Review: A Touching Memoir
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 01 14, 2011
During the Depression Terry Silver and her 4 siblings were turned over to a Catholic orphanage when their parents could no longer raise them. The nuns who ran the Orphanage, for the most part, should not have been allowed to have contact with children. Ever. The children were abused physically, psychologically, and spiritually. The author seems to have been an unusually intelligent and spirited child, which caused the nuns to single her out for even worse treatment. All of the children were bombarded with religious training guaranteed to make them feel guilty and think even less of themselves. One of the incidents that most stood out for me was the cruel April Fool's "joke" played on the hungry children. This incident clearly shows the mean spirit and the insensitivity to the children's needs and, like so many other little cruelties inflicted on the innocent children in the orphanage, must have been terribly damaging to young psyches.The book is told in a straightforward chronological manner that makes it easy to keep track of what is going on. I would have liked for the author to tell more about some of the other children she encountered growing up in both the Catholic orphanage and the Soldiers and Sailors and maybe expand on how they coped, but perhaps too many years had passed by the time she wrote her memoir.I would hope that things have changed for the better by now. I know that some children who were wards of the state were treated very badly even in the sixties.As others have said, this book really is a must read for anyone who works in the field of child care or teaching.