A lifelong search goes global
After half a century of trying to find his father, a Christchurch man has turned
to the worldwide we.YVONNE MARTIN reports
The
Press 11 September 2004.
A Christchurch man born illegitimately at a Catholic orphanage 63 years ago
has launched a worldwide web search to find his father.
Peter Carmine-White, who was born at Nazareth House to a
child orphan, has been trying to unmask his father's identity for nearly half
a century. Despite exhaustive searches, including emailing the Pope, he has hit a stone wall.
Now Carmine-White is hoping some divine electronic intervention - a website
he has created - will provide answers
where the authorities have failed.
"There are still people alive who know what happened," said
Carmine-White a father of six and grandfather of eight.
"I want them to come forward" Carmine-White's quest began
at 15 when he turned up on the door step of his birth place,
asking the Sisters of Nazareth for help.
Records show he was born on September 20 1941 to a girl who got pregnant at
15 while in the Nuns care. She was
Dorothy Carmine but his father's details are missing from the
birth certificate.
Carmine-White managed to track his mother in the late 1970's
but she would not give his father's identity. She took her secret to the grave
eight years ago.
Since then Carmine-White has written letter's and emails to the nuns, church
authorities, MP's and even the Prime Minister Helen Clark.
He has approached former Nazareth House residents and been shunned by extended
family members.
An aunt, Dorothy's sister, told The Weekend Press. "I wouldn't
say if I did know (his father) with all this hoo-ha going on, it
could have been anybody really under the circumstances,
it's gone"
A Cathoic priest, Father Paddy Cahill wrote: "Maybe you'll
have to wait and see your mother in heaven to have all your
questions answered."
But with his faith knocked, Carmine-White wants answers in this life. He is
going global with his hunt, convinced someone
out there hold the key to his puzzle.
Carmine-White's website documents his entry into the world,
his mother's details and his foster record. He was given to a
Catholic family, the White's, at nearly two months old, but felt
no sence of belonging.
One welfare document records the White's receiving 15 shillings through the
nuns, but who paid it. The sisters deny
knowledge of the payments.
Carmine-White is exploring one suggestion that his father may have been a Catholic
priest. Another possibility is that his mother got pregnant while on a trip to Lyttelton to see relatives.
The story he has pieced together so far is this:
Dorothy (Dora) Carmine was placed in Nazareth House, along
with two sisters, Betty and Fay, in 1935 after their mother died.
Their father, struggling to cope with six children in hard economic times,
signed over his three daughters. He contracted tuberculosis and died soon after.
Dora was nearly 10 when put into care. She became pregnant
five years on and toiled in the kitchen at Nazareth right up to the birth.
Cahill from the Catholic professional standards committee,
wrote to Carmine-White. "Dora was working in the kitchen and
on the night of your birth complained of stomach pains and
was sent to bed. In those days there was a great innocence about sex so neither
your mother or the Sisters were aware
she was pregnant."
A distressed Dora was escorted by nuns up two flights of stairs, while the
other girls were ushered away said one witness now in her late 70's. "We didn't know anything about
our bodies."
Dora was sent to Mount Magdala girls' home after the birth and given a fresh
identity, Francis Therese.
Carmine-White went into foster care. Welfare documents show
his name as Peter Erskine Carmody in ink pen, lightly struck out and amended
to Peter Eustace Carmine.
He eventually tracked down his mother through a family death notice to the
Taranaki township of Patea. She was ecstatic, but they lost contact after his mother allegedly received a
lawyer's letter. To this day, Carmine-White does not know the
author or content of the letter.
Cahill wrote to Carmine-White that no - one knew who his father was and suggested
asking his mother in heaven.
Cahill was told a that a young Dora and her sister went to
Lyttelton to visit relatives and became seperated at the rail
station on their return. Dora arrived home later, upset "but it
all passed without consequence" he said.
Carmine-White is sceptical about the Lyttelton trip. "From what I've been told
orphans were not permitted on unescorted
trips and I cannot find documentary proof that this one occurred." he said.
On formal adoption in 1946, his name was changed from
Carmine to White severing his last connection with his mother.
He remembers getting visits from an "Aunty Dora" from the age of three. On
one occassion he was taken into town for a
professional photograph with his aunt.
"Aunty Dora" was there when I came home from starting school at St Peters'
in Beckenham and she was there when I
brought my first reading book home from school." he said.
Then inexplicably, the visits stopped and a young Peter's questions about his
aunty were ignored.
"Eventually the professional portraits vanished from the dining room cabinet
where I secretly viewed them," he said.
As a teenager at Nazareth House's door step, Carmine-White was told the nuns
did not know where Dora Carmine was, nor
how to contact her. In June last year, in response to querries
under the Privacy Act, the nuns produced a hand written
notification of Dora's 1953 marriage , showing her husband's
name and the parish where they wed.
But Nazareth nuns' solicitor, Lee Robinson, said his clients
simply had no more information to give.
"The sisters really feel for Peter in
wanting this information
and would love to be able to provide something further but we
have exhausted our inquiries of our records." he said.
"If he is able to find out information this way (website) then
that's great."
Carmine-White is keen to solve the family mystery. He is backing calls for
an inquiry into injustices against children in
New Zealand orphanages.
"I've tried everything I can" he said. "Now I'm trying the website. The truth
is long overdue."
