Thompson They Promised Heaven but Led Me to Hell

1. Auflage 2018
ISBN: 978-1-5439-4136-4
Verlag: BookBaby
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: Adobe DRM (»Systemvoraussetzungen)

E-Book, Englisch, 463 Seiten

My childhood abuse in the orphanage, is New Zealand's shameful, dirty secret of physical, mental and sexual abuse of innocent children by nuns, lay staff, the older girls and the priest and bullying at two orphanages in Christchurch New Zealand. From the age of five to ten old I was made to work on their farm and laundry at Mount Magdala - St. Joseph Girls Orphanage then from ten to nineteen years old I worked in the Nazareth house kitchen and laundry. I was conceived out of wedlock, because of my mother being raped at fifteen years old. I was just two and a half months old when I was snatched from my mother's arms, by the catholic church then placed in the care of one of their Catholic orphanage. From the beginning, I was taught that my mother was sinful and that I would be too unless the devil was beaten from my soul. I was sexually abused in the nursery from a tiny young girl of eighteen months old by three lady workers for four years. At night times three nuns would ritual attack me by taking my clothes off, tying me to both ends of the bed and savagely attacking me with the buckle of her belt, hula hoop cut in half and a large whip as they tried to suppress my will and to break my spirit. My story is one story of many worldwide... Ann Thompson

Autoren/Hrsg.

Thompson, Ann

Leseproben

CHAPTER 1

Trigger Warning:

My Story includes graphic details of child abuse and sexual assault and may be triggering for some readers. Please take care, as I did not hold back on the abuse which the catholic church did to us innocent children.

Mount Magdala St. Joseph Girls Orphanage

My mother was a young girl of 16 years old, when she gave birth to me, 31 of March 1941. My mother was 15years old when she was Raped. She was just a child. I was taken off her and taken away to the catholic church orphanage, just like most of the babies who were born from catholic unwed mothers, but without our mother’s consent.

I feel that was why I was punished continuously, when I was a baby, right up throughout my teenage years to 25years old, until I left. Other children there were treated well. The ones who had no outsider to care for them and visit them, were at the mercy of the nuns.

It was at the time in the Roman Catholic Church everywhere, where 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, especially 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.

June 1941 a wee baby girl of two and half months old, was taken from her mother and dropped off in Christchurch to a catholic church orphanage which everyone called a House of God, by Saint Vincent De’ Paul. They had snatched the baby away from her mother’s arms, in a Wellington catholic nursing home for young unwed mothers. My mother had spent some months there before my birth, she named me Shirley Ann after her younger sister as they were very close. It was not my mother who dropped me off at Mount Magdala girls’ orphanages, it was St Vincent De’ Paul, who were working for the catholic church.

There is so much proof now about the stolen babies of the catholic church orphanages worldwide, it was for a time there, that it was only known in Ireland, but one by one each mother or child which was stolen, came forward looking for their mothers or babies and the stories that came out, about the living hell our mothers had gone through in those homes to keep us. The mothers had no say. The babies were either kept in the orphanage and sold at a later date to childless rich parents, or the other babies were put up for adoption from birth. The babies who stayed at the orphanages were kept there for the nuns’ purpose only, which was to mould the babies and little children into what they wanted them to be and that was to be their slaves, to work long hours and the children were too frightened to complain for fear of being whipped by their leather belts, which the nun’s rosaries hung from around their waists.

To tell you the truth, I do not know if my real name was Shirley Ann or Ann Shirley, you will see here when you read the only report about my 25years, with the catholic church’s two orphanages that the nuns have me as Ann Shirley, yet on my Birth Certificate I am Shirley Ann. I had lots of trouble applying for my Birth Certificate, because I did not know my rightful name my mother had given me, it was so degrading telling them that I was brought up in an orphanage. I had already known the meaning of that word [orphanage] as well as the word [bastard], later on in life. At the very mention of that name brings tears to my eyes, because the thought of a little helpless baby, being used this way by the men and women of God, went unnoticed by everyone around her.

People were very cruel to us children without parents and more so if you did not have a father, the grown-ups were the worst, they did not stop at calling you names, they made sure that you also felt the pain of those words with thrashing and rape. They did not care about how you were hurting inside, their words hurt as much as their violent actions. I hope to God that people have learnt that words hurt and stay with you for the rest of your life. This is verbal abuse and it hurts deep inside and you see the face with those words, it makes me cringe whenever I hear them. You never forget them.

