Assisi Mother & Baby Homes

[Treetotal]

Hi MC2919 and welcome to RootsChat, so pleased for you and your Mum and that it was a happy ending for you both, thanks for sharing.
Carol

[Prue Heron]

Hello. I am a volunteer researcher for an adoption agency who carries out searches on behalf of adopted adults trying to trace birth family. I have a particularly difficult search at thee moment on behalf of an adopted adult with some life-limiting health issues. Your posts from a few years ago show you had an interest in the mother and baby home in Churt. The place my adopted adult was born was called The Grange, which was in Hindhead and Churt, according to the birth certificate. This seems to be extremely close to the home you talked about in your posts. My question to you is whether the home you refer to could have gone under the name of The Grange, and whether they may be one and the same? I would appreciate any information you can offer. Many thanks. Gail B.

Hi Gail, sorry not able to answer your questions but also interested in the location.  I was also born at The Grange  (1947)and keep wondering the same.  I have a postcard sent from there that I found online.  Would be very interested to know if it is the same place. 

[NatsWSC]

Does anyone with a history at Assisi remember a young Irish girl called Maureen Brosnan who was there and gave birth to a boy on the 7th of March 1967?  Or another young Irish girl, Elizabeth Kelly, who gave birth to a baby boy on 2 March 1967, also at Assisi? 

[laurenjournalism]

Hello everyone,
I am writing an article about Mother and Baby homes and would love for people to share any stories I can include or information. It is for my university coursework and I am struggling to find as much research as I would have hoped. Please message me directly if possible best wishes x

[Kari276]

Hello to all,

I hope you are keeping well? I have been researching my family history and I was born in Assisi House in 1968.  I have heard some horrific stories about the house.  I know that my Mother was left for three days in labour until the Nuns finally intervened.  My Great Aunt had a baby in 1939/1940 and was subjected to enormous cruelties there and we finally found out that her baby was shipped off to America and sold to a family there.  I am trying to trace her at the moment.  I have helped a few people trace their BMs.

[rosinamangan]

You might want to call it something as well as Assisi as along with the Saint, it's a place and just having a quick search, there's a lot of Assisi on FB.

[Padmo]

MC 2019,  having checked RootsChat a number of times for Assisi Mother & Baby Homes, and having read some horrible reports, I was so happy to see that your mom had had a positive experience. I too was treated well at Assisi, and I don't recall anyone who was there with me at that time complaining.l was there in 1962, perhaps we had different nuns during my stay, but I certainly did no hard labor of any kind. One or two nuns may have been a little taciturn at times, but they had their hands full caring for us. We were able to look after our babies, and received valuable assistance in caring for them. I carried much of that knowledge into raising my later children. I had a difficult delivery, and had to be transferred to a hospital in Guilford.  At the rear of the house there was a veranda outside the nursery, and we would wheel the babies cots outside for some fresh air. Occasionally prospective adoptive parents would be allowed to look at the babies. My son was not up for adoption how ever, and I left Assisi early, having had folks eyeing my son one too many times.

[KarenTJ1167]

Hello. I was born in the 1960's, in Alton, Hampshire, at a mother and baby home. Would this be the Assisi home? For some reason I recall my parents (adoptive) referencing St. Joseph's Children's hospital and Catholic Children’s Homes. Am I on the right feed? I would like to start tracing my biological family.

[rosinamangan]

Yep. I always thought it should be called St Francis rather than St Joseph because there's a St Francis of Assisi but the Home was St Joseph. Sorry for the brief reply.