What do you think?
Rate this book
The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames
“Far from growing up in the wealthy, fox-hunting circles she had always suggested, her mother had in fact been raised in a foundling hospital for the children of unwed women.”—Editors’ Choice, The New York Times Book Review
Justine had always been told that her mother came from royal blood. The proof could be found in her mother’s elegance, her uppercrust London accent—and in a cryptic letter hinting at her claim to a country estate. But beneath the polished veneer lay a fearsome, unpredictable temper that drove Justine from home the moment she was old enough to escape. Years later, when her mother sent her an envelope filled with secrets from the past, Justine buried it in the back of an old filing cabinet.
Overcome with grief after her mother’s death, Justine found herself drawn back to that envelope. Its contents revealed a mystery that stretched back to the early years of World War II and beyond, into the dark corridors of the Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young Children. Established in the eighteenth century to raise “bastard” children to clean chamber pots for England’s ruling class, the institution was tied to some of history’s most influential figures and events. From its role in the development of solitary confinement and human medical experimentation to the creation of the British Museum and the Royal Academy of Arts, its impact on Western culture continues to reverberate. It was also the environment that shaped a young girl known as Dorothy Soames, who bravely withstood years of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of a sadistic headmistress—a resilient child who dreamed of escape as German bombers rained death from the skies.
Heartbreaking, surprising, and unforgettable, The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames is the true story of one woman’s quest to understand the secrets that had poisoned her mother’s mind, and her startling discovery that her family’s fate had been sealed centuries before.
Justine had always been told that her mother came from royal blood. The proof could be found in her mother’s elegance, her uppercrust London accent—and in a cryptic letter hinting at her claim to a country estate. But beneath the polished veneer lay a fearsome, unpredictable temper that drove Justine from home the moment she was old enough to escape. Years later, when her mother sent her an envelope filled with secrets from the past, Justine buried it in the back of an old filing cabinet.
Overcome with grief after her mother’s death, Justine found herself drawn back to that envelope. Its contents revealed a mystery that stretched back to the early years of World War II and beyond, into the dark corridors of the Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young Children. Established in the eighteenth century to raise “bastard” children to clean chamber pots for England’s ruling class, the institution was tied to some of history’s most influential figures and events. From its role in the development of solitary confinement and human medical experimentation to the creation of the British Museum and the Royal Academy of Arts, its impact on Western culture continues to reverberate. It was also the environment that shaped a young girl known as Dorothy Soames, who bravely withstood years of physical and emotional abuse at the hands of a sadistic headmistress—a resilient child who dreamed of escape as German bombers rained death from the skies.
Heartbreaking, surprising, and unforgettable, The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames is the true story of one woman’s quest to understand the secrets that had poisoned her mother’s mind, and her startling discovery that her family’s fate had been sealed centuries before.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published January 12, 2021
About the author
Justine Cowan
1 book60 followersBorn and raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, Justine grew up wandering through California’s majestic redwood forests. She became a passionate environmentalist, and has spent most of her career working to protect our nation’s natural resources.
Justine lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband Patrick, along with their cat Mingus (who joined the family after he was discovered sleeping on their bed), and their border collie Charlie Bucket (who was an instant foster fail).
Justine is grateful to her readers and enjoys interacting with them through book clubs and social media. Visit her website at www.justinecowan.com to learn more about how to schedule a virtual visit for your next book club gathering.
Justine lives in Atlanta, Georgia with her husband Patrick, along with their cat Mingus (who joined the family after he was discovered sleeping on their bed), and their border collie Charlie Bucket (who was an instant foster fail).
Justine is grateful to her readers and enjoys interacting with them through book clubs and social media. Visit her website at www.justinecowan.com to learn more about how to schedule a virtual visit for your next book club gathering.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 272 reviews
April 14, 2022
The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames was released in paperback earlier this month. Justine Cowan, the author, raised in a wealthy home with no idea her often times unstable mother had grown up in a “foundling hospital” in England. Talk about a secret to hold a lifetime. That in and of itself could have been a story, but one of the things I loved most is how well-rounded this book is. It’s a satisfying exploration not only of Justine and her mom’s lives; it’s also a well-researched accounting of the history of the Foundling Hospital and a social study of the children who lived in a cold, dysfunctional, and often abusive institution.
Cowan does not find out this was how her mother grew up until after she passed away. I ached for her not knowing this significant part of her mom’s formative years; perhaps offering her some understanding and even forgiveness. But what I’m left with most is this is Justine Cowan’s story to tell, it’s been her journey to walk, and everyone’s experience is uniquely their own. You can’t judge someone’s feelings unless you’ve lived it. While my parents’ stories are nothing like that of what happened here, the mother-daughter relationship dynamic added insight into my own role in parental relationships. I’m grateful for that.
Overall, The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames is a perfectly written, fascinating, deeply personal, and heartrending story. It could not have been easy to share.
I received a gifted copy.
Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader
Cowan does not find out this was how her mother grew up until after she passed away. I ached for her not knowing this significant part of her mom’s formative years; perhaps offering her some understanding and even forgiveness. But what I’m left with most is this is Justine Cowan’s story to tell, it’s been her journey to walk, and everyone’s experience is uniquely their own. You can’t judge someone’s feelings unless you’ve lived it. While my parents’ stories are nothing like that of what happened here, the mother-daughter relationship dynamic added insight into my own role in parental relationships. I’m grateful for that.
Overall, The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames is a perfectly written, fascinating, deeply personal, and heartrending story. It could not have been easy to share.
I received a gifted copy.
Many of my reviews can also be found on my blog: www.jennifertarheelreader.com and instagram: www.instagram.com/tarheelreader
April 26, 2022
Truly heartbreaking. Definitely not an uplifting or happy read if that is what you are looking for. To be honest I felt like something was off. The writing or the emotion behind the writting...I'm not sure. I had a strange feeling about it. Almost unsettled. Other people may really enjoy it.
