Dawn Beecroft Teetzel

I received "MY MARY: A STORY OF A HOME CHILD" as an Early Reviewer. When I discovered I had 2 home children in my Ancestry I was inspired to research their lives and those of home children in general. I learnt that they were not welcome and newspapers reported them as "riff raff" so they were often ashamed about their status as home children. Some of then were treated almost as slaves. Mary's experience is a vivid depiction of the suffering some of these children experienced. I admit there were parts of her story I skipped because they were so distressing but I was unable to stop reading until I reached the end because the author was so successful and so convincing. I am going to look out for more books by this author. It is a fact that over 10% of the Canadian population is a descendant of a home child.… (más)

This is a story of a girl who never had a family of her own until she reached adult hood. She was taken from a fairly happy situation at an early age and sent to a foreign land to work in servitude until she was 21, and then she found herself alone and unemployed. Though she eventually found love and had a family of her own, she suffered from a depression deep enough to need to be institutionalized. This book is very good at pointing out the damage that can be done to a human's self esteem when a child is not properly loved and nurtured. As gloomy as that sounds this is actually a fascinating story and very well written. I enjoyed it very much and look forward to reading more such stories from this author.… (más)

My Mary: A Story of One Barnardo Home Child was an emotional journey through the life of Mary and is told from her perspective. I had done research about the Barnardo Homes in London and was beyond excited to receive a copy of this book. I was not disappointed! This book is very well written and the story of Mary is captivating and heart wrenching. Mary tells the story of her earliest memories being placed with a foster family and the subsequent placements she had over her young life as an indentured servant after being sent to Canada as a very young child. Her story unfolds as she recounts her life story to her psychiatrist after being committed to a psychiatric hospital by her husband following an attempted suicide. She continues her story after her committal and the unwanted effects of the electroshock therapy that continue years after she returns home.
Mary’s story is both tragic and beautiful, she finds love despite her life being so filled with loss. The connection the author Dawn Beecroft Teetzel has with our main character Mary is the cherry on top of an already remarkable and wonderful book! I could not put this book down, from the first page to the last, I was captured in Mary’s story.… (más)