Butterbox Babies

“Lovely Babies For Adoption” is what the advertisement for the Ideal Maternity Home and Sanitarium versed to many couples unable to bear children beginning in the late 1920’s.Although the ad held true as to the children, the operation of this business was far from lovely.Originally designed as a sanitarium for the sick, the hospital soon became a birthing facility.Operating without any supervision, the facility was a place of joy for couples adopting an infant, but a place of shame and despair for unwed mothers.

Lila Gladys Coolen met and married William Peach Young in 1925.William was an unordained seventh-day Adventist minister and Lila, also of the same faith, was a teacher in Fox Point, Nova Scotia.After being married, the couple left Nova Scotia to return to school in Chicago.William attended the National College of Chiropractic, while Lila pursued a degree at the National School of Obstetrics and Midwifery.In February of 1928, the Youngs opened The Life and Health Sanitarium out of their four bedroom cottage.

Lila began delivering babies and within a year, the facility had been renamed The Ideal Maternity Home and Sanitarium and it;s sole purpose became a birthing facility and adoption center for unwed mothers. During this time, Canadian and US laws were similar in banning the use of birth control or the performance of abortions.This left many women banished and shamed from their homes and communities because of illegitiment pregnancies.With the creation of this facility, many unwed mothers saw an opportunity to keep their secret from society.

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A newspaper advertisement placed by the Youngs, was carefully written and geared to lure women in.It read: ;Dame gossip has sent many young lives to perdition after ruining them socially,that might have been BRIGHT STARS in society and a POWER in the world of…