February 24, 2021
Rating: 3.5
In this competently written work—a combination of biography, memoir, and social history— Justine Cowan reflects on the life of her difficult, emotionally disturbed mother, Eileen, the “Dorothy Soames” of the book’s title. Shortly after her birth in January 1932, the infant Eileen was placed by Lena Weston, her unwed mother, in London’s Foundling Hospital, where she was promptly renamed Dorothy Soames. The institution, dating back to the 1700s, was founded by British sailor, shipbuilder, and philanthropist Thomas Coram as a refuge for illegitimate children. The original idea was that these poor unfortunates would be clothed, fed, housed, and trained for service (to the wealthy)—the boys, for a life at sea; the girls, for domestic service. Cowan demonstrates that although Dorothy’s bodily and medical needs were met, she and the other foundlings were deprived of essential emotional support and affection. In fact, some of the staff—most of whom were unmarried older women unable to find better employment—were downright sadistic. A teacher, Miss Woodword, was a particular terror to Dorothy from the time the girl was eight or nine years old. This woman beat Dorothy publicly and mercilessly. Once she even removed her from class for some mysterious infraction, only to throw her in the deep end of the on-site pool, using the long rescue pole to dunk the girl back under the water each time she struggled to the surface. The Foundling Hospital’s matron, Miss Wright, was another menacing figure. Carrying a leather strap, she regularly patrolled the corridors of the institution on the lookout for misbehaving girls. Solitary confinement was a practice adopted by the hospital long before Dorothy’s time, after one of the institution’s prominent governors wrote a pamphlet on the matter. Miss Wright reserved this most dire of punishments for Dorothy, whom she regarded as a bad seed. Numerous times the woman had the child locked up in cupboards, closets, and storerooms.
Justine Cowan was told none of these details verbally by her mother. When she was growing up, questions about Eileen’s past were strictly verboten. Justine was acutely aware that her mother had secrets. These appeared to be related to her being robbed of her standing as a descendant of the Welsh aristocracy. A demanding, hypercritical woman, Eileen was certainly preoccupied with social status. Also an accomplished pianist and painter, she was determined to produce a well-turned-out daughter. In childhood, the author had music and horseback-riding lessons. Private tutors for any number of subjects, including penmanship, regularly came to instruct Justine in the family home located in a desirable San Francisco neighbourhood. During her teenage years, Justine would go on to attend a prestigious boarding school. All bills were footed by her adored father, a prominent San Francisco attorney. Compliant with all of his wife’s wishes, he was the peacemaker, whose role in the family’s intense dysfunction would only become clear to Justine much later in life.
Given the childhood trauma she endured, Eileen had tremendous difficulty nurturing her daughter. Eileen was evidently mentally unstable—at times, even suicidal. During one episode, Justine’s father called her home from college in Berkeley to keep an eye on her mother, as he was due in court. Eileen couldn’t be left alone, he said. On that day the woman pressed a scrap of paper with the name “Dorothy Soames” into her nineteen-year-old daughter’s hand. Justine did not probe to find out the significance of the name. In fact, she soon put as many miles as possible between herself and her disturbed parent, moving from California to the southeastern US where she pursued a law degree and work in environmental protection. Communication and family visits were infrequent. As the years passed, Eileen attempted to broach the subject of her childhood, but her daughter, who had tallied a long list of resentments and allowed anger to harden into a protective carapace, refused to engage with her. A manuscript that Eileen eventually presented to Justine, documenting her experiences at the Foundling Hospital, was left unread for many years. In fact, it was only after a happy, later-in-life marriage and Eileen’s death from Alzheimer’s Disease that Justine begin to research her mother’s story.
Cowan’s book moves back and forth between her own growing-up years, her mother’s story, and the history of the Foundling Hospital. She’s clearly read and synthesized a great deal of information on the latter. It’s my impression that the history of institution rather drowned out the more personal story in the first half of the book. Abundant details about the Foundling Hospital and its governors became tedious to me and at times seemed irrelevant to Eileen/Dorothy’s story. I think a quarter of the book could safely have been cut. The pace improved considerably in the second half. Cowan does manage to sympathetically and imaginatively present what she learned about her mother and grandmother, Lena Weston, from the Foundling Hospital’s records. However, this is no substitute for a personal, emotionally resonant oral history from her mother. I found that the book, especially in earlier sections, often read like a research project, an academic exercise. Eileen—“Dorothy Soames”—did not fully live on the page.
This is a sad story in so many ways. First of all, there’s the tragedy of women alone bearing the deep shame, stigma, and burden of pregnancies that they were obviously not solely responsible for. Unwed mothers seeking to place their infants at the Foundling Hospital had to undergo a lengthy process to determine if they were of good enough character to merit the privilege of having their illegitimate offspring accepted. Part of the procedure involved being interviewed and judged by the wealthy male governors. Later, when many of these women found themselves in a better financial situation and sought to reclaim their children, they were almost always denied; the governors knew best.
Cowan’s book also reminds us of another kind of sadness. Often we don’t appreciate until later in life what some difficult people we have known may have endured, their hardship and emotional pain. While understandable, it seems deeply unfortunate, even tragic to me, that Cowan and her mother could not have somehow bridged their fraught relationship so that peace of some kind could have been achieved while Eileen was still alive. Cowan’s book is a brave and honest effort to come to terms with how the harms inflicted on one person ripple down to the next generation.
