“But life’s a blind business, none of us can see up ahead, and none of us would move forward if we could.”
It seemed innocent at first – two young girls exploring the gypsy camp in the nearby woods. However, when the older sister discovers their father’s secret, she is threatened to behave or else. Her father threatens to send her to the House of Mercy where girls of bad moral character are “reformed.” Effie wakes up one morning and her sister is gone, but her mother distracts her with a day out shopping and tells her Luella is with their father. When they get home and Luella is nowhere to be seen, Effie just knows she has been sent to the House of Mercy.
The Girls With No Names attracted my attention when I saw it since I had recently read books about the orphan trains and how children were stolen and then given out for adoption for money. I don’t remember where I first saw the book, but the storyline caught my interest and I added it to my list of books to read. I waited several weeks before it was available to check out from my local library as an ebook.
Effie hopes against hope that her parents will change their minds and go get her sister. When weeks pass, she decides to take matters into her own hands and follow her sister. What she doesn’t know is that her sister wasn’t taken anywhere. (I can’t say much more or I’ll give the book away.)
The Girls With No Names had me hooked the entire time wondering how the story was going to play out. Then, to find out at the end that it’s historical fiction was fascinating. Houses of Mercy were used by “religious” as workhouses. The girls did the laundry as work to reform them, but the money from the laundry went to the people who ran the house. Very little mercy was shown and it was a very wrong system.
Have you ever heard of the “Houses of Mercy?” Share what you know in the comments!