'They gave me stability': One woman's account of time at Mount Herbert Orphanage

A New Brunswick woman has published an account of her 10 years at P.E.I.'s Mount Herbert Orphanage.

Charmaine MacInnis-Lynch spent her earliest years in Halifax but moved into Mount Herbert in 1958, when she was eight years old. Her mother had just died of cancer and her father, suffering from PTSD from serving in the Second World War, could not care for her and her four siblings.

She and three of her siblings ended up atthe Mount Herbert Orphanage, just outside of Charlottetown, with the youngest child being taken in by an uncle and aunt.

Allegations of abuse

The Mount Herbert Orphanage operated from 1902 to 1976.

There are allegations of physical, mental and sexual abuse, and of poor care provided for the children, through almost the orphanage's entire history.

In December 2012, the province and the Protestant Children's Trust, the operators of the orphanage, provided a $486,400 settlement to former residents after a court case that went on for almost 11 years.

• Former P.E.I. orphanage residents get settlement

'I miss it'

But that's not the place MacInnis-Lynch remembers.

We talked about thestrappings.- Charmaine MacInnis-Lynch

"They gave me stability, discipline. They gave me health care, dental care, things I never had before I went in there. I had a bed to sleep on, my own bed," she said.

"I thought I'd died and went to heaven. I miss it. I really do. That's where I developed my relationship with God."

Based on memories, diaries

The children did not talk to each other about sexual abuse, MacInnis-Lynch said, but she does remember the strap.

"We talked about the strappings, but my Daddy told me if we obeyed the rules and regulations and kept our space clean we would not get strapped," she said.

"I didn't always do that and I did get strapped."

MacInnis-Lynch's book is based not only on her memories, but on diaries she started keeping when she was 11 years old.

The book is self-published, and the proceeds will go to the Canadian Mental Health Association and Saint John the Baptist Anglican Church in Riverview, N.B.

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