MaryVale Orphanage

[DudleyWinchurch]

Thank you all so much for helping me out on this one. I love the photographs and I will try the Birmingham Archives to see if they have admission records. It's fascinating to think that my orphans may have been taught by Dudley's great aunt!
I know the eldest left there when he was 17 to go to Canada and he gave the orphanage as the address of next of kin - his sister would have been 14. Do you know what kind of education they received Dudley? I know the boys had industrial training but what about the girls?
I will also try and find Saint Chad's archive.
Thanks again. Much appreciated 

Sorry, my memories are pretty vague.  I was only about five at the time of the visit so we were sent to play with what would have been reception class aged kids.  I remember them having a playroom like a more modern play-group with big apparatus to climb on, but the children did not think that "outsiders" should play with their things and one kicked me!  I think the occasion was my great-aunts 50th anniversary as a nun and there was cake but that's early 1950s.  I can't imagine that my g-aunt was still teaching then as she would have been nearly 80 but in those days I don't think that nuns retired as such, just had less duties.

Also, I tried to find information about her at St Chad's Archives but was unsuccessful.  That doesn't mean that they won't have anything but I wasn't able to find anything useful.  I think that there may be lists of the nuns elsewhere (catholic history society?).  I don't know where school records would be, but if you find them I have a friend whose mother was there for a while so would be very interested.

[DudleyWinchurch]

Just adding a link, in case you want to see what my great-aunt (and her sisters) looked like.

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,323005.90.html

I would imagine the picture of her was taken on the day when she took her vows.

[dillonking]

Thank you so much Dudley for that. I loved the link by the way and it seems highly likely that my first cousins once removed were pupils of hers! I have the picture in colour too that someone did for you. It is wonderful. What name did she go by?

Thank you everyone for the links - I will try them out tomorrow as I don't have time tonight and if I turn something up I will let you know.

[DudleyWinchurch]

My great-aunt took the name Sister Mary Gertrude when she became a nun.  I am pretty sure that the Order were Sisters of Mercy, the same as the nuns who later taught me.

She was already at the Convent by 1901 but I think that she must have been a novitiate for several years or else I was much younger than I thought when I met her on her 50th anniversary and doubt that I would have any memories at all of it.

[dillonking]

Hi Dudley,
My cousin who is a direct descendant of Cousin Bill who would have entered the orphange aged 3 in 1912 told me that her father did not have happy memories of his time there. He had a brother aged 8 and two sisters aged 6 and 5. The boys were separated from the girls and they were never allowed to talk to each other even if they were brother and sister. Oh well, different times, different manners. I'm sure by 1950 things had moved on somewhat. Seeing your great aunt smile makes me think she was one of the nice nuns - I was also at convents all my life and in general the smiling nuns were lovely nuns - (but sometimes too rare!)
You are right the nuns in this orphanage were the Sisters of Mercy.

[James Macdonald]

The 1891 census records a 13 year Lizzie McLoughlin at the Mary Vale Orphanage and records her having been born in the Knaresborough district in Yorkshire. I am pretty sure this is my great grandmother (Elizabeth Mary McLoughlin) who had been in workhouse in crimple, yorkshire until her mother died in 1882. I would love to get hold of any admissions records to see if anything corroborating this is her and any records of where she might have gone afterwards, as nothing is know about her until she gave birth to my grandmother in Portugal in 1912, by which stage she was a fluent German and Russian speaker. If anyone can give me any ideas on where i might find those admission records etc, it would be much appreciated.