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Good Shepherd Nuns

The Early Years at Good Shepherd Nuns

THE EARLY YEARS. ST. JOSEPHS GIRLS ORPHANAGE RUN BY THE GOOD SHEPHERD NUNS ALS KNOW AS MOUNT MADAGALA FROM 1941 TO 1951.

My mother was a young girl of 16 years, when she gave birth to me in Wellington. On March 31st 1941. I was then taken to St. Joseph's Orphanage Christchurch.

ST JOSEPH GIRLS ORPHANAGES 1940s

Also known as MOUNT MADAGALA

I was raised in two different orphanages, from two months old to twenty-four years. St. Joseph's Orphanage and Nazareth House.

I feel because my mother was a young unmarried girl. Was why I was punished continuously, when I was a baby, right up through my teenage years to 24 years old, until I left.

Other children there were treated well. The ones who had no outsider to care for them and visit were at the mercy of the nuns.

It was at the time in the Roman Catholic Church, everywhere. Were the baby was the one who was punished for being born out of wedlock. And that the, "Illegitimate" children were regarded as the product of evil, so therefore had to be punished,

to have the evil removed. Or they would end up like their mothers.

I was told that I had bad blood in me, at the two Orphanages.

The Catholic Church has a lot to answer for, especial for my lost childhood.

The nuns told me, time and time again that I had the sins of my mother in me. And that They had to punish me, to get them out of me, as well as the devil

KITCHEN

I recall, being in the kitchen at 6am one Sunday morning

While everyone else was at Mass.

We would go to the kitchen every Sunday morning, on rainy days

Instead of walking over to the other convent for Mass. Mount Magdala Convent.

On this occasion there were twenty girls, unsupervised.

We heard a knock at the door and a man's voice outside.

All the girls ran out of the kitchen but me, I climbed onto a big glass cupboard. When the knocking ceased the other girls came back to help me, pulling me down.

My dress got caught on a nail and they pulled on my legs, Eventually pulling the cupboard over on top of me.

I was in the hospital for about six months, with a fractured skull. Mother Francis of Rome would come to see me.

Parts of the outer auricle along the sides, of both my ears, are missing. From when the class cupboard full on top of me, at St. Joseph's Orphanage.

I still get bad headaches. It gets that bad sometimes, as if my head would break open. It is like it would burst.

KITCHEN BACK DOOR.

The following is a frequent practice repeated between the age of five and ten years. Until I left. To avoid this sequence I would try to hide in the toilets, by the back door of the kitchen. Mother Euphrasia would drag me out by my hair and ears.

It was exceedingly painful, but I did not cry aloud.

She would put me in a sack, tied the top of it and tell me that the pig man was Going to come and take me away.

My thoughts on these occasions were along the lines of.

"What have I done this time ?" "Is there no God to help me?"

He said. "Come little children unto me for I am mercy." But not for me.

I stayed in the sack for a long time. I would hear a car coming.

"Is it for me?"

"Don't do this."

"Help me someone please!"

I can't call out; the nun has hit me with a stick again!

The man is here. "Is he coming to get me?"

He and the nun talk and then she opens up the sack. I can't see for a while. I am told that it was because of what my mother had done that I was punished. "Oh mum, what did you do? that I should be treated this way."

I was locked in a room with no windows, which seemed like, three days and two nights. This room was also near the back door of the kitchen. Before I was put into the lobby, which it was called, Mother Euphrasia thrashed me. I don't know what I had done wrong.

Even if we put our toes over the line, we were whipped.

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