Joseph's Orphanage and three times at Nazareth House.

I don't remember being adopted to Fletcher's at St. Joseph's, orphanage but I do remember being put up for adoption to Fletcher's at Nazareth House. Just look at this piece of paper. Is this all I was worth as a child? To be damped from one person to another, and when they were tied of me, they took me back for more torment and pain.

I wasn't even given a change. [5 days.] I have now being ripped apart. .

I feel like a little girl again, going through that abuse again, but this time it's different. It's heart wrenching. I also asked for my medical records and any other records they had about me and Sister Teresa told me that they had no medical records.

LAST DAY.

I was ten years old when I was sent to another Orphanage.

I was sad to see Mother Francis for the last time. She gave me a big hug and a kiss, which was the first and last until I was twenty-three years old.She told me that Mary and Jesus were looking after me. I will never forget her sweet smile.

We all had to go and there was panic, all of us screaming and running away from the nuns and hiding in the toilets. Because the cars had arrived to take us away.

873

THOMASON. ANN SHIRLEY

Admitted 30 - 5 - 1941. Born 31 - 3 - 1941

at Wellington. Mother Joan Thomason,

Nelson. Baptized St. Ann's, Newtown,

Wellington by Rev. J. Kelly 1 - 5 - 1941 Mary

Fitzgerald Sponsor. First Holy Communion

8-10 -1950. Brought by Mrs. Boyle,-St.

Vincent de Paul Society Wellington.

Left 3 -1 -1946 for adoption by Mrs. Fletcher.

Returned 5-1-1947. Left for Nazareth House 14-5-1951.