The beginning wasn't easy . . . starting as I did in the Mother & Baby "Home" in the town of  Stranorlar, County Donegal, Ireland.

In fact, it would almost be hard to imagine a more inauspicious start. The normal approach would be to block out all the "bad" memories and just move on. I tried, but something inside me wanted to know the truth – and reluctantly I started the journey that would result in not just closure, but in a whole new perspective – and a true appreciation for being "One of the Lucky Ones."  

Consider this website a ready REFERENCE (as you read the book) – a repository and a collection – of additional photos, stories, sounds, details, and observations that weren't aboard the book's First Edition . . . either in hardbound or paperback.

The front of the "Home" in Stranorlar, County Donegal. The Mother & Baby Home was located to the left; main entrance and administration offices were in the center and to the right were the wards for the elderly. During this period, the Catholic Church tried to hid the fact that were bastard children by locating the "Homes" in old workhouses that had been converted to house the destitute and the elderly who had no one to take care of them or were homeless.

Because the mothers had committed a Mortal sin by having a child out of wedlock, they were required to "work" off their penance by working in the laundries; kitchen and the baby wards. The above picture was taken around 1955 and shows some of the mothers working in the laundry. Their period of servitude lasted from one to two years. They were often discharged without seeing or knowing the fate of their child.

This picture was taken in late fall of 1944 or early 1945.That's my birth mom & me in the circle on the right.  Most of the children, in the picture, were girls, since the boys were routinely "fostered" to farms by the age of two.  The girls usually  stayed until the age of 7 and then were sent to convent schools in Derry, Northern Ireland.  It was the unwritten policy of the home to try and foster the children out as soon as possible after they reached the age of two.