Dark Poutine - True Crime and Dark History

The Ideal Maternity Home: Butterbox Babies

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Episode notes

Episode 157 - From the late 1920s until after the Second World War, Lila and William Young ran the Ideal Maternity Home and Sanitarium for Unwed Mothers at East Chester, Nova Scotia. The pair have been referred to as ‘baby farmers’ who sold healthy newborns to wealthy couples with the means to pay and left the less viable to die of starvation. Estimates are that more than 100 and as many as 400 to 600 babies may have died in their care. Many of these deceased infants were quietly buried in wooden butter boxes at various sites around the area, while it is believed that others may have been disposed of in the nearby Atlantic Ocean.

Co-host: Carol Browne

Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideal_Maternity_Home
https://canadiancrc.com/Butterbox-Babies_Killers-Child-Trafficking-Canada/Butterbox_Survivors.aspx
https://canadiancrc.com/Butterbox-Babies_Killers-Child-Trafficking-Canada/Butterbox-Babies-Baby-killers-child-trafficking-selling-babies-Canada-adoption-story.aspx
https://murderpedia.org/female.Y/y/young-gladys-lila.htm
http://archive.macleans.ca/article/1995/1/9/maternal-damnation
https://www.amazon.ca/Butterbox-Survivors-Robert-Hartlen/dp/1551092905
https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/184030298/eva-margaret-nieforth
https://www.scribd.com/read/238627429/Deadly-Duos
https://www.scribd.com/read/350837071/True-Crime-Confidential-Volume-4-True-Crime-Confidential-4#b_search-menu_662236
https://www.scribd.com/read/230097379/Cold-North-Killers-Canadian-Serial-Murder
https://web.archive.org/web/20010606012612/http://www3.ns.sympatico.ca/bhartlen
http://bastards.org/nova-scotia https://commons.allard.ubc.ca/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=emeritus_pubs

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