In this competently written work—a combination of biography, memoir, and social history— Justine Cowan reflects on the life of her difficult, emotionally disturbed mother, Eileen, the “Dorothy Soames” of the book’s title. Shortly after her birth in January 1932, the infant Eileen was placed by Lena Weston, her unwed mother, in London’s Foundling Hospital, where she was promptly renamed Dorothy Soames. The institution, dating back to the 1700s, was founded by British sailor, shipbuilder, and philanthropist Thomas Coram as a refuge for illegitimate children. The original idea was that these poor unfortunates would be clothed, fed, housed, and trained for service (to the wealthy)—the boys, for a life at sea; the girls, for domestic service. Cowan demonstrates that although Dorothy’s bodily and medical needs were met, she and the other foundlings were deprived of essential emotional support and affection. In fact, some of the staff—most of whom were unmarried older women unable to find better employment—were downright sadistic. A teacher, Miss Woodword, was a particular terror to Dorothy from the time the girl was eight or nine years old. This woman beat Dorothy publicly and mercilessly. Once she even removed her from class for some mysterious infraction, only to throw her in the deep end of the on-site pool, using the long rescue pole to dunk the girl back under the water each time she struggled to the surface. The Foundling Hospital’s matron, Miss Wright, was another menacing figure. Carrying a leather strap, she regularly patrolled the corridors of the institution on the lookout for misbehaving girls. Solitary confinement was a practice adopted by the hospital long before Dorothy’s time, after one of the institution’s prominent governors wrote a pamphlet on the matter. Miss Wright reserved this most dire of punishments for Dorothy, whom she regarded as a bad seed. Numerous times the woman had the child locked up in cupboards, closets, and storerooms.
Justine Cowan was told none of these details verbally by her mother. When she was growing up, questions about Eileen’s past were strictly verboten. Justine was acutely aware that her mother had secrets. These appeared to be related to her being robbed of her standing as a descendant of the Welsh aristocracy. A demanding, hypercritical woman, Eileen was certainly preoccupied with social status. Also an accomplished pianist and painter, she was determined to produce a well-turned-out daughter. In childhood, the author had music and horseback-riding lessons. Private tutors for any number of subjects, including penmanship, regularly came to instruct Justine in the family home located in a desirable San Francisco neighbourhood. During her teenage years, Justine would go on to attend a prestigious boarding school. All bills were footed by her adored father, a prominent San Francisco attorney. Compliant with all of his wife’s wishes, he was the peacemaker, whose role in the family’s intense dysfunction would only become clear to Justine much later in life.
Given the childhood trauma she endured, Eileen had tremendous difficulty nurturing her daughter. Eileen was evidently mentally unstable—at times, even suicidal. During one episode, Justine’s father called her home from college in Berkeley to keep an eye on her mother, as he was due in court. Eileen couldn’t be left alone, he said. On that day the woman pressed a scrap of paper with the name “Dorothy Soames” into her nineteen-year-old daughter’s hand. Justine did not probe to find out the significance of the name. In fact, she soon put as many miles as possible between herself and her disturbed parent, moving from California to the southeastern US where she pursued a law degree and work in environmental protection. Communication and family visits were infrequent. As the years passed, Eileen attempted to broach the subject of her childhood, but her daughter, who had tallied a long list of resentments and allowed anger to harden into a protective carapace, refused to engage with her. A manuscript that Eileen eventually presented to Justine, documenting her experiences at the Foundling Hospital, was left unread for many years. In fact, it was only after a happy, later-in-life marriage and Eileen’s death from Alzheimer’s Disease that Justine begin to research her mother’s story.
Cowan’s book moves back and forth between her own growing-up years, her mother’s story, and the history of the Foundling Hospital. She’s clearly read and synthesized a great deal of information on the latter. It’s my impression that the history of institution rather drowned out the more personal story in the first half of the book. Abundant details about the Foundling Hospital and its governors became tedious to me and at times seemed irrelevant to Eileen/Dorothy’s story. I think a quarter of the book could safely have been cut. The pace improved considerably in the second half. Cowan does manage to sympathetically and imaginatively present what she learned about her mother and grandmother, Lena Weston, from the Foundling Hospital’s records. However, this is no substitute for a personal, emotionally resonant oral history from her mother. I found that the book, especially in earlier sections, often read like a research project, an academic exercise. Eileen—“Dorothy Soames”—did not fully live on the page.
This is a sad story in so many ways. First of all, there’s the tragedy of women alone bearing the deep shame, stigma, and burden of pregnancies that they were obviously not solely responsible for. Unwed mothers seeking to place their infants at the Foundling Hospital had to undergo a lengthy process to determine if they were of good enough character to merit the privilege of having their illegitimate offspring accepted. Part of the procedure involved being interviewed and judged by the wealthy male governors. Later, when many of these women found themselves in a better financial situation and sought to reclaim their children, they were almost always denied; the governors knew best.
Cowan’s book also reminds us of another kind of sadness. Often we don’t appreciate until later in life what some difficult people we have known may have endured, their hardship and emotional pain. While understandable, it seems deeply unfortunate, even tragic to me, that Cowan and her mother could not have somehow bridged their fraught relationship so that peace of some kind could have been achieved while Eileen was still alive. Cowan’s book is a brave and honest effort to come to terms with how the harms inflicted on one person ripple down to the next generation.
January 15, 2021
The perfect blend of memoir and historical nonfiction, this book did not disappoint. One of my all time favorite books is The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls so when I saw it compared I have to admit I was intrigued. The last time I ventured into that comparison (Educated) it didn’t work out so well for me.
Like Walls, Justine Cowan uses her journey into her mother’s past as a quest for healing. I believe with understanding comes compassion and healing.
The author gives us well researched and heartbreaking insight into The Founding Hospital where her mother was raised. It’s a story of how shame can shape and alter our life course.
Available now, I think fans of Glass Castle or Before We Were Yours will find this story unforgettable.
Like Walls, Justine Cowan uses her journey into her mother’s past as a quest for healing. I believe with understanding comes compassion and healing.
The author gives us well researched and heartbreaking insight into The Founding Hospital where her mother was raised. It’s a story of how shame can shape and alter our life course.
Available now, I think fans of Glass Castle or Before We Were Yours will find this story unforgettable.
March 30, 2021
I really don't know what to think of this book. The story of Dorothy Soames upbringing in the House for Foundlings is very sad, even though she is one of the 'lucky' ones who escaped. It was a truly horrible childhood, akin to some of the residential schools for Canadian First Nation children. My heart went out to this little girl, who still managed to keep a bright and rebellious streak through it all.
