The Butterbox Babies - William and Lila Young

Suzanne: Warning. This episode may contain graphic and disturbing content. Listener discretion is advised.

June: Hi, y'all and welcome to Crime With My Coffee. I'm your fabulous hostess with the mostess, June.

S: And I'm Suzanne. We're gonna tell you some stories you've heard. 

J: Some you haven't. 

S: And some you'll wish you hadn't. 

J: All with a Texas twang. 

S: All right, well. Hello, welcome back. Hope you're having a nice little set of holidays we've got going on here.

J: Hope so. And hope it's full of coffee.

S: Yes, all the coffee. I don't know about you, but during this time of the year I live on coffee, because we have a bajillion places to go for all the holidays. So, I just, I live on coffee. 

J: Oh, yeah. I, I do notice about this time I start drinking a lot more coffee. I mean, I drink coffee all the time anyway, but like I specifically will make some for my ride to work and then when I get to work I'll if I'm not done with it, as soon as I get done, I'll make me another cup. And normally I don't do that. Especially during the summer. But yeah, it gets closer to the holidays and gets cooler. Oh yeah, I'm all about the coffee.

S: Oh, yeah. So. Well, today, speaking of coffee, I am back to the regular old plain ol' plain ol' Folgers with Dunkin' Donuts Extra Extra creamer. Just because that's what I usually drink.

J: Yeah, I still ventured out and went with the Dunkin' Donuts with the extra boost of espresso. You know, so it's a little bit stronger tasting. But it's really pretty smooth. You know? And, of course, the French Vanilla creamer because - I have other creamer but it's in the freezer because I bought it a couple of weeks ago and I didn't, I didn't want it to go bad before I could drink it. So I haven't, I haven't got to it yet. I think it's the peppermint mocha, I think is what it is. 

S: *retching sound*

J: You don't like it? Really?

S: I don't like peppermint in my coffee. 

J: Oh, I mean, it's just a slight hint of peppermint.

S: Now, I'll drink some peppermint tea. But I don't want peppermint in my coffee.

J: I don't think I've ever had peppermint tea. I might have to check that out and try it one day.

S: You’ve never had peppermint tea?

J: No, I didn't know that was a thing.

S: Yes. Oh, it's good. It's good. I'll make some next time you come up.

J: Okay. Okay. Sounds good. Sounds good.

S: All right. Well, today we're going to the land of the super cold up in Canada.

J: Ope. Yep, super cold. Don't want to live there.

S: And I'm also taking you in the Wayback Machine.

J: Alright!

S: So, this is the case of William and Lila Young, it is better known as the Butterbox Babies. 

J: Butter box? 

S: Yes. Butterbox Babies, and it was actually recommended to us by one of our listeners, Juliana O.

J: Oh, okay. Ooooohhhh. No.

S: Lila Gladys Coolen Young, was born in 1899 in Canada, to devout Seventh Day Adventists. She ended up going to a finishing school. And then she graduated college and became a teacher and started teaching.

J: Oh wow, she sounds proper.

S: So, her future husband, William Peach Young, was born in 1898. So, just a year before Lila, in Oregon. In 1923, he graduated from the Medical Evangelists College, and he moved to Nova Scotia as a self dedicated medical missionary.

J: Nice, nice.

S: So, in 1925, William and Lila met.

J: Mm hmm.

S: And on- but I'm not sure exactly when in 1925 they met but they got married on July 7, 1925.

J: Oh, wow. So they probably met the beginning of the year.

S: I’m assuming, but I don't really know for sure. 

J: Okay. 

S: So, I mean, if he went right after he graduated, aren't most graduations in like, April, May?

J: Yeah. Yeah.

S: So, either way, it was a whirlwind- 

J: Definitely whirlwind. 

S: Yeah. So. Well, after they got married, they moved to Chicago. He graduated and was now a chiropractor. She went to school and she graduated and she was now a midwife.

J: Nice. 

S: So they moved back to Canada. 

J: Okay.

S: In February of 1928, they bought a four bedroom cottage and opened the Life and- Okay, if y'all can hear that barking, I apologize. That is my neighbor's dog.

J: Which you have no control over.

S: I have no control over that. So that's not the dog at my house. It's not the dogs at my mother's house. It's the neighbor's dog. And he just won't- 

J: Nobody has control over that dog.

S: Very true. So, anyway. So, in February of 1928, they bought this four bedroom cottage and they opened the Life and Health Sanitarium. And they're like little motto, tagline, whatever, was "Where the Sick Get Well."

J: Okay, sounds good so far, but. 

S: So, well after they bought this home and opened this sanitarium, they barely had enough money to buy the cots for the patients in this home. 

