September 10, 1920

On September 10, 1920, my grandfather Alexander Andrew Gow and grandmother Daisy stepped on United States soil for the first time at Port Huron, Michigan. They had traveled aboard the Grand Truck railroad from Brant to Sarnia, Ontario, on their way to a new life in Los Angeles, California.

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My Grandmother was a Barnardo Child

Christmas came early to my house this week. A long-awaited package containing my Grandmother Daisy’s file of the time she spent in the Barnardo’s Children Home during the early 1900s finally arrived. I ordered the file a little over a year ago and had almost forgotten about it. Imagine my surprise when I found a rather large envelope in my mailbox with a British return address, labeled “private and confidential.” At last, the story of my grandmother’s custody in one of the most well-known child welfare organizations was about to unfold.