My issue is with the daughter, the author of the book, who strikes me as a very self centered and conceited woman. Is there anything worse than someone who grows up very privileged and then, as an adult, is embarrassed by their childhood. Though I notice the author brings it up numerous times, only to be followed with how amazingly self-sacrificing she is, using her Berkley law degree to defend the environment for poor financial compensation. Of course, she also mentioned more than once that her parents were obviously still supporting her , providing bailouts upon request. She also talks about how horrible her mother was, though her examples seem more akin to slightly more dramatic mother/daughter issues most mothers and their daughters go through in the teen years. Nothing truly horrible is ever revealed, certainly nothing on the level her mother endured, but the author still has no love or respect for her, even at the end of the book when she is aware of all her mother has endured. She can't find it in her heart to at least forgive her mother. She even goes so far as to indicate that her father was scared of his wife and really wanted out of the marriage. Her father was gone at the time this book was published, so he could not contradict this. But I did notice that the author made absolutely no mention of the relationship between her elder sister, whom she is estranged from (seems to be a theme with her relationships) and her mother. Makes me wonder if her sister would have provided a different or more nuanced view of their mother which didn't mesh with the tragic story about herself that the author was trying to create.
I even wonder at the author's motives for writing the book. She says her mother prepared a manuscript for publishing, but it that true? Did her mother prepare the manuscript as a way of purging herself of the horrors of her past instead and the author saw this as an opportunity to get one final dig in, to make public the past her mother spent her life trying to hide? The author spends significantly less time trying to find out how her mother reinvented herself in the years between when she left the foundling house and when she married, where she learned to speak with a posher accent, write with an elegant hand, play the piano, etc. The book instead focuses on the years in the house when her mother would have been viewed as a pariah in society as an illegitimate child.
Overall, the story would have been better with Dorothy's voice by itself, and less vitriol from her spoiled daughter.
My issue is with the daughter, the author of the book, who strikes me as a very self centered and conceited woman. Is there anything worse than someone who grows up very privileged and then, as an adult, is embarrassed by their childhood. Though I notice the author brings it up numerous times, only to be followed with how amazingly self-sacrificing she is, using her Berkley law degree to defend the environment for poor financial compensation. Of course, she also mentioned more than once that her parents were obviously still supporting her , providing bailouts upon request. She also talks about how horrible her mother was, though her examples seem more akin to slightly more dramatic mother/daughter issues most mothers and their daughters go through in the teen years. Nothing truly horrible is ever revealed, certainly nothing on the level her mother endured, but the author still has no love or respect for her, even at the end of the book when she is aware of all her mother has endured. She can't find it in her heart to at least forgive her mother. She even goes so far as to indicate that her father was scared of his wife and really wanted out of the marriage. Her father was gone at the time this book was published, so he could not contradict this. But I did notice that the author made absolutely no mention of the relationship between her elder sister, whom she is estranged from (seems to be a theme with her relationships) and her mother. Makes me wonder if her sister would have provided a different or more nuanced view of their mother which didn't mesh with the tragic story about herself that the author was trying to create.
I even wonder at the author's motives for writing the book. She says her mother prepared a manuscript for publishing, but it that true? Did her mother prepare the manuscript as a way of purging herself of the horrors of her past instead and the author saw this as an opportunity to get one final dig in, to make public the past her mother spent her life trying to hide? The author spends significantly less time trying to find out how her mother reinvented herself in the years between when she left the foundling house and when she married, where she learned to speak with a posher accent, write with an elegant hand, play the piano, etc. The book instead focuses on the years in the house when her mother would have been viewed as a pariah in society as an illegitimate child.
Overall, the story would have been better with Dorothy's voice by itself, and less vitriol from her spoiled daughter.
October 14, 2020
I was lucky enough to be a beta reader of this book. I read it in a matter of hours, then recently read an updated version. The history of foundlings and in particular, the experiences of the author's mother, are truly fascinating. Cowan does an excellent job of weaving together her difficult and troubled personal history with her own mother with the shocking and heartbreaking information she learned of her mother's background, well after her mother's death. It's a gripping, truly engrossing tale, full of interesting and rather shocking history. I'll be recommending this book to all my friends.
January 24, 2021
I am grateful to Justine Cowan for writing this painful and difficult biography of her mother's life. It's hard to believe that human beings — children — can be so ill-treated, so unloved, so uncared for, and so disrespected, as was her mother's childhood experience. Cowan's brutal honesty might provide strength to all of us children who, like Justine, and like Dorothy, suffered from the cruelty described as she reveals her mother's regrettable story. "Without tenderness and security in early childhood, the ability to form meaningful and healthy attachments is irrevocably damaged" was my very own mother's childhood reality. Cowan's discoveries lit a lightbulb for me that finding forgiveness is never too late.
February 5, 2021
This was ok, but it felt like because there were so many missing pieces in her mom's story, she had to fill it up with the history of the Foundling home, which was interesting, but not that interesting. Also on and on and on about not liking her mom. Final thing, Sir Hans Sloane -- pretty sure he would be Sir Hans, not Sir Sloane.
February 16, 2021
I feel bad but I just can't. Sounded like a good story and I think there is a good story in there but I'm not feeling it. Maybe I'm wrong but I felt like there was a bunch of repetition with explanations about what makes a disreputable young woman and what foundlings were and this hospital/children's home. I got it the first time. I bet this book gets better but I may never know.
December 26, 2022
I have often shed a few tears over the years while reading literally thousands of stories but this true memoir had me sobbing as I read the last chapter. I found it incredibly moving to learn about the foundlings and the story also touched me in a personal way. As a child during World War II and evacuated four separate times to four different families it was a revelation for me to discover that the after effects the foundlings experienced being taken away from their mothers at an early age, causing anxiety and emotional issues in later life, paralleled those of evacuees. Having suffered from anxiety all my life I felt enormous empathy for the foundlings and what they went through. Another aspect of the story that touched me was the toxic relationship the author had with her mother and, in spite of her relentless journey to uncover her mother's past and the reason for the distance between them, it was too late the wounds were too deep. For anyone born in the 1930's this book will be of particular interest but, because it reveals so much about the period and the years preceding with regard to the treatment of unwanted children, I highly recommend it for it's historical content.
