Bill Slater: The O'Hara "Home Child"
THROWBACK THURSDAY/ JULY 23RD, 2020
Welcome back everyone. Today we are going to take a look at a person who plays an interesting part in the story of the O’Hara’s. Recently we featured Bill in our father’s day post, so today we want to share more with you about this interesting part of the O’Hara legacy.
Bill Slater was a British Home child who was welcomed into the O’Hara family by Frank and Minnie O’Hara. Born in London, England on August 7th, 1912, William John “Bill” Slater started out life on a rough path. We do not know a lot about his early years, other than that he lodged at Mrs. Macpherson’s “Home of Industry” in the Spitalfield area of London. He lived here prior to boarding the S.S. Alsatian with other orphaned or indigent children, which landed in Halifax.
Mrs. Macpherson also operated a clearing house for children from England in Belleville, Ontario called “Marchmont Home”. Starting around the 1860s until the 1930s, many children like Bill Slater came to Canada through programs and homes like this to provide labour on farms as Canada started to grow.
Like many parts of history, this form of child labour had its dark side, with many cases of abuse and overworking being reported, with many of them found to be true.
Bill Slater was one of the lucky ones. On June 27th, 1924 Bill met his Canadian family from a town “up north”. Frank and Minnie (Lafferty) O’Hara were farmers on the O’Hara Homestead in Madoc, they were also childless.
From all the family records, including from Bill’s daughter, it would seem that Bill was welcomed into the O’Hara family as one of their own. In many family pictures Bill is pictured with the family and there are pictures that feature him in his own little garden.
When Frank O’Hara, the last of the O’Hara’s to farm the land, passed away in 1932 Bill Slater continued to operate the farm with Frank’s wife for another four years before leaving Madoc.
We know from information from his family that Bill Slater went on to serve in the Royal Canadian Navy in World War Two and went on to attend the Ontario Agricultural College, and then worked for Veterans Affairs Canada. Bill also operated his own beef farm in Orono Ontario.
Bill and his wife Joyce Alma Keeble were the proud parents of three children; John, William, and Sheila.
Bill Slater passed away on September 12, 1982. Like so many of the British “Home children”, Bill Slater made a mark on Canada, serving it during peace and war, and raising a family in his new country.
The O’Hara Legacy is one with many dynamic layers and a number of interesting individuals. While Bill may not have been an official member of the family, he was treated as one and holds a special spot today in the stories told here at the Homestead.
