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Good morning friends. I am very pleased to be here. It seems a little unusual to have an audience willing to listen to a personal story. To make matters worse for you it happened a long time ago in 1939. Well, if I'm your contemporary at 80 years old, thats just too bad.
Nothing I may say today will compare with the saving of innocent women from imprisonment in the Mercer Reformatory and any of the Good Shepherd refuges on Ontario. I refer to the successful efforts if the Elizabeth Fry Society in bringing about repeal of Section 15 of the Female Refuges Act in 1958. For a 5-year period until the Act was terminated in 1964 many women were saved from shock, becoming uprooted, abused, stigmatized and possibly losing their children. If any of the women are around today, some must be around, they are probably in their fifties, sixties or older.
I was thirty years old when I left Toronto. On my return I was sixty-seven and I didn't know anyone anymore. There was no identification with the most important years of my life. I say important because this was the most memorable. Some inner conflict tormented me. Had it affected me? Perhaps, but I think it was sufficiently defused to carry on a normal life. I now permitted hidden experience to enter into my consciousness. It would take time and there were no guarantees. Perhaps it was anger, perhaps curiosity that enabled me to carry on. As the song goes, "There's a time to be born."
I don't know when I saw the possibility to make sense out of a hazy past. One cannot delve into the unfathomable too long. What is it they say? Dont tangle with things you cant do anything about. Still, I decided there were some questions that might produce answers. As much as possible I isolated myself from interruption. I wanted to enter into the memory of what happened before. I went for days without talking to anyone. I wrote down minute details to form a pattern. For a break, I'd often go looking for a coffee shop at four oclock in the morning. Whatever my hopes at first, they met with despair. The police apparently don't keep records of old criminals, neither do the jails. I'm surprised to learn that the law which claims to keep records dont keep their word.
One might have thought it funny how such a little thing as looking in the newspaper to see if my name was there held such trepidation. No, my name wasnt in any police column but I did find the date of the transfer of the girls from the Belmont Home to the Mercer Reformatory. I inquired at the Ontario Archives under Freedom of Information if they had anything with my name on it. Yes, my name was on the Andrew Mercer Reformatory for Females Register. Later other records were found, in 1993 and 1996. An archivist had microfilmed a number of files in the late sixties and mine was one. One thing I'm asked is, "Why now have you come forward to seek justice?" Well, I wouldn't have had the confidence to say what really happened. Who would take me seriously? In fact, I just cant get over it that today a woman can say she's been raped and people believe she is being honest. I'm still bound by archaic codes of the past. I needed evidence to back up my words and there are things that happened that haven't been recorded. Well, to be pragmatic, the Freedom of Information act didnt come in until 1987 and it took the Ontario Archives quite a while to find any information.
I was arrested early in May 1939. Mobilization for World War Two had commenced two months earlier but war wasnt proclaimed until early in September. So there was a good six months of war fever in the air before it actually started. I say that because I dont know if my destiny and that of other women were affected by it.
I had left home about a week before I was arrested. I was 18 years and nine months old. I hadn't told anyone I was going to leave but my mother knew I was going around with a Chinese man and hadn't taken it seriously. She ran a rooming house on Church Street. It was a rather shady street in downtown Toronto. If a room became vacant it was first come first served. My mother was English, but whether it was the vicinity or whether my mother was a free spirit there were no restrictions due to color or nationality. The front room was set up as a tearoom and for 25 cents she would read a teacup. A sign in the window said Madam Alice.
Being a divorcee, and somewhat of an outcast herself, my mother was not inclined to hold me to restrictive social values. But she was definitely the boss and I had crossed the line when I left home. She came to the restaurant where my boyfriend was working and got into a physical fight demanding to know where I was. Then she contacted my father who lived in St. John, New Brunswick. This was a source of great satisfaction to her. She would finally be able to cast her curse on him get revenge for the divorce. He would be terrified to learn that his daughter had run off with a Chinese man, perhaps get married and worse provide him with a Chinese grandchild. My father was Greek and in his ethnic enclave this amounted to the worst disgrace imaginable. He took a train to Toronto and went to the police.
When two big policemen came to the house where my fiancee and I were living and banged loudly on the door we couldn't imagine the reason. The police were accompanied by my white-faced father. The police asked, "Is that her?" "Yes," my father replied, "that's her." I was taken in a police car to the courthouse in Old City Hall. Within an hour I acknowledged to the judge I was three months pregnant. I'll get married if you just let me out, I said. Remanded one week for sentence, said the judge.
