BURLINGTON — Debbie Hazen recalls turning 6 when the nuns who ran the city’s former St. Joseph’s Orphanage locked her in an attic trunk in the early 1960s.
“They told me there were bats and snakes and spiders in there that were going to get me,” she said of the dark place.
Hazen never imagined she would eventually find herself outside the orphanage dedicating a “memorial healing space” for the more than 13,000 children who lived at the Catholic facility from its opening in 1854 to its closing in 1974.
“This has been a long time coming and quite the journey for all of us,” Hazen, now 70, told a crowd of 100 fellow survivors and supporters Friday. “For some, this will complete their healing. For others, there’s still much to do.”
The North Avenue memorial, which features a sculptural arbor and stones etched with the words of former orphanage residents, is the final project in a five-year restorative justice process.
“Your voices have been instrumental in shaping our approach to child protection,” Chris Winters, commissioner of the Vermont Department for Children and Families, told survivors. “This memorial is not just a reminder of the past, but it’s also a symbol of your resilience and of our commitment to a future where every child is safe.”
Former orphanage residents once feared no one would believe their memories of mistreatment, so they didn’t start publicizing their childhood conditions until the 1990s. But authorities didn’t launch an investigation until a 2018 BuzzFeed article exposed the full extent of past “unrelenting physical and psychological abuse.”
By 2020, the review confirmed “abuse did occur … and that many children suffered,” although the accusations were too old to pursue criminal charges. To compensate, local and state leaders initiated a “restorative justice inquiry” to help former residents push responsible parties to adopt measures “to ensure that these harms never happen again.”
Working with social service and legal professionals, former residents lobbied for a 2021 state law that eliminated time limits on filing civil lawsuits alleging childhood physical abuse — a success that won them the Vermont Center for Crime Victim Services’ 2021 Survivor/Activist Award.
But the orphanage’s overseers — the state’s Roman Catholic Diocese, the Sisters of Providence and Vermont Catholic Charities — would not meet with survivors as a group nor consider requests for childhood records or restitution.
As part of the inquiry, participants told their stories through several public projects, including two anthologies, a Vermont Folklife-supported oral history and traveling exhibition, and journalist Christine Kenneally’s 2018 BuzzFeed exposé and 2023 follow-up book, “Ghosts of the Orphanage.”
Inquiry organizers also released a 176-page final report that summed up the restorative justice process as both “helpful and healing” and “difficult and painful.”
The new memorial rose with help from Burlington’s Department of Parks, Recreation & Waterfront and supporters who donated $160,000. The dedication featured current and former local and state leaders as well as survivors who came from as far away as Florida.
“I would like to acknowledge all the unseen victims who have gone unnoticed,” said Debi Gevry, 62, whose father, struggling to care for her and her two siblings, placed them at the orphanage in the 1960s.
“He did so thinking he was doing what was best for his children,” she said in a speech. “On a mechanic’s wage, he paid for our keep not knowing the suffering we were enduring on a daily basis.”
Gevry, who said she wasn’t hugged until after leaving at age 12, went on to raise her own family.
“I have yet to heal from the traumas hidden deep in my soul,” she said. “I have unknowingly passed on my fears and anxieties to the next generation. This is just a small example of the ripple effect abuse carries.”
Gevry closed by reading a poem she wrote. Chiseled into a memorial stone, it’s punctuated by the refrain, “We will be remembered.”
“I may never be completely whole,” she said, “but I will not be silenced.”
