See and hear ‘The Voices of St. Joseph’s Orphanage’ at Waterbury’s state office building
May 17, 2023 | By Cheryl Casey | CorrespondentVisitors have until Tuesday to see and hear the multi-media exhibition, “The Voices of St. Joseph’s Orphanage,” in the atrium of the State Office Complex in Waterbury. The series of 19 posters containing photographs and printed information with access to audio recordings tells a story of abuse, accountability and amends from the perspectives of surviving residents of St. Joseph’s Orphanage in Burlington in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The exhibit is displayed in a series of posters with images, written materials, and computer codes to access audio recordings of survivors telling their firsthand stories. Photo by Cheryl Casey
The orphanage opened in 1854 in a former tavern on the corner of Pearl and Prospect Streets in Burlington’s North End. It took in 58 children during its first year. The state Catholic diocese invited the Sisters of Providence to run the institution, and they did so until its closing in 1974. During those 120 years in operation, St. Joseph’s Orphanage moved to a new, larger facility at 391 North Avenue and housed some 13,000 children.
Nuns and other orphanage personnel also abused many of its residents, a claim confirmed in a 286-page report filed by a state task force set up by then-Attorney General T.J. Donovan in 2020. The report was the result of a two-year-long investigation, and its recommendations included the funding of a Restorative Inquiry to pursue amends for the surviving residents of the orphanage and hold the relevant parties accountable.
A collaborative project of St. Joseph’s Orphanage Restorative Inquiry and the Vermont Folklife Center, the oral history collection began in 2020 to document former orphanage residents’ memories and their journeys to heal from the physical, emotional, psychological and sometimes sexual abuse they experienced while at the facility.
The traveling exhibition organizes the posters into seven sections to tell the compelling, heartbreaking saga of the orphanage and its survivors’ efforts to hold their abusers accountable. In the first two clusters of posters, visitors learn more about the oral history project itself and the timeline of the story, from the orphanage’s opening in 1854 to the passage of Vermont state bill S.99 in 2021, which removed the three-year statute of limitations on civil action based on childhood physical abuse.
The third grouping of posters covers “Life at the Orphanage” telling of a strictly regimented life where children were often referred to by their assigned number rather than their name. Outside visitors were rare and intentionally limited, a practice that helped maintain the facade of respectability that many in the community believed the facility had rightly earned for its supposedly good deeds in caring for orphaned children.
Deborah Hazen, age 7, is pictured with one of the Sisters of Providence at St. Joseph’s Orphanage in 1963. Photo by Cheryl Casey
Visitors can hear segments of the oral histories from surviving orphanage residents, starting with memories of their daily lives. One former resident, Deborah Hazen, who now lives in Port Richey, Florida, lived there for nearly six years. Her older sister and older brother were also in residence. After recounting an experience with the nuns, Hazen wonders out loud, “They were very cruel people…How do you do that to kids?”
Some of these recordings are marked with a caution symbol because the content can be upsetting or even triggering for some listeners. Oral history segments can be accessed via phone – by dialing a number or scanning a QR code – and visitors are urged to listen using headphones so as not to unintentionally distress others in the space.
In 1993, former orphanage resident Joey Barquin, of Florida, filed a lawsuit in federal court in Vermont, alleging abuse by the nuns in the 1950s. This lawsuit was the first public acknowledgement that all might not have been right behind the orphanage walls, and the story of these public allegations unfolds in the fourth group of posters. Throughout the mid-1990s, over two dozen former residents filed lawsuits against the diocese, Sisters of Providence, and Vermont Catholic Charities, which was formed as an oversight group in 1939. Dozens of others agreed not to sue in exchange for settlements.
The exhibit contains examples of news coverage as the stories of abuse emerged in the late 1990s. The Burlington Free Press was first to publish detailed accounts by reporter Sam Hemingway and photographer Adam Riesner. Photos by Cheryl Casey (click to enlarge)
The disclosures were even reported in a series of stories by the Burlington Free Press in 1996, almost six years before the Boston Globe put sexual abuse of children by Catholic priests on the national radar. But before that national conversation could happen, a federal judge threw out the lawsuits in Vermont in 1998, based on statute of limitations arguments, and the orphanage survivors were left to find other ways to cope with their traumatic pasts.
In the next section, “Individual Healing, Creative Resistance,” visitors can read and hear more about the many avenues former residents took over the years to try to heal. These efforts range from therapy sessions and spiritual guidance to Facebook groups and solitary protests outside the former orphanage building – the diocese headquarters until 2010.
Fast forward to the sixth cluster of posters and 20 years from the time the lawsuits were tossed from the federal courts, and the story resurfaces, thanks to an article in Buzzfeed news. Based on court records and depositions taken during the 1990s lawsuits, the article alleges not only a long history of abuse at the orphanage, but also that one child was murdered. It was this story that caught Attorney General Donovan’s attention and prompted him to form the task force to investigate. All but the alleged murder could be substantiated.
The final stop in the roughly semicircular poster presentation inside the state office building gives a final reflection on the history of the orphanage itself and the evolving thinking about child welfare that ultimately led to its closure. Along the way, segments from the oral histories make the tragedy visceral, but also make the listener feel the strength and resilience of the former orphanage residents, who today continue to advocate for the safety of children as the Voices of St. Joseph’s Orphanage.
According to exhibit materials, “Despite numerous invitations…the Burlington Catholic Diocese and Vermont Catholic Charities have refused to engage” with the Voices of St. Joseph’s Orphanage group.
The exhibit ends its stay in Waterbury soon and will be removed from the State Complex atrium on Tuesday afternoon, May 23, according to Marc Wennberg, lead facilitator of the Restorative Inquiry. “We don’t currently have a next stop but we’re planning fall/winter engagements in St. Johnsbury and Manchester,” he said in an email.
Until then, visitors can still see the exhibit free of charge during the hours the State Complex is open to the public, weekdays from 7:45 a.m. to 4 p.m. A valid photo ID is required for entrance to the atrium. Complete oral histories, news about upcoming events, and more information about the Voices of St. Joseph’s Orphanage group can be found on the Restorative Inquiry website.
The exhibit is on view inside the atrium at the main State Office Complex building in Waterbury. Enter via State Drive with a photo ID. Photo by Cheryl Casey
Waterbury Center resident Cheryl Casey is a professor of communication at Champlain College and president of the Waterbury Historical Society.