J: Aww. 

S: So Lila started delivering babies.

J: Well, she is a midwife.

S: Yeah. So you know, and to kind of help get money coming into the sanitarium and to get all this stuff for the patients and everything. She started delivering babies, you know, in in town and stuff. Well, within a year of this, they changed the name to the Ideal Maternity Home and Sanitarium and began specializing in maternity services, mainly geared towards unwed mothers.

J: Hmm. Okay.

S: So, married mothers, at this time, paid an average of about $75 for delivery fees and two weeks of postnatal care. 

J: Okay. 

S: Unwed mothers had to pay between $100 and $200 upfront for room and board, delivery fees, adoption arrangements, plus $12 for diapers and other supplies, as well as $2 a week for "babysitting." Y'all can't see my air quotation marks but she can. So for "babysitting" until the baby was adopted.

J: Okay, um, that's, I mean, unwed mothers usually only have one income, I would think versus a married woman. So.

S: That’s true. But this is also you know, around 1930.

J: Yeah, yeah. 

S: So, so a lot of these unwed mothers were sent there by their parents or their baby daddy, who was married to somebody else, you know, for a "nine month vacation."

J: Yeah, yeah. 

S: You know. 

J: I want a nine month vacation.

S: That’d be nice. 

J: Yeah. 

S: Unfortunately, if the baby died, while in the home, that they were expected to pay $20 for funeral services. The funeral services included a pine box, that really was a butter box that they got from a local dairy.

J: Hmm. Probably cheaper than $20, too.

S: Now, Lila said that the butter box was always padded, and always lined with satin. So only the best for these unfortunate little babies that didn't make it.

J: Aww.

S: So at this time, in Canada, both birth control and abortions were illegal.

J: Okay.

S: So you know, and in this time, not just in Canada, but everywhere, at least as far as I know. I know in Canada and the US. Um, unwed mothers who kept their babies were often ostracized from their families.

J: Yes, yes.

S: Well, a lot of the women couldn't afford these prices, because the average wage at the time was anywhere from $4 to $8 a week. 

J: Right. 

S: So if after the baby was born there, the mother still had a balance, she was allowed to stay on and work off the rest of the debt, which gave them not, which gave the Youngs not only some cash income from the prepayment of the mother's coming in, but they also got free labor from these women.

J: Oh, yeah. Here you can help babysit all these other kids. 

S: Yeah. So, over the years, the Youngs started to become known as the "Baby Barons of East Chester."

J: Hmm. Okay. 

S: By the mid 1930s, the Youngs were making about $6,000 a year, while other families in the area were averaging a somewhere in the hundreds of dollars a year. 

J: Wow, they're really raking it in then. 

S: And that's only what was on the books.

J: Yeah, I'm probably pretty sure it wasn't really up to par.

S: Off the books, basically what they were doing, they were selling these babies on the black market.

J: Mm. Mmm.

S: So there were at the time, quote "unbreakable" rules against children being placed with a family of a different religious background. And the Youngs didn't care. They didn't give a shit. 

J: You want a baby? Pay me for it, and you can have the baby. 

S: So a lot of these babies ended up being placed with couples in New York and New Jersey, where there is a heavy Jewish population, because there weren't very many Jewish babies up for adoption.

J: Right.

S: So the Youngs are like, "Eh, bam! This one's Jewish. Here you go. Here's you a Jewish baby."

J: There you go.

S: So, you know, there were times that twins were separated and adopted out to two different families. There were times that, you know, two babies were- who were not related at all in any way, shape, form or fashion were matched as twins. It all depended on what the adoptive parents wanted.

J: What they could pay for and what they asked for.

S: These babies were sold for up to $10,000 each.

J: Oh, my God. 

S: In 1930s dollars. 

J: Wow. Wow. Which is roughly, we we can guess, about two, at least $200,000 in today's money.

S: Yeah. A lot. A lot. A lot of money. 

J: Yeah. 

S: So those were the lucky babies.

J: Oh, I don't know. Nope. We're done here. We're done.

S: Nope. We have to finish the story. 

J: We’re done. Bye, y'all. See you next week.

S: We’ll, we'll gloss over this, there. I didn't go into a whole lot of detail here. Just the bare bones. 

J: Okay. Okay. 

S: Um, it was estimated that between 400 and 600 other babies were deemed "unmarketable," which means they were either sick, had some sort of deformity, they were disabled, or they were of a mixed race. 

J: Okay. 

S: These babies were essentially given a diet of water and molasses until they finally starved to death.

J: Mm. Hmm. 

S: They were buried in butter boxes, hence the name butter box babies being coined- 

J: Yup.

