Mahone Bay Old School_A Life and Times_Bob Sayer

1965-66: Life after the Ideal Maternity Home: Lila Young
In one of those peculiar footnotes to history, Lila Young came to Mahone Bay to teach
grade five. Lila, from Fox Point, had gained notoriety as the co-owner, manager and
obstetrician of the “Butterbox Babies” scandal at the ironically named Ideal Maternity
Home for ‘unwed mothers’ in East Chester.
Lila Gladys Coolen, who had taken teacher training, had married William Peach
Young and moved to Chicago, where in 1927, William, a medical evangelist,
graduated from the National College of Chiropractic, and Lila graduated from the
National College of Obstetrics and Midwifery. Their return to East Chester and
establishment of the Ideal Maternity Home, specialising in maternity and adoption
services, largely for unwed mothers, has become the subject of bestselling books, TV
documentaries and folklore [particularly about unreported baby deaths and their burials
in butterboxes from LaHave Creamery ]. Concerns about criminal negligence and the
legality of adoptions led to criminal investigations, court cases and fines. After over
twenty years of operation, the business was finally closed in the 1950s.
Bonnie Veinotte, one of her students, remembers her as big-bosomed and gushing,
and her report card reflects that. Betty Walsh taught with her and remembers there
was awareness and tolerance, that Lila was “a strange woman who developed no close
relationships.” Karl Nauss, presently a town councillor, remembers an elderly lady, with
a wart on her nose, who did a lot of sitting, and was always getting Robin Dunham, who
had a sweet voice, to sing.
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Lila Young’s Grade 5 Class
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