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Michelle with Stefan, a sweet little boy
who lived at the orphanage in Romania
where Michelle worked three years ago.
Stefan went to a foster home and
remained in his country.
Michelle’s story begins with her mother.
One must first understand how her
mother, Elsie Florence White came to
lose eight children to adoption or
foster care between the years 1954 to
1963. |
Elsie was born in Halifax, Nova Scotia
on February 14, 1934. She lived with her
mother, father and two younger brothers.
Sometime before 1941,
Elsie’s father disappeared. Some reports say he
was killed in the war -- others say he abandoned
his family and moved back to England. Elise’s
mother, Della White, was left with three young
children a house and no husband.
Della
tried her best to keep her family together. How
could she manage? Social services decided they
knew what was best for Della’s kids.
Child protection workers showed up the White household one day, they
scooped up Della’s three children and delivered
them to St. Joseph’s Catholic Orphanage in
Halifax. Michelle’s mother spent the next eleven
years at the orphanage. When Elsie turned 17 the
orphanage opened up its doors and told her it
was time to leave. Off she went to explore and
survive in a world she had only observed through
the wary eyes of an orphan.
Elsie’s brother, Lionel, once told Michelle that on her mother’s 18th
birthday she attended a Policeman’s Ball; it was
there, he said, that she found many men who were
willing to show her the love and affection that
had been sorrowfully absent in her childhood,
adolescent and teenage years.
Elsie had her first child in 1954 in New York City - a son who she lost
to foster care a few years later. She then had
four more daughters and three more sons. All but
two were lost to adoption or foster care.
Michelle was her seventh child, born in Chicago,
IL in 1962.
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