I was taken in a black police van to a jail where I sat on a bench for one week. No one came to visit. When I returned to Court the judge said, "I sentence you to one year in the Belmont Home." Immediately I was taken in a police car to the Home. A police van would have drawn unfavourable attention in this rustic neighborhood. Only the knowledgeable knew that the Belmont Home was officially the Toronto Industrial Refuge. We young women slept in dormitories but most worked in the Refuge commercial laundry without pay. Sometimes I did laundry work but mostly I did housekeeping.
About six weeks after I entered the refuge it closed down. The girls were transferred to the Mercer Reformatory in private cars over three days. Three weeks later the papers reported the closure of Belmont Home. It came as a surprise to the matrons working there, nor did the newspapers or parents of the inmates know. There was a labour protest at City Hall but nothing came of it.
When we left the Home for the Reformatory, two girls and myself sat in the back of the automobile with two plainclothes guards on the front seat. On arrival we were taken to a room where we were relieved to find the Belmont girls who had gone before. The code of silence was immediately established: we mustn't talk. We removed our clothes and put on old faded dressed which would be replaced by Reformatory uniforms later. We remained silent as we were given food on tin plates and black tea in tin cups. We ascended the steep stairs to our wards. Possibly to prevent familiarity we were put into different wards. The wards contained about twenty cells all on one side. The windows on the other side were too high to see out of.
In the morning we were awakened by a matron swinging a large bell. After washing quickly -with cold water and dressing, at a given signal we stepped out of our cells and held our chamber pails. We proceeded as directed to the toilets and emptied them. After breakfast we visited the doctor. It was the law that within twenty-four hours anyone arriving in an institution had to be examined for venereal disease. The fact that some of the girls had been in the Belmont home for over a year didnt make any difference. Neither did it matter that we had an excellent health report from the Belmont Home physician. In our white pantaloons without any crotch we stood along the side of the corridor right into the clinic and watched one another get onto the table and be inserted with a speculum. One pregnant girl cried during the procedure.
Most of the Belmont girls went into the factory where we worked on power machines. Because out sentences were longer that the Mercer girls, we could be trained and our experience utilized. We were paid six cents a day. The goods we produced were used by other government institutions. Our industry added to the manpower used to prosecute the war.
The Mercer Reformatory lived up to its medieval gothic appearance. It was a place of strict discipline. Each woman, some as young as 14 years, was placed in a windowless cell. We walked quietly in single file and spent long hours at night in our cells. We were allowed to talk for one half-hour after lunch when we went into a yard surrounded by a high brick fence. The other free time was supposed to be for an hour after supper in our wards before being locked up for the night. It didn't seem that long. When the weather was cold we remained in our wards. The cells were small, about 7 by 4 feet, but there were no clocks, no newspapers, no radio. A book that was supposed to be handed out every two weeks didn't always arrive. We were padlocked into our cells for probably twelve hours at night. I would sit on my bed thinking during these long hours. We couldn't talk - a matron passing by might hear us. In my ward we didn't break any rules.
It was while ambling through the University of Toronto medical building three levels below the main floor that I found old books and periodicals that shed light on some questions that had been bothering me. I found that Dr. Edna Guest, physician at the Mercer, was a member of a eugenic organization. This tended to account for the fact that she was so uncommunicative with the inmate patients. The organization was called the Canadian Social Hygiene Council. Their publication was called Social Health. On it was inscribed the words "To Advocate the Knowledge and Practice of Social Hygiene as the One Way to Racial Improvement: The Race is to the Strong." The Council represented itself as an organization dedicated to combating venereal disease and protecting members of the armed forces. It was government funded but also accepted donations. Sympathy for the objectives of the Hygiene Council extended to Dr. John McCullough, Chief Medical Officer for Ontario, who recommended the hiring of medical personnel. Those hired were mostly veterans of World War One, including Dr. Guest. She returned to Canada from overseas in 1919. By 1920 she was a member of the Social Hygiene Council and by 1921 she was physician at the Mercer Reformatory. Dr. Guest, as a dedicated member of the Social Hygiene Council, continued to rise in the public sphere. She is probably the first woman to be on the Council of the Academy of Medicine. She acquired the title of surgeon after obtaining a 6-month certificate from a German Hospital. She held high offices in women's organizations.