S: -on the property. But they were also buried adjacent to a nearby Adventist cemetery, where Lila's parents owned some land. They were buried at sea. Or sometimes they were burned in the furnace of the home.

J: Oh my goodness.

S: A handyman eventually admitted that he buried between 100 to 125 babies in the field owned by her parents. 

J: Hmm. 

S: He said they were buried in rows so that they would know how many there were and they would be and sometimes they would be stored in the tool shed for several days before they were transported to the field for burial.

J: Oh, my God.

S: There were even times that married mothers would be told that their baby had died, when in reality, it didn't. And they just adopted it out because they could get 10 grand for it.

J: Ugh, gah. Ugh, some people's kids. I swear. 

S: These people's- these people's- these people were assholes. 

J: Yes. 

S: In 1933 the Ideal Maternity Home attracted the attention of the Nova Scotia Child Wear- Welfare Department, and they were forced to hire a registered nurse, which was the home's first ever registered nurse. 

J: Well, Lila probably thought since she was a midwife, and she did do some medical training that she was good enough.

S: Yeah, I'm assuming so. So, a lot of the mothers would die because they didn't have the proper medical treatment.

J: Right. Yeah. 

S: So, so you've got babies dying and you've got mothers dying, too, you know. Well, then along comes Eva Nieforth. She arrived at the Ideal Maternity Home just before Christmas in 1935, and she was almost ready to pop. So she was pretty close to nine months along or so. 

J: Okay. 

S: Shortly after her arrival, she contracted some sort of abdominal infection and she was confined to a cot. On January 28, she went into labor, and unfortunately, the baby did not survive. Her boyfriend was sent a letter by William. And so he comes in and he's like, you know, "Oh my gosh, she's so sick. You need to call a doctor for her." And William is like, "I am a doctor."

J: You’re a chiropractor.

S: Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But you know, he's a doctor. 

J: Oh, yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm a doctor, too.

S: So well, Eva was never given any antibiotics because they didn't have any antibiotics on the grounds.

J: Wow.

S: So shortly after this, unfortunately, she passed away as well.

J: Aww.

S: The autopsy, because there was an autopsy done on on Eva because her boyfriend raised a big stink about this.

J: Good. Good for him.

S: Um, it, the autopsy revealed that the baby died due to improper use of forceps.

J: No. 

S: From my understanding midwives are not supposed to use.

J: Yeah, I don't think so.

S: I don't know if that's changed now. But I know back then they were not supposed to use forceps.

J: Wow.

S: As a midwife. Um, Eva, died of peritonitis probably caused due to the negligence and unsterilized instruments.

J: Yes.

S: In March of 1936, William and Lila Young were charged with two counts of manslaughter for the deaths of Eva, Eva, and her son. There was a three day trial. And they were both acquitted.

J: No, no, they've got so many bodies racked up already. Geez. 

S: Well, all, not, nobody knows all of this. Nobody knows the extent of this yet. So there was an amement- an amendment made to the Maternity Board House Act of 1940 in 1945, that eventually made it much harder for the Youngs to continue to operate the Ideal Maternity Home. 

J: Good. 

S: They applied for a license renewal. But it was rejected.

J: Good. 

S: And the home was ordered to be shut down. 

J: Nice. 

S: At this point, in 1945, almost 20 years later, the four bedroom cottage had now grown to a 54 bedroom home.

J: Wow, that is big.

S: This place was huge. Well, they were selling all these babies, making all this money, you know, so they just kept adding on to the house so that they could sell more babies.

J: Exactly. Get more people in. 

S: So, well, they appealed the decision to be shut down. And they continued to operate without a license for the next two years. 

J: Oh, wow. 

S: In March of 1946, they were charged with eight different counts, which included practicing medicine without a license - guess you're not really a doctor now, are you Mr. Young? 

J: Exactly. 

S: And being in violation of the Maternity Board House Act. They were found guilty on three counts and made to pay $150 fine.

J: That’s it? 

S: That’s it. 

J: Wow.

S: In June of 1946, they were convicted of illegally selling babies to four American couples. They were given a fine of $428.

J: Oh, my God. They could pay that off one baby they sold. 

S: Yeah, yeah. So you know, they're making a profit of what $39,600 on just those four babies? That’s if they only sold four babies. 

J: Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah. 

S: Maybe they wanted twins, we don't know. 

J: Wow. 

S: William was later convicted of perjury that year for his testimony in this trial. 

J: Okay. 

S: Well, then Lila decided to file a suit against the Montreal Standard Publishing Company.

J: Okay, wait, I'm thinking you're not very smart. If they're trying to shut you down, and they're trying to say you're doing this and say you're doing that you want to be all ballsy like, "Oh, I'm gonna sue you." 

