Raised by the Church

In 1946 Edward Rohs was left by his unwed parents at the Angel Guardian Home to be raised by the Sisters of Mercy. The Sisters hoped that the parents would one day return for him. In time they married and had other children, but Ed's parents never came back for him. And they never signed the legal papers so he could be adopted by another family. Rohs was one of thousands of children taken in by Catholic institutions during the tumultuous post-WWII years. With original research based on interviews with clergymen and nuns, archival data from the New York Archdiocese, and government records, this book tells the social history of an era when hundreds of thousands of baby boomers passed through the orphanage system. Through the story of one man, this book gives us a much-needed historical perspective on an American society that understood and acknowledged the community's need for a safe haven.