Before World War Two, most notable organizations in Ontario were calling for sterilization of the morally defective and unfit. It was popularly believed that heredity played the most important role in criminal behaviour. In my Mercer case file I found a letter from my mother telling Dr. Guest to go ahead and give me the operation while I'm in the hospital having my baby. I dont know what operation she is referring to but I have to guess that my mother was told it was necessary. I dont know whether a change in medical personnel was responsible for it, but no operation took place. Medical records from the Mercer Reformatory indicate medical abuse of inmates, possibly some of it related to drugs. My baby was sent to the Hospital For Sick Children at three months of age. The plight of inmates at the Mercer Reformatory is a story not yet told. It opened in 1880 and closed in 1969.
Some legislation that's raising its ugly head is a new bill Bill 86 to bring in an Act called "Rescuing Children from Sexual Exploitation." A couple of years ago it was known as Bill 18 and was called "An Act to Protect Children in Prostitution." This idea of the protection of children goes back to the beginning of the [last] century and resulted in the Female Refuges Act. Propaganda revolved around the protection of girls. Judge Hodgins headed a Royal Commission on the Feebleminded and Venereal Disease. Promiscuous and not so promiscuous females between 15 and 35 years were looked on as feebleminded with the intelligence of children.
The Elizabeth Fry Society and a good number of organizations spoke against Bill 18. The bill failed to pass into law. Now its back again, as formidable as ever, in a new form. Its called Bill 86. It means that juveniles up to 18 years can be apprehended by a policeman or a childrens aid worker on suspicion of being involved in child prostitution. She or he, usually a she, can be held for five days. But five days is a token statement. She can also be held for 30 days. Does anyone doubt there will be difficulty in getting permission from a judge to extend the time to 30 days. On close examination the act does not live up to its so-called altruistic intentions to protect. Other negative qualities take precedence suspicion, opportunism, egoism, racism - call it what you may - and could facilitate the arrest of a juvenile. What is likely to compel a lawful protector to seize a juvenile? On his or her own volition an officer may invoke judgement usually reserved for a court of law. All past experience tells us that this doesnt work. Many of us can remember the day when a male police officer could arrest a woman claiming she was a prostitute with no more than his word. And even now we still retain the inferior position of women in society, and the instilled belief that a girl associating with another race than her own is up to no good. If Bill 86 is passed, a police officer will be permitted to enter premises to retrieve his quarry by force. Deja Vous is upon me! I hear the banging on the door!
Proceedings will be in private. We know that. A girl over 18 who has been inadvertently seized will on proof of age be let go she will probably have to find her way back from the police station to where she was picked up. If a parent happens by when a child is being seized, can she or he interfere? No. They cannot interfere with the intentions of the police officer. There is a fine for obstruction up to $25000 with or without imprisonment for six months. Can a captured child be contacted by an outside source? I dont know, but it reminds me of my seizure under the Female Refuges Act. When I was remanded to jail for one week, my mother didnt come to see me. This is very unusual. My mother, the fortune teller, felt she could handle all matters. Im inclined to believe she didnt have access to me didnt know where Id been sent.
Its likely that those mostly affected by the passage of Bill 86 will be girls. It has passed second reading. We are balancing precariously on a thing edge our civil liberties are again being eroded. How can we combat this? We must all put our heads together. We must be united. We do not need a repeat of anti-woman or anti-children legislation, regardless of what they call it.
In regards to the Female Refuges Act, a committee has been set up. We are pushing for a court hearing in the spring to show that the [Female Refuges] Act is unconstitutional. We are centering our efforts on Sections 15 to 17, whereby women were imprisoned for incorrigible and idle and dissolute [behaviour]. We hope to be successful in having the court recognize the damage that women have and still endure from this injustice. If successful, the Court will be asked to compensate all women affected by the Act. Our lawyer is David Midanik a criminal lawyer. We have a table here where you can get more information in the annex.
I would like to make one more comment on the Female Refuges Act. At one time I got some money from Legal Aid. They gave it to me because they said the Government might look kindly on the case because there was a similarity to the Japanese internment. Later I went to a lawyer who said it strongly reminded him of the Duplessis orphans. Not long ago a lawyer wanted to examine certain aspects of the case that might relate to the Dionne Quintuplets. As for myself it reminds me of the War Measures Act. Thank You.
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