A young woman in Nova Scotia gives birth to a child out of wedlock. A childless couple in New Jersey desperately searches for a baby to adopt. These people never meet but their lives become forever linked through a tiny baby girl. Natalie, that baby, spent the first two years of her life in the Ideal Maternity Home on Canada’s rocky East Coast. Louis and Mabel Goldman of Newark adopted her in August 1945.
Natalie was one of the survivors. Many babies born at the home were not adopted. They mysteriously disappeared. They were buried in butterboxes used to deliver groceries to the home.
Since Bette Cahill first wrote about the Ideal Maternity Home in East Chester, Nova Scotia in 1992, she continued to research the story and corresponded with many of the home’s survivors.
Now, in this new expanded edition, we share the author’s new insights and ongoing interest in the story. We are introduced to many of the survivors and learn about their sometimes sad, sometimes happy searches for their birth parents.