Butterbox Babies

A detailed Summary of Butterbox Babies

Bette Cahill's Butterbox Babies is a true story of baby deaths and black market adoptions in East Chester, Nova Scotia. Butterbox Babies describes the scandalous activities of the Ideal Maternity Home and Sanitarium in East Chester. The Home was owned and operated by William and Lila Young. William was a chiropractor who impersonated a medical doctor at the Ideal Maternity Home. He disguised himself in a white lab coat while delivering babies. Lila was a midwife who was illegally assisting with childbirth. The Home was established in 1928, and what started off to be a tiny cottage-based business became a million-dollar enterprise in a 54-room mansion.

The Ideal Maternity Home seemed to be a great place where unmarried women could, secretly, give birth to their babies- for a great price though! In the 1930's and 1940's, a woman was considered a disgrace to the town and, more importantly, her family if she was pregnant and not married. To some women the Ideal Maternity Home was a saviour- a place where they could give birth and then have the baby put up for adoption, hassel-free.

However, the price for board and the birth cost a fortune. The service fee was $300 (a years wage). Despite the price, many women turned

Butterbox Babies was a well researched and written novel. It went into great depth of events, that had occurred over 65 years ago, with a great deal of information. Many great interviews were written in the novel and both sides of the story were shown. Bette Cahill showed no sides in the novel, she presented the facts and left the choice of guilty or not guilty up to the reader.

On March 4, 1936 Lila and William Young were arraigned on two counts of manslaughter. The charges stated that the Youngs " did unlawfully kill and slay the said Eva Margaret Nieforth and her infant male child." The Youngs spent a few days in jail before being releases on bail. With help from Lila's brothers, William and Lila were able to post the bond of $3,000. The arrest was made possible after an RCMP investigation prompted by the Youngs' application for burial certificates. Autopsies were preformed by the provincial pathologist Dr. Ralph P. Smith. After the autopsies had been completed Smith concluded that the baby had been born alive and that Eva suffered from peritonitis. The cause of infection, common after childbirth and often fatal, Smith suspected, was unsterilized instruments. In front of the jury with all the facts against the Youngs the jury reached a "not guilty" verdict. Since so many people liked the idea of the Ideal Maternity Home they did no want to see William and Lila go to jail.

· Unlawfully advertising babies in the newspaper;

If a baby was born "imperfect", meaning it had a defect or a sickness, they were only fed molasses and water. They would get a small amount of iron, sugar, and vitamins and minerals necessary for survival. On a diet of molasses and water, a baby will die within a few weeks. This was done to increase space in the Home for more babies. The dead babies were either buried in butterboxes that were 22 inches long, ten inches wide and ten inches deep- just the right size for the little corp

Some common words found in the essay are:
Maternity Home, Charles Longley, William Lila, Medical Act, Ralph Smith, Butterbox Babies, Edward Corkum, Child Welfare, Lila William, Margaret Nieforth, maternity home, ideal maternity, ideal maternity home, william lila, · unlawfully, butterbox babies, east chester, home william lila, lila william, written novel, baby born, baby adoption, · unlawfully boarding, maternity home william, using title doctor,

Approximate Word count = 1310
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English