With little to occupy my time, I ordered one of the books I had come across during my brief inquiry into the Foundling Hospital. Written by a former chief executive of the institution, it was a quick read, and soon I purchased another, this one by an academic and historian. Each page was dense with facts and statistics chronicling the early years of the hospital, and I would sit on my back porch, turning the pages slowly as I listened to the chorus of frogs that lived among the ferns and bromeliads, occasionally glancing up to see a lizard scamper across the burnt-orange Saltillo tiles.
Eventually I heard back from Coram. A woman named Val confirmed what I had already suspected: my mother had been raised in the Foundling Hospital under the name of Dorothy Soames. Val provided me with some general information—a timeline, a confirmation of my mother’s stay at the institution. If I wanted to know more, I would need to come back to London to look at the files in person.
Months passed as I stalled on making any kind of decision, the contents of the books I’d read fading away in my mind. I was beginning to imagine that my dive into the Foundling Hospital’s history had been a momentary diversion, a fleeting detour into some mildewing family archives, when Patrick nominated Barcelona as his destination of choice for our annual getaway.
“We could stop off in London first,” I responded, the words spilling from my mouth without forethought. “There’s a direct flight,” I added, as if I were indifferent to the outcome, my suggestion only a matter of logistics.
Looking back, I don’t believe that I consciously decided to return to London to research my mother’s past. Why would I? The five years since my mother had died had been calm, even peaceful.
Nothing would be served by stirring up the past.
During the summer days of my youth, I’d taken riding lessons at an equestrian center nestled below the ridge that ran from Santa Cruz to San Francisco. After hours of demanding instruction, I would sneak away and ride through the labyrinth of trails that crisscrossed the adjacent hills and mountains. The sun would soon disappear as I followed the well-worn bridle path through a gap in a stand of giant redwoods. I would ride aimlessly for hours, no map or plan to guide me, turning onto one path or another, enticed by the way a root curved along the ruts and grooves worn down by rain, the bend of a tree limb, or how a ray of dwindling sunshine snuck through the canopy to cast a shadow on a flowering bush, all of it demanding further investigation. The air was cool and damp, and in the dappled light, I would let the reins go lax. Allowing my steed to choose the path, I would stroke her wide neck as if to encourage her to make her own choice, content to see where she would take me next. When I lifted my chin toward the sky, I could see only ancient trees towering over me. And without any conscious aim or desire on my part, there I would be.
Deep in the forest.
That is how my journey began—without a blueprint or master plan, or any carefully weighed options. Yet once our plane landed in London that second time, there would be no turning back.
After a fitful night of rest at our hotel, I found myself in the lobby of Coram, in the heart of Bloomsbury, a fashionable area of central London. I anxiously tapped my feet, glancing nervously over at Patrick as a woman approached us with a purposeful gait, a file folder tucked under one arm. Her gray hair was thick and wavy, with white tresses that cascaded around her face. Her attire was understated and professional, an unassuming button-down blouse and a simple wool skirt. She introduced herself as Val, and while up until that time we had exchanged only emails, I felt instantly at ease in her presence. She smiled sympathetically as she greeted me, as if she knew that my journey of discovery would not be easy.
She led me to a small room, then placed the file folder carefully on a table. I recalled her earlier words of caution about managing my expectations, not to hope for much. Still, my heart beat a little faster when I noticed that the folder was several inches thick. I tried not to look at it as we exchanged pleasantries about my flight.
“We can make copies to take with you, if you’d like. And after you have looked at the files, we can head over to the museum.”
Once Val had stepped out of the room, Patrick put his arm around my shoulders and squeezed. I took a breath and turned my attention to the file, which seemed to pulse with anticipatory energy. As I began gently spreading out the thick stack of documents yellowed with age, my eyes fell on a bundle of letters dating back to the 1930s. Some were delicately handwritten in thick black ink, faded with time and difficult to decipher. Other letters were more formal, usually a sentence or two, with no name, just the word Secretary typewritten where a signature would be. There were a few photos interspersed among the letters, and what appeared to be reports, some several pages in length.
On some of the letters, I could make out a signature: Lena Weston. The first name didn’t ring any bells. But the last name did. It was my mother’s maiden name, and my stomach churned at the sight of those six familiar letters.
I’d never heard my mother mention anyone named Lena. Then again, I’d rarely heard my mother mention anyone beyond the immediate sphere of our neighborhood, my school, and my father’s office. From time to time she mentioned a friend who lived in Europe, but I knew little about her—only that her name was Pat.
There were too many files to review, and the feeling in the pit of my stomach gave me the sense that I’d be better off examining the contents on my own, somewhere private. After flagging a stack of promising documents for Val to copy, we walked over to the Foundling Museum, located just a few steps away at 40 Brunswick Square. The Georgian-style brick building, once the site of the Foundling Hospital’s administrative offices, had been turned into another kind of public institution: a place for the curious to learn about the history of the hospital and the “foundlings” who were raised there.
A foundling, I’d learned over the course of my initial research, was not an orphan. And the Foundling Hospital was neither a hospital nor an orphanage.
An orphan was a child whose parents were dead, whereas a foundling likely still had parents, somewhere. Perhaps due to poverty, or more likely because of illegitimacy, those parents had given their child over to the care of the Foundling Hospital. Which meant that, despite its name and the fact that it did provide medical care, the “hospital” was more akin to an orphanage. The term foundling was technically a misnomer in the case of the children who’d ended up at the institution, for only a child who had been abandoned could be properly described as a foundling. For most of the hospital’s history, admissions were limited to children who were personally handed over by a parent, following a rigorous process of review.
The files I’d begun to thumb through contained some early clues, in the form of a document on parchment, from an era before ballpoint pens and mechanical typewriters. “The Foundling Hospital” was written across the top in elegant calligraphy; just underneath was a simple title in block print—“Rules for the Admission of Children.” As I scanned the document, my eyes lingered on a few choice phrases: previous good character, in the course of virtue, the way of an honest livelihood. I would learn more later.
At the museum I wandered through exhibits on the daily life of the foundlings, photos of identically dressed children filling row after row of a chapel. There was a small black iron bed, along with a display of the uniforms that the children were required to wear. They hung neatly in a row, on rounded pegs. The serge cloth was thick and coarse, a homely russet brown, chosen as a symbol of poverty, humility, and, as I would later learn, disgrace.