Jean Leach

541 Days Road, Kingston, ON K7M3R8, CA

The Reclamation Project: The Value of Living Life at the Helm

Stories of life in an institution and the voices that closed them

Jean Leach

I went to live at Rideau Regional Centre (RRC) at the age of 10 in 1951 after living in foster care. I don’t know why I was sent there.

I lived on a ward with lots of other kids who were looked after by nurses. There were many beds and cribs and it was noisy and difficult to sleep.

I only spoke French at the time but I wasn’t allowed to speak French at RRC and because of that I was teased by the other kids. There were no other kids who spoke French, so I felt very alone. When it came time to go to school, I would hide under my bed because I couldn’t speak English and all the other kids would laugh at me. They never forced me to go and I regret not learning to read and write.

I remember some of the activities I would do at RRC when I was a child. I would watch TV, play games, and go outside to play in the playground. We celebrated special occasions and the kids all got birthday cakes on their birthday. I got a radio for Christmas one year. I also went on outings to town for shopping, or to the chocolate factory.

As I got older I started working in the institution. My jobs included working in the maintenance department doing laundry and folding. I got a little bit of pay and could spend it at the canteen on snacks.

I had a couple of good friends at RRC but I never kept in touch with them after I left.

I always had the choice of whether I wanted to work or not. In the laundry department, the staff left me alone a lot. Once when I was alone in the laundry room, a maintenance man who worked at RRC raped me. I got pregnant, carried the baby boy to term and after giving birth I was told that the baby was stillborn. They didn’t let me see the baby or go to the cemetery where it was buried. I was not even allowed to name it. I reported the rape to head office but the man was not fired and I had to see him around the building all the time because I still worked while I was pregnant. There were others who were pregnant while living there and I always wondered if they were raped too.

When I felt upset about things, I did have supportive staff to talk to when I felt the need. I particularly remember talking to Dr. Bruce McCreary. Years later Dr. McCreary took me to the cemetery to see if we could find my baby’s grave. When we got there we found several graves of babies from RRC. They were marked only with iron bar crosses but there were no names. They didn’t have the nerve to put their names on the graves. When I went up to the graves, I just guessed which one was my little boys’. I touched them all and tied ribbons on most of them because I just didn’t know. This made me feel very sad. I still think about this little boy and I’m still sad about it today. I would have named him Robert. I know I wouldn’t have been able to keep him if he would have lived. They would have taken him away from me. I was surprised to see so many other graves and I’ve often wondered if all of the babies born there were murdered.

My nerves were really bad at RRC and I would feel better speaking to Dr. McCreary. Sometimes I would get upset and angry, and yell at the staff about the way I was treated. When I did this I was given cold packs, where I was put in a nighty, wrapped in sheets, placed on ice and dumped with cold water. This was routinely done to settle people down. I was given a cold pack when I was around 8 months pregnant. I truly believe that this is why my baby was stillborn.

When I lived on the ward, I had my own things and my own dresser. I had privacy to use the bathroom and was left alone to have my baths. We would all go to the dining room for meals but the food was awful. Everyone complained about the food. The dining room was crowded and people would steal food while you were trying to eat. The staff just stood and watched. When I moved to the residences beside the institute, I shared the living quarters with one other person. We would go to the cafeteria in the building for our meals but we could have toast and snacks in our residence.

In my spare time, I would go for walks or watch TV. Most of the time I would stay in my room and close my curtains for privacy but there were always staff and other residents walking in to our place.

After I left RRC I was placed in my own apartment with another person that I knew from RRC. I had my own room and we shared a bathroom. I didn’t choose to live with this woman and we didn’t get along, so we argued a lot. The other woman often had family visiting her and I did not. But I liked it here and I liked to come and go as I pleased. I worked at a local hotel in the laundry. It was much better pay than at RRC. I taught myself to cook and I ate a lot of macaroni because it has always been one of my favourites.

I moved from this residence to another apartment in Smiths Falls, this time on my own. I had a job doing housekeeping at a hotel. In my apartment building everyone treated me nicely. I really enjoyed my independence. I would go out on my own to the laundromat or to the movies, and I did my own shopping. If I needed rides, I would take a taxi. I stayed with the same psychiatrist after I left RRC and I had a doctor in the community

While I was there, I had a relationship with a man from Smiths Falls, who used to look after my apartment. I later found out that he was married. His family came to see me one day. They cornered me in the lobby of my building and began yelling at me and threatening me. I was afraid and I thought they were going to stab me. Because of this, I decided to move to Kingston.

I came to Kingston on the bus. I lived in public housing, alone, and I liked it a lot. I had a job as a chamber maid in a hotel and it was hard work as I had to work very fast. I met a man and had my son Danny. I also had a little girl but she had a hole in her heart and never made it out of the hospital. My relationship broke up after Danny was born.

While I was doing housework, I met 2 people who worked at Community Living Kingston and District. They helped me and Danny, and he went to live in one of their group homes at the age of 6 or 7. Danny is now in his 40’s and is still supported by Community Living Kingston (CLK) in Semi-independent living (SIL). Once in a while, we meet for coffee at Tim Horton’s.

I think that the Children’s Aid Society never should have put me into RRC in the first place. Lots of people ended up there who shouldn’t have. It’s not a place to put people.

I’ll never forget what happened to me, and to other people that were put in there too. The government gave us money for everything that happened to us while we lived there, but I think that no amount of money or apologies will ever be enough for what they did to me.