I’m so sorry this happened to you

I was one of those girls.im a great grandmother now, but I will never forget that place.all I was trying to do was get back to my mother.and I was locked up. She lost everything. My dad died a violent death and they scooped all her children and I didn’t know about the class action suit going on, I missed out

You taught yoga in Willingdon School For Girls or in Willingdon YDC?? My last AWOL was 10/30/69 and I never heard of a yoga class.

In 1967 Willingdon School
For Girls was at 3655 Willingdon Avenue in Burnaby.

Some still suffer.

We would travel from Burnaby to downtown Vancouver every Saturday so you mom could get her hair done. Those words were spoken to me each time we drove past. No wonder I kept my mouth shut about the sexual abuse happening

I found a Facebook post about this place where he actually commented how he was there waiting for adoption. Looks like he’s doing great now.

Yes we are still waiting on an answer to see if the case will be heard. Wheels of justice turn slow ! My mother was incarcerated in Willingdon twice in the early sixties.

My mom
Also. Do you know about the class action law suit? A lawyer in Victoria BC has applied to have the case heard. My mother was tortured there .

https://leaparrish.tripod.com/

That Provincial detention facility was closed down in 1974.

An “incorrigible girls” detention centre continued to operate in Vancouver, under another name, in another location.

In the early 2000’s lawsuit against the BC government was dismissed, (the attorney for the plaintiff was not an actual attorney!!) however that plaintiff’s case was reopened in 2020.

The case probably continues to crawl through “the legal system” to this day.

https://burnabybeacon.com/p/class-action-willingdon-school-province

I did not know about the Doukhobor children, that’s really heartbreaking. Thanks for adding to the story

Children’s Aid Society of Vancouver, B. C.
Member of Vancouver Welfare Federation

Vancouver, B. C.
August 22, 1932

Mrs. Mary Hoodekoff,
Thrums, B.C.

Dear Mrs. Hoodekoff,
Your grandchildren Tania and Vera Popoff are with the Children’s Aid Society and they are quite well and happy. Hope (Nadya) Maloff is also with us. She is growing and is very well. Elizabeth Maloff is at the Industrial School, and Pete, John and Love (Luba) are at the Alexandra Orphanage in Vancouver.

Yours Sincerely,

Zella Collins

Manager

The second letter is handwritten in pencil and every inch of the paper is covered in the neat handwriting that I recognize as Mother’s. The date is October 31, 1932:

800 Cassiar St.
Vancouver, B.C.
1932. Oct. 31.

My Dearest Aunt Polly,
I am very very lonesome for you. Dear Aunt I received your pictures and I was very glad. Dear Aunt I have no picture to send you. Dear Aunt please tell Betty Hoodicoff to write me a letter. I am very lonesome for her. I have just two of my friends here.
Dear Aunt tell grandmother Hoodicoff to come and visit me. I am very very lonesome for you Aunt and for grandmother. I am crying every day about my little sister and about brothers and about Luba.
Dear Aunt send me some material for handkerchiefs and please send me some silk to embroider. Dear Aunt you were asking what size shoes I wear. 3 ½.
I am very very lonesome for you Aunt and for Mother and father and for grandmother. I write his letter in school. Dear Aunt they let us write in three weeks two letters.
Dear Aunt we have a meeting every Sunday and say our prayers and sing. and we sing every evening after supper. Dear Aunt you know how I am geting (sic) along here.
Dear Aunt the big girls are cooking and baking the bread they cook in the morning porridge and we eat in morning bead (sic) with jam at dinner we eat peanuts and macaroni and potatoes and soup and rice In supper we eat oranges and cooked fruit and dates.
Dear Aunt tell uncle John to write me a letter if he is lonesome for me.
Dear Aunt I kiss you many many times and your children and Best regards for you and for your children. So good by
your niece, Elizabeth P. Maloff

to Betty Hoodicoff,
Dear Betty
I am very lonesome for you. I received from you 1 letter so please write me a letter and I will write to you. Dear Betty I will kiss you many many times. Best regards for you and for your sister Annie. Your friend Elizabeth P Maloff
Please give my best regards to my Grandfather and Grandmother Hoodicoff and to all Saliken family and please tell them to come and visit me.
from Elizabeth P. Maloff

For more information on the Doukhobor children being taken in 1932, read my book Our Backs Warmed by the Sun; Memories of a Doukhobor Life.

Reporter Sima Holt became a very successful politician.

In her own words:

“Now you said [M]other was sent down from 100 [M]ile [H]ouse to live out her pregnancy in an unwed mother’s home in Vancouver at Cassiar and Hastings street. When I was down on the coast a number of yrs ago visiting a family who had been a second family to me I described to her a bldg. with a walk down from the front door through the grass to the street with park benches on each side of the walk and lovely green grass. It had a big copper colored iron door with bars on it and on the windows. Inside the front door was a shiny brown colored sort of brick floor. She said to me I know the bldg come with me and we will go for a drive and we went down and saw the bldg at Cassiar and Hastings street. It was the same bldg I had remembered. It was now converted into a senior citizens home and a driveway at the front and the bars gone. So I had remembered that bldg since I was 2 yrs old. It was a girls home for unwed mothers and ones that had gotten into trouble with the law. So I may have been born there or in the hospital as you said.”

You read my mind. I was wondering the same. Hopefully he wasn’t adopted out because his mom was sent to reform school for 6 months. Imagine being released to no future…