S: This was her downfall.

J: Oh, yeah. I can see it coming.

S: She claimed that their coverage had besmirched the name of the home and of the Youngs in their previous press coverage.

J: Mm-hmm.

S: Well, pediatricians were called to testify. And they testified to overcrowding in the home, fly-filled nurseries, malnourished babies. There was a mother that was called as a witness, who said that her baby died after receiving zero medical attention, and he was buried in a butter box. She also testified that she was made to pose as a nurse during a health department inspection.

J: Wow, she must have been working off her money owed and, mmm.

S: Another witness admitted to lying in adoption records when she said that her baby was Jewish when really, she wasn't Jewish.

J: Wow. Yeah, these people just don't care.

S: This trial essentially shredded the rest of the reputation that the Youngs had.

J: Well, good, good. 

S: Their money eventually dwindled away. And they couldn't find a buyer for their property. They signed it over to a neighbor in order to satisfy some of their debts, and they moved to Quebec. The new owner entered the abandoned building, and he found papers and files and records of everything just strewn all about the house. 

J: Wow. 

S: He figured it best to burn them.

J: No. They must have been really good neighbors, if he's gonna cover their tracks like that.

S: I don't necessarily think that he thought of it as covering their tracks. I think he thought of it as protecting the privacy of these people who, who these records belong to.

J: Yeah, I mean, I understand that, too. But, I don't know. I probably would have just gathered it all up and turn it all over, "Here. I don't know what to do with this. It's probably best if I don't have it."

S: So in 1962, the Ideal Maternity Home did burn down. It was suspected that it was arson.

J: I was gonna probably wasn't an accident.

S: But they were never able to actually prove that it was arson. 

J: Okay. 

S: Now, there is a community center there. 

J: Good. 

S: So William died in 1962 of cancer.

J: My heart is not broken.

S: Lila, after the death of her husband, moved back to Nova Scotia and began teaching again.

J: What? What did she teaching? 

S: I don't know. 

J: How to be a douche, I think. 

S: Sounds pretty accurate.

J: Okay. 

S: But in 1969, seven years after her dear husband died of cancer, she died of leukemia.

J: Yeah, not heartbroken over that either.

S: So there is now a monument in Nova Scotia in honor of those who died at the home.

J: That’s nice. That's nice. Did they- Do you know or did you see anything about if they re-buried or anything like that the babies in the butter boxes or if they made a-?

S: From my understanding, they did not. I don't remember where I read this at, but she was buried, Lila was buried, in the cem- the Adventist cemetery next to the land her parents owned and I read in this article? Pretty sure it was an article, that because she is buried there, many of her victims are buried right next to her because they were buried next to this cemetery on her parents property.

J: Yeah. Okay, you know, at least they were buried. At least the victims were buried. 

S: Some of them. 

J: Well, well, yeah. Yeah. I mean, yes. 

S: So, but that's the story of the Butterbox Babies.

J: Wow, that's actually I don't think I've ever heard this story. So it was, it was a downer though.

S: It was a downer. It was a downer. That is true.

J: But my heart is not broken that these two douchebags are dead.

S: No, not at all. Not at all. Um, there was a movie made about this. And it is, so the movie itself is called "The Butterbox Babies."

J: Hmm.

S: I will have a link in the show notes where you can watch this movie. You can watch the entire movie. I did one night.

J: Is it as sad as the story was?

S: It was more enraging than sad.

J: Okay, now Yeah, yeah, I mean, I'm pissed off people just will. No babies can't do it. Can't do it.

S: So but the website that I found it on is a Canadian website, and Canada was very, "Here. This is what happened. We're owning it. You know, these douchebags lived here, they did this here. We're okay with telling their story because these babies deserve to have their story told."

J: Good for them.

S: So it was it was originally a made for TV movie, but it is available to stream online. And like I said, I will link that in the show notes.

J: Okay. All right. I'm gonna have to check it out.

S: So but yeah, that's, that's the Butterbox Babies.

J: Wow. Well, thank you for opening my eyes to unfortunately, that stories like that. 

S: It’s, it's crazy that this shit happened. And I don't know. I don't know. But-

J: And it's crazy that it went on that long,

S: Yes, yes. 

J: I guess they both figure, "Oh, I am a doctor and you're a midwife. So we got everything handled." Whatever. 

S: They didn't

J: Douches.

S: Very much so.

J: Well, thank you very much.

S: So well. Thank you for listening. And thank y'all for listening. And until next week, guys.

J: Yeah, y'all have a good holiday season. 

S: Don’t get too cold. 

J: No, no.

S: Thanks for listening today. Be sure to tune in next week for another episode of Crime W With My Coffee.

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