I was taken to Mount Magdala, Girls Orphanage in Lincon Road, Halswell, Christchurch, New Zealand. This orphanage was founded by Eliza White, who died in 1909, she wanted a home for the homeless children, whom she called her orphans, who had nowhere to go. Most of us in the 1940s were tiny wee babies. Later on in Life I used to call myself a war baby, thinking that one of the American army men was my father, I was wrong. The buildings were surrounded by tall trees around the boundaries so far from the main road, you could not see the orphanage, just farm land which us children would soon know and learn to work harder than any of the male workers, who were working the land for the nuns.

When Mount Magdala girl’s orphanage run by the Good Shepherd nuns closed down in 1951, it was taken over by Nazareth House order of nuns, run by the Poor Sisters of Nazareth, (now known as: Sisters of Nazareth) worldwide, but this time it was a boys’ orphanage, called St. Joseph Boys Home. The children ranging from babies up to five years of age [boys and girls] in the nursery, when the girls turned five, they were then sent to Nazareth House, the boys stayed on at St. Joseph Boys Home until they were 12 to 15years old.

Picnic or Orphans Day

From as far back to 10 February 1919 they held “Orphan’s Day” which was a day to bring some joy to the orphaned children boys and girls alike. The cars and lorries with their drivers, would all assemble in the Christchurch Cathedral Square, then go around to each orphanage to collect the children, who would be waiting outside, to be picked up. 300 children in all. There were six orphanages running back then, one catholic which was Mount Magdala Girls Orphanage with 59 girls from there at their first Orphans Day. The outings were to continue up to when I was in the orphanage in the 1940s, 50s and 60s and still into the 1970s. Orphans Day was now called a day out which we knew as a Picnic. They were picnics we all enjoyed and remembered to this day. In the races when and if you came first, second, or third, you would get a prize, which were lollies.

There was also three to four other parts to our children’s orphanage, on the same land, but not joined together. Up a wide long driveway with archways of climbing roses, towards two enormous wrought iron gates, which would open outward, to both sides of the driveway. Along the right-hand side of the driveway towards these gates, from our orphanage side, was a row of tall trees, which I also climbed to hide from the nuns and older girls, you could not climb over the gates, nor go around them.

Log Cabin

On either side of the gate, was a very deep narrow ditch, which always had water running through it, a long log cabin, made of Ponga, a New Zealand Native Fern, which we used to play in sometimes, when we were older. The log cabin was on the convent side of the gates, which was on the other side of the ditch. No windows in the cabin and it looked the same inside as outside, the only differences was that it had a seat right around the inside. Many a time I would go to the cabin, whenever I saw those big gates open, and spend some time there by myself. At a very early age, I learnt that being by myself was the only time I was safe, that no one could hurt me. The gates were always closed from early evening onwards, until the next morning.

During the hot summer months, we would go down to cool off in the pool. There were two pools which were separated across by a long concrete wall, which was the same height as the rest of the pool. Now in this concrete wall were two round holes at each end, which circulated the water in the two pools and while sitting in the little pool right beside one of the holes we would go to the toilet and watch the urine flowing from our little pool, through the hole into the big girl’s pool. We would quickly make waves on our side of the pool, so no one could see the discoloured water.

Two swimming pools there were, well they were long, a little one for us wee girls who could not swim and the big pool, which was so deep, three quarters of the way down from the ramp we would sit, until we got the urge to get in, your feet could not touch the bottom, even when I went back to work there years later, I still could not touch the bottom. It had a slide at the deep end

Changing rooms along one side as well, and facing the other side was glassed-in wooden doors, which could be wide open, making you feel as though you were outside. That same pool is still there, but heated now, and is used for the sick and not so well people of Christchurch. I went back to see it in 1997 and talked to the lady minder there with some of her patients.

May Pole

Must not forget the May Pole, which was not far from the swimming pool, every year in May which was Our Blessed Lady Month. They would dress us up and we would dance around the May Pole, long different coloured ribbons which hung from the top of the May Pole. In and out we would go and once the ribbons were around the pole, we would dance the other way, to untie them. The swings were not far from the Tennis courts.

You know they celebrated the Christian part of May in the...