March 28, 2021
A family wound, the adult daughter Justine Cowan forever scarred by an apparently unloving and patently mercurial mother and the history unbeknown, waiting to be unearthed... this excellent memoir is part mystery and part history and in the end, achieves some small redemption for its writer. The practice in Britain with “foundlings” up until the 1950s was shocking, and quite outside my ken- a reminder that the world of “haves and have nots” has existed for hundreds of years, shaped differently by politics- and those influences continue to have a powerful bearing in society.
As Britain abandoned the fief system, and more individuals became landowners, the practise of primogeniture became solidified. This meant that illegitimate children had no chance of recognition by their fathers, a fight for land ownership at stake with legitimate heirs- and these children were cast into Britain’s streets to fend for themselves. These “lost children” were in peril, sometimes caught in dragnets and subjected to whims of many powers, if they didn’t die of starvation and disease in the streets. Thomas Corman in 1735 took up their cause, with an extraordinary institution: Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Children, and enrolled many in his new facility. Charles Dickens was supportive of his cause, and alluded obliquely to it in Oliver Twist.
Justine Cowan’s mother, born in 1931, became a product of this system which had evolved into something complicated, harsh and soul destroying. (I was continually reminded of the model being so much like the one employed in Residential Schools, in North America, where children were removed from families and housed remotely, raised by arrogant staffers.). The children were renamed- so Eileen, Justine’s mother, became Dorothy Soames.
The antipathy between Justine and her very dysfunctional mother never resolved while her mother was alive, but upon her death Justine began to question who her mother had been, the discrepancies which were cropping up from the past, the idiosyncrasies which suddenly had meaning from the one occasion that her mother had tried to tell her about being a “foundling”.
This memoir reads like a detective story, as the author pieces fragments of her mother’s and the Foundling Hospital’s history into a cohesive picture. Child welfare practices in Britain changed, in part, due to the foundling care... and the author builds a remarkable story around Dorothy Soames, the complexity of two hundred year old system and the people it affected.
Very well researched and a deeply personal story. Strong four stars.
As Britain abandoned the fief system, and more individuals became landowners, the practise of primogeniture became solidified. This meant that illegitimate children had no chance of recognition by their fathers, a fight for land ownership at stake with legitimate heirs- and these children were cast into Britain’s streets to fend for themselves. These “lost children” were in peril, sometimes caught in dragnets and subjected to whims of many powers, if they didn’t die of starvation and disease in the streets. Thomas Corman in 1735 took up their cause, with an extraordinary institution: Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Children, and enrolled many in his new facility. Charles Dickens was supportive of his cause, and alluded obliquely to it in Oliver Twist.
Justine Cowan’s mother, born in 1931, became a product of this system which had evolved into something complicated, harsh and soul destroying. (I was continually reminded of the model being so much like the one employed in Residential Schools, in North America, where children were removed from families and housed remotely, raised by arrogant staffers.). The children were renamed- so Eileen, Justine’s mother, became Dorothy Soames.
The antipathy between Justine and her very dysfunctional mother never resolved while her mother was alive, but upon her death Justine began to question who her mother had been, the discrepancies which were cropping up from the past, the idiosyncrasies which suddenly had meaning from the one occasion that her mother had tried to tell her about being a “foundling”.
This memoir reads like a detective story, as the author pieces fragments of her mother’s and the Foundling Hospital’s history into a cohesive picture. Child welfare practices in Britain changed, in part, due to the foundling care... and the author builds a remarkable story around Dorothy Soames, the complexity of two hundred year old system and the people it affected.
Very well researched and a deeply personal story. Strong four stars.
April 16, 2021
I find it upsetting that the author, Justine Cowan, a child of privilege, had little use for her mother while she was alive, yet decides to profit from her mother's sad life after her death.
The author's injection of history to drag out her mother's sad story was more about trying to add historical value to a story she didn't deserve to tell.
As a memoir, it was far too self-serving for the author. My hope is that she will find time for other activities, rather than trying to profit from her mother's unfortunate life. May Dorothy Soames rest in peace.
The author's injection of history to drag out her mother's sad story was more about trying to add historical value to a story she didn't deserve to tell.
As a memoir, it was far too self-serving for the author. My hope is that she will find time for other activities, rather than trying to profit from her mother's unfortunate life. May Dorothy Soames rest in peace.
October 15, 2020
Definitely a fits the nonfiction that reads like fiction. Except if this was fiction, I would say the mother character was unbelievable. Would be a great choice for book clubs, because there is plenty to discuss.
January 25, 2021
Brutal, I had no idea what the life of a founding was like. Profound sadness on so many levels.
February 13, 2021
More plodding than I had hoped, but still enjoyable.
February 3, 2023
Very well done. The tension between mothers and daughters is pretty common, particularly in the teen years. Mothering is hard work. I've sat in enough memoir workshops to know that mom's take a beating, even the good loving ones. So many ways to go wrong...In this story, the writer outlines the life-long tension with her mother who years earlier had sent a draft memoir to her. The daughter never read it until her mother's dementia was stealing thoughts and memories. When she did it launched her into a research project, discovering her mother's past. Her mother had been given up for adoption, her grandmother too young and too poor to take care of her at a time when women didn't have choices. When her family refused to keep the child, arrangements had to be made. The child was handed over to the Foundling orphanage, through the war, through cruelty and isolation. As the writer uncovered her mother's past, she found compassion and understanding for the unwanted child and the flawed mother she became.
February 3, 2022
Ok so the story of Dorothy Soames is an amazingly heartbreaking story. The story of the author, Justine Cowan, feels amazingly incomplete. As a mother to two small girls, it broke my heart to hear the cruelty Dorothy experienced as a little girl. I did feel like we were only hearing an extremely filtered part of Justine’s story, and never felt that we understood the root of her dislike of her mother. Which is fine, we aren’t entitled to all her inner thoughts, except oh wait! This is a memoir of her mother and their relationship. Anyways for those that like memoirs this is worth a read: 4 stars to the story of Dorothy but 1 to the revelations of Justine.
