Our Lady of Mercy Home, Waitara

Our Lady of Mercy Home was established in 1928 and was formerly known as Waitara Foundling Home and usually just as Waitara. The Home cared for children from birth to the age of 15, and from 1970, children aged 7-12. It also housed unmarried mothers. Our Lady of Mercy Home Waitara was replaced by the Mercy Family Life Centre in 1977.

The change in name from Waitara Foundling Home to the Our Lady of Mercy Home in 1928 reflected that the children it housed were not necessarily orphans.

From 1940 onwards, the Sisters began to take into care unmarried mothers who were awaiting the birth of a child. There was a home at Waitara for 40 young pregnant women, who received medical help and social assistance. During this period, the Home also had accommodation for twenty babies awaiting adoption and it was closely linked with the Mater Misericordiae Hospital.

Babies for adoption lived at Waitara for about a month, although some with disabilities or social disadvantages stayed longer. Care was also available for children up to seven years of age whose families had been disrupted temporarily by illness or separation.

In 1962 there were about 70 children in residence at Waitara. The Sisters of Mercy responded to new understandings of child care by adding a preschool, dividing the home into four units and building a free-standing cottage home in 1966, with a married couple as house parents. This housed eight children.

In 1963 the McAuley Mothercraft Training School, for mothercraft nurses, was developed on the site. Young lay women worked alongside the Sisters, caring for babies and young children in the Home.

Our Lady of Mercy Home was officially closed in 1977 and demolished so the land could be sold. The Mercy Family Life Centre opened in new buildings on another part of the site.

Our Lady of Mercy Home, Waitara, was mentioned in the Commonwealth Contribution to Former Forced Adoption Policies and Practices Report (2012) as an institution that was involved in forced adoption. One woman who was at Waitara in the mid 1960s wrote in her submission that at Waitara, “my physical needs were certainly looked after, but emotionally and psychologically – nothing … We had duties at the home and we looked after the young children there from around 6.00am to 6.00pm, six days per week”. She describes not being permitted to leave the grounds of the institution except on day visits with family members. “There was little conversation, except for some chatter among the girls at times. There was a strict adherence to lights out and other requirements and no excuses for not completing one’s duties – except if ill and on the attending doctor’s advice” (submission 373).