Angels Are Watching Over You !

Good Shepherd Nuns

CLOTHES.

I wore sacks for dresses, as did some of the other girls.

The nuns had cut holes in the side for my arms and one at the bottom, for our heads to go through .

I knew by wearing the sack that I had no parents.

I felt so unwanted, so unloved and like nothing.

The logo on the sack, which I wore, was. New Zealand Sugar Refinery.

Our clothes were changed once a month, at St. Joseph's Orphanage.

My under pants, [Bloomers or Knickers as the nuns called them,]

were very hard and stiff in the crotch. I was sore and had a rash

which bleed a lot. I could not walk sometimes with them, because they would cut into the tops of my thighs as well as my crotch.

If you have every heard about clothing being so dirty, that it will stand up by itself, my under pants were. I could not wash them during the day time, only at night. When I washed them, I would put them on the pipes under the hand basins and they were gone the next morning, with dirty ones there instead. I would have to wear them or none at all. This is way I started to lay on them at night. Different sized clothing were handed out year after year, until they were no longer in a fit state to be mended.

POTATOES and ONIONS.

Between the age of 5 and 10 years at St. Joseph's Orphanage and then again at Nazareth House, late at night I would pick potatoes and onions when they were ready. I would have to do this work if I was sick or not. I am sure that this is the cause of all my back trouble, I am having now.

The work that I did was a mans job and I could not lift the big bags of potatoes, onions and the pots which I used for cooking. But I still had to do the work.

I would drag the sacks of potatoes along the ground and I got slapped across my face by Mother Euphrasia, or who ever was in charge of us at that time. Because I could not lift them.

We would get up at 6am in the morning to pick rotten apples and potatoes off the ground for A. J. White's pigs.

I had no shoes to wear while doing this work and I was very cold.

PLAYGROUND.

When Mother Euphrasia hit me, she would call me "Stubborn Shirley, you're like your mother." There it goes again Mum!

Why do they always bring your name into it, when they are cruel to me? I hate the name Shirley, they say it in such a hurtful way.

Mv name is Ann!

Mother Euphrasia would clinch my fist then she would hold on to my wrist. Then she would start to hit me across my face and my ears. I could not stop her from doing this to me, even when I tried she would hit me across my face, head and ears with her closed fist.She broke my nose five times and burst my eardrums.

THE UNKNOWN.

Mother Euphrasia also would pull me around by my ears.

She would slap me across my face, head and ears. Mother Euphrasia would walk up behind me and slap me across my ears and face, she then would get hold of my ears and pull me around by them.. This was very painful. I couldn't get away from her. Even though she was a big woman, I could never hear her coming up behind me.

Mother Euphrasia and Mother Agnes would come up behind me and pinch me on my arms. The pinches were with the tips of their fmgernails and they would take pieces of my skin, off with their nails. It was very painful and it bleed afterwards. We called these fly pinches.

I hated this. When they got a good hold of my skin, they would walk around, while I was screaming and begging them to let me go. I would grab hold of my arm and try to pull away nom them.

The worst thing about all of this was that I never knew when or were she was going to sneak up behind me. I was always looking back, to see if she was there. Mother Euphrasia would come out nom nowhere.

The fear of the unknown was, when was she going to do it again and where was she waiting for me.

TURN THE OTHER CHEEK.

The nuns would tell me to turn the other cheek. And I would think to myself, by the time the nuns had finished with me. I'd have no more cheeks left for me, to turn for them to slap again.

WASH HOUSE.

I worked in the wash house at St. Joseph's Orphanage nom the age of five years. I couldn't even reach up to open the door to the washing machine or dryers.

I burnt my hands on the mangles all the time and my hands would get caught in the rollers, when I pulled the clothes though the mangles.

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