Tag Archives: memoirs

  • 0

Supreme Court of Newfoundland – Appellant Mary Francis Dinn – 1992

Category:Creative Writing,Foster Care,Memoirs,Newfoundland,Non Fiction,Writing Tags : 
The Match Still Burns by Judith Mallard

I have to say – this is the most supportive statement I have read that perfectly described this Appellant. “A sadistic, remorseless person who now happens to be old.” I find no comfort when reading “Guilty on all accounts.” This woman who Children Services once described as:

4-7-68: One of the very best homes.

20-10-69: Excellent Home.

14-5-70: Continue to provide excellent care & service for all their children.

6-4-71: W.O. feels this is an Excellent F.H. Children receiving lost of love & care.

This sadistic, remorseless person was granted care of forty-six children in a ten year span. And she was found guilty on five counts. What about the other forty-one. The walking wounded.


  • 0

“I suspect there is another file…”

Category:Child Advocacy,Creative Writing,Foster Care,Memoirs Tags : 
The Match Still Burns by Judith Mallard

I was five years old. Someone decided that mattered enough to open a file. To remove me from the only home I ever knew.

Decades later I went looking for answers. Not justice. Not confrontation. Just… the beginning. Where it started. Why.

What I found was a file that knew I existed but not how I got there. A ward of the province. Where, when, and under what circumstances: unknown. Placed in a home. Why: unknown.

Unknown. The word appears so casually. As if a child’s origins are a minor administrative gap rather than the whole story.

And then this: “I suspect there is another file.”

They suspect.

Somewhere there is a file that knows what this one won’t say. And nobody thought that mattered enough to find it.

In writing.