April 12, 2021
This was a very interesting look at a subject I knew nothing about - foundling hospitals. The most interesting parts were about Dorothy's experiences as a child. Less so were the author's details about her childhood. That did come together in the end though, when the author, after learning about her mother's history, was more sympathetic to why she was the way she was.
I read an advance copy from Edelweiss.
I read an advance copy from Edelweiss.
March 6, 2022
Four stars plus. A remarkable story of the author’s mother, blended with the history of England’s Foundling Hospital, founded in mid-18th century, shuttered in 1954. The true purpose and shattering psychological effects of that institution on the children who were voluntarily given up to its “care,” is masterfully revealed through the author’s examination of her relationship with her mother, the secrets to which her mother ferociously guarded, and the seemingly inscrutable family dynamics of the author’s childhood, teen, and young adult years.
November 5, 2020
I was lucky to receive an advance copy of this book. It reads like a mystery as Ms. Cowan researches her mother’s history, and I continue to wonder about the pieces of her life that were left missing. The historical elements were fascinating and I loved the small details interwoven throughout the story. Ultimately Ms. Cowan’s acceptance of her mother was a welcome resolution. I recommend this to people who enjoy memoirs, history, and mysteries.
December 17, 2020
The Secret Life of Dorothy Soames
A Memoir
by Justine Cowan
Harper
You Like Them You Are Auto-Approved
Biographies & Memoirs
Pub Date 12 Jan 2021 | Archive Date 09 Mar 2021
I did not enjoy reading this book. There was too much information about mental illness which I feel could have been made into a narrative. Thanks to Harper and NetGalley for the ARC. I will not be recommending this one to our patrons.
2 star
A Memoir
by Justine Cowan
Harper
You Like Them You Are Auto-Approved
Biographies & Memoirs
Pub Date 12 Jan 2021 | Archive Date 09 Mar 2021
I did not enjoy reading this book. There was too much information about mental illness which I feel could have been made into a narrative. Thanks to Harper and NetGalley for the ARC. I will not be recommending this one to our patrons.
2 star
September 23, 2020
This was not a book for me. There was way too much extraneous information about mental illness for my liking.
March 20, 2022
I had to skim/skip some chapters because lots of violence/abuse/torture. And yes although the book doesn’t use the word “torture”, the definition precisely fits many scenes.
April 13, 2021
Anyone who has researched family history knows its mythic nature. Events occur that are hidden deep in the skeleton closet; ancestral behavior doesn't conform to the rectitude learned at the dining table. In most cases these are minor incidents that reveal our humanity—our flawed natures—and our hope to appear as pristine. As a rule they leave only minor damage as they travel through our heads and our lives.
But not so in The Secret World of Dorothy Soames (2021), Justine Cowans' memoir of her mother "Dorothy Soames." What makes this a sad story is that both Justine and "Dorothy" contributed to the train wreck that their relationship became: Dorothy through her overt behavior and Justine through her more passive-aggressive path. But while it's a sad story, it's also surprisingly riveting as a compelling picture of a place (Britain), an era (the 1930s and earlier) and an institutional environment (an orphanage without orphans). It paints vividly the remarkable damage that can be done to the young, and then to their young.
"Dorothy" was the illegitimate daughter of Lena Weston—an early-depression Briton with a heavy load and nowhere to out it. In 1932, when she gave birth to "Dorothy," Lena lived in post-WWI Britain, a world where the males her age had been decimated on the battlefield. She had no skills and no man on the horizon. Her parents were dead, her only sister had moved to America, and her only local relative was a brother, a farmer, for whom she worked until he threw her out when she became pregnant after a two-week stand with a stranger.
The Britain of that time was morally righteous, institutionally rigid, and male-dominated. Young women who couldn't keep their legs closed were abhorred in public and, of course, enjoyed in private. A birth out of wedlock was a sin on society and banishment was a just punishment. The infant Lena bore in 1932 might have met the fate of many such: left in an out-of-the-way place to die alone.
But Lena made a perhaps more unhappy choice: she left "Dorothy" with London's Foundling Hospital, officially named The Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young Children. There "Dorothy" received her name, and there she stayed until 1944 when Lena returned to reclaim her.
Formed in 1739 by a shipbuilder named Thomas Coram, the Foundling Hospital was England’s first secular charity and had survived for almost 200 years as a steadfast caretaker of unwanted children. It was specifically not an orphanage—the parents were alive; the children were just unwanted. While the Foundling Hospital was a caretaker, it was far from a nurturing institution. It's charges lived a regimented life that filled the basic needs of shelter and food, instilled unreasonable moral codes, and left the soul blackened.
When they were discharged the "foundlings" had experienced years of beatings, solitary confinement, and contempt. They left with no family stories to guide them, and with the history, even mythical, to guide them. They entered as innocents, they left as empty shells.
The Foundling Hospital was not just a charitable organization, it was a largely self-financed business: one founding governor estimated that each child was worth £176—a handsome sum in those days when prices were far lower. Children left with the Foundling Hospital spent their first five years in the care of foster parents who presumably received a fee for their services.
Regardless of the bond of affection between the child and the foster parents, or the foster parents' willingness to continue caring for the child, at the five-year mark the child return to the Hospital for training in lower-class occupations: girls would learn to sew and housekeep; boys would learn to do maintenance, repair things, and prepare for a life in the military or as a laborer. A few years later they would get day-release for apprenticeships.
Cowan’s description of early-Twentieth century English mores is alarming. Everything, including the Foundling Hospital, was run by men who held to a moral code that seems vicious when viewed from this day: extreme rectitude was honored, but it could be breached by men. Women were ornamental and forgiveness was a thing of the future. A fallen woman was a scar on society and their unwanted children would be repeatedly reminded that they were unwanted.
