Case Files
St. Monica’s did not keep comprehensive case notes for every woman to pass through its doors, but the home did record enough information regarding its patients to give some idea of who they were, and of the kind of struggles which they encountered. Such details, though, were sometimes overshadowed, if not in reality then at least in the home’s record keeping, by the religious concerns of its staff. These concerns, and the other biases of the authors of these files, need to be taken into account when engaging with the the following excerpts.
Please note: what you see below is only a small sample of the available case records.
Perhaps inevitably, the above case records raise more questions than they provide answers. But, even from such short descriptions, the difficulties that many of the home’s patients faced are striking. Poor housing conditions, limited financial means, infant mortality, social disapproval; these are recurrent themes not just in the above cases but through all of the notes which the notes which St. Monica’s compiled. Yet, the independent spirit and resilience of many of the mothers being described is also evident, reminding the reader not to think of these women as passive victims, but as agents, capable of managing their lives own albeit in hostile circumstances.
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