The Foundling Hospital's children were certain of only one thing: they were not wanted. "Dorothy" lived her life claiming royal ancestry, talking about ancestral property in England that had been stolen, intently focused on social status, and insistent on absolute perfection. She adopted an aristocratic British accident and became the charming belle of every party.
In the 1950s she moved to America and married a wealthy Tennessee lawyer. They moved to San Francisco where they lived in a posh area of while "Dorothy" strutted her stuff. There she viciously persecuted her husband and her children, at one point acknowledging her cruelty in a note to Justine:
Justine Cowan, born in 1966, grew up detesting her emotionally cold, anger-heated, hypercritical, dictatorial, social climbing mother. Her father, John Cowan, ever the lawyer, always pleaded with Justine to "make peace" as if broken relationships were subject to rules of engagement, though at one point he responded to a question about his excessive allegiance to "Dorothy" that she would make his life hell if he disobeyed. Justine simply would not do cave in; every meeting was a contest in which both adversaries lost; every contact was a rejection. Justine found that distance from her mother was great solace. Finally she agreed to visit once a year.
Justine's first hint of something unusual in her mother's history was when once she came home to a disoriented mother waving a notebook in front of her. The strange name "Dorothy Soames" was repeatedly scrawled in Eileen Cowan's notebook. She never pursued this with her mother. In her later years "Dorothy" tried to tell Justine about her early life. She first wrote a letter; Justine didn't read it. Then she sent a 50-page memoir; Justine hid it in a file drawer and didn't read it until after "Dorothy" died.
"Dorothy's" death threw Justine for a loop and finally—too late for "Dorothy"—she flipped from total disinterest in her mother to deep interest. Now that her mother was removed from the equation, she filled her place with extensive research into her life. She read both the letter and the memoir; she travelled to London and immersed herself in The Foundling Hospital's records.
There she found a horror story in a record of child abuse that would easily lead to imprisonment today. "Dorothy" was beaten at every mis-step, every imperfection was cause for punishment. A special abuser was Miss Woodward, a young teacher who once caned "Dorothy" for an unwise made a comment; the bruises that lasted for weeks. Miss Woodward went on to nearly drown Dorothy in the Hospital's swimming pool. When Miss Woodward died from leukemia the children lined up and marched theough the Hospital shouting
The behavior Justine reports is precisely what her mother had learned at the Foundling Hospital. "Dorothy" knew it was wrong, even leaving Justine a note saying,
Justine has the good grace to appreciate that she was not just an innocent bystander in this train wreck. She tells us,
But not so in The Secret World of Dorothy Soames (2021), Justine Cowans' memoir of her mother "Dorothy Soames." What makes this a sad story is that both Justine and "Dorothy" contributed to the train wreck that their relationship became: Dorothy through her overt behavior and Justine through her more passive-aggressive path. But while it's a sad story, it's also surprisingly riveting as a compelling picture of a place (Britain), an era (the 1930s and earlier) and an institutional environment (an orphanage without orphans). It paints vividly the remarkable damage that can be done to the young, and then to their young.
"Dorothy" was the illegitimate daughter of Lena Weston—an early-depression Briton with a heavy load and nowhere to out it. In 1932, when she gave birth to "Dorothy," Lena lived in post-WWI Britain, a world where the males her age had been decimated on the battlefield. She had no skills and no man on the horizon. Her parents were dead, her only sister had moved to America, and her only local relative was a brother, a farmer, for whom she worked until he threw her out when she became pregnant after a two-week stand with a stranger.
The Britain of that time was morally righteous, institutionally rigid, and male-dominated. Young women who couldn't keep their legs closed were abhorred in public and, of course, enjoyed in private. A birth out of wedlock was a sin on society and banishment was a just punishment. The infant Lena bore in 1932 might have met the fate of many such: left in an out-of-the-way place to die alone.
But Lena made a perhaps more unhappy choice: she left "Dorothy" with London's Foundling Hospital, officially named The Hospital for the Maintenance and Education of Exposed and Deserted Young Children. There "Dorothy" received her name, and there she stayed until 1944 when Lena returned to reclaim her.
Formed in 1739 by a shipbuilder named Thomas Coram, the Foundling Hospital was England’s first secular charity and had survived for almost 200 years as a steadfast caretaker of unwanted children. It was specifically not an orphanage—the parents were alive; the children were just unwanted. While the Foundling Hospital was a caretaker, it was far from a nurturing institution. It's charges lived a regimented life that filled the basic needs of shelter and food, instilled unreasonable moral codes, and left the soul blackened.
When they were discharged the "foundlings" had experienced years of beatings, solitary confinement, and contempt. They left with no family stories to guide them, and with the history, even mythical, to guide them. They entered as innocents, they left as empty shells.
The Foundling Hospital was not just a charitable organization, it was a largely self-financed business: one founding governor estimated that each child was worth £176—a handsome sum in those days when prices were far lower. Children left with the Foundling Hospital spent their first five years in the care of foster parents who presumably received a fee for their services.
Regardless of the bond of affection between the child and the foster parents, or the foster parents' willingness to continue caring for the child, at the five-year mark the child return to the Hospital for training in lower-class occupations: girls would learn to sew and housekeep; boys would learn to do maintenance, repair things, and prepare for a life in the military or as a laborer. A few years later they would get day-release for apprenticeships.
Cowan’s description of early-Twentieth century English mores is alarming. Everything, including the Foundling Hospital, was run by men who held to a moral code that seems vicious when viewed from this day: extreme rectitude was honored, but it could be breached by men. Women were ornamental and forgiveness was a thing of the future. A fallen woman was a scar on society and their unwanted children would be repeatedly reminded that they were unwanted.
The Foundling Hospital's children were certain of only one thing: they were not wanted. "Dorothy" lived her life claiming royal ancestry, talking about ancestral property in England that had been stolen, intently focused on social status, and insistent on absolute perfection. She adopted an aristocratic British accident and became the charming belle of every party.
In the 1950s she moved to America and married a wealthy Tennessee lawyer. They moved to San Francisco where they lived in a posh area of while "Dorothy" strutted her stuff. There she viciously persecuted her husband and her children, at one point acknowledging her cruelty in a note to Justine:
I'm grateful and proud that despite my bad parenting you managed to become a remarkable person.But she simply couldn't stop herself from repeating the lessons she'd learned in her twelve years at the Foundling Hospital.
Justine Cowan, born in 1966, grew up detesting her emotionally cold, anger-heated, hypercritical, dictatorial, social climbing mother. Her father, John Cowan, ever the lawyer, always pleaded with Justine to "make peace" as if broken relationships were subject to rules of engagement, though at one point he responded to a question about his excessive allegiance to "Dorothy" that she would make his life hell if he disobeyed. Justine simply would not do cave in; every meeting was a contest in which both adversaries lost; every contact was a rejection. Justine found that distance from her mother was great solace. Finally she agreed to visit once a year.
Justine's first hint of something unusual in her mother's history was when once she came home to a disoriented mother waving a notebook in front of her. The strange name "Dorothy Soames" was repeatedly scrawled in Eileen Cowan's notebook. She never pursued this with her mother. In her later years "Dorothy" tried to tell Justine about her early life. She first wrote a letter; Justine didn't read it. Then she sent a 50-page memoir; Justine hid it in a file drawer and didn't read it until after "Dorothy" died.
"Dorothy's" death threw Justine for a loop and finally—too late for "Dorothy"—she flipped from total disinterest in her mother to deep interest. Now that her mother was removed from the equation, she filled her place with extensive research into her life. She read both the letter and the memoir; she travelled to London and immersed herself in The Foundling Hospital's records.
There she found a horror story in a record of child abuse that would easily lead to imprisonment today. "Dorothy" was beaten at every mis-step, every imperfection was cause for punishment. A special abuser was Miss Woodward, a young teacher who once caned "Dorothy" for an unwise made a comment; the bruises that lasted for weeks. Miss Woodward went on to nearly drown Dorothy in the Hospital's swimming pool. When Miss Woodward died from leukemia the children lined up and marched theough the Hospital shouting
Hurray! Hurray!Lena was far from disinterested in her daughter's welfare. She wrote frequent letters to "Dorothy" but the only responses were the Hospital's assurance that her daughter was doing "quite well." Finally, after years of begging, Lena reacquired her daughter in 1944; she lived until 1973, still unmarried. Justine, age seven at Lena's death, never met or even heard of her grandmother.
Miss Woodward died today!
The behavior Justine reports is precisely what her mother had learned at the Foundling Hospital. "Dorothy" knew it was wrong, even leaving Justine a note saying,
I'm grateful and proud that despite my bad parenting you managed to become a remarkable person.But she simply couldn't stop herself from repeating the lessons she'd learned in her twelve years at the Foundling Hospital.
Justine has the good grace to appreciate that she was not just an innocent bystander in this train wreck. She tells us,
As a daughter I had only one job—to honor the woman who’d brought me into this world. She’d kept up her end of the bargain, after all, performing all of her motherly duties. She bore me, she disciplined me without ever raising a hand to me, she clothed me and tucked me in each night. In return, I shunned herClearly, there were at least two tragic figures in this history, Lena and "Dorothy." And there were three victims: Lena, "Dorothy," and Justine.
March 23, 2023
I guess i was hoping for something different with this book. Justine Cowan writes about her mother. thoughout justine's life her mother was a mystery to her. She describes having a difficult upbringing. by her adulthood she was estranged from her mother except for seeing her about once a year. in justine's adult years she came across some papers written by my mother. This is when she learned about her mother's secret life as a child. Her mother was born to a single mother in 1932. Her mother was forced to give up her daughter who was placed in a foster family for five years. At five she was turned over to the foundling home where she lived until age 12. Although the author gives a history of the foundling home, there really is not much about the home and what is was life for her the seven years she lived there. The author gives some details of her mother's life there but not as much as I hoped to read. I bought this book because i thought it would have been interesting to learn more about the foundling home from a person who actually lived there. she used some of her mother's notes. she also spent a lot of the book writing what it was like being the daughter of a difficult mother. okay at best.
Read
March 3, 2021I was fascinated. The very talented author wrote a book that was full of facts and figures that read like a novel. As a “disinterested party” I was brought into Ms Cowans very personal unveiling of a taboo - she hated her mother. We aren’t supposed to hate our mothers yet it’s got to be the hardest relationship. As she unravelled the sad sad story of “Dorothy Soames” her beliefs and feelings changed. Not a complete 180 but so relatable. And makes me sad to think what has been lost of my mother’s and both grandmother’s stories. I just was told my Granny, along with her siblings and mother, were in a workhouse after her Dad was sent to prison. How did that shape her? And her son, my Dad? And maybe even me?
September 28, 2021
I enjoyed this memoir of a daughter coming to terms with her mother's long-kept secret of being raised as an illegitimate child in London's Foundling Hospital and her lifelong attempt to hide that fact. I was left with one major question: given that the mother actually did confess all of this history to Cowan -- who just chose not to read about it when her mother presented her with a memoir; they were estranged -- what on earth did the sister think about any of this? The sister sort of lingers at the side of this memoir but we never get much of a sense for whether her relationship with their mother was similar or completely different? Did she ever talk about the foundling hospital with their mother? It would seem not, but I never really knew for sure.
June 27, 2021
The author shares her research about the secrets her mom has kept since childhood. For years they have had a troubled relationship and she seeks answers to why they've never gotten along. She discovers the conditions of her mom's life in the Foundling Home in England during WWll. As each layer of Dorothy's life is revealed, she finds healing, love, and forgiveness.
This memoir was a reading group selection.
This memoir was a reading group selection.
October 1, 2022
I learned a lot more than I expected to about the lives of children in British foundling homes. This was a sobering and heartbreaking book; it demonstrated how much children expect from their parents without being aware of the things their parents have experienced and endured, how important it is to communicate. How sad that the author of this memoir found the information she needed to forgive her mother only after her mother was dead.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 272 reviews