Summer Lecture Series: Carol Marie Newall

Wednesday August 6 — Carol Marie Newall, Outside the Gate: The True Story of British Home Children in Canada
Carol Marie Newall, writer and Muskoka Lakes resident, shares the deeply personal journey behind her debut book. Sparked by a mysterious box of old photos and letters, Carol spent a decade uncovering the hidden story of her grandmother, Winnie Cooper, a British Home Child sent to Canada in the early 1900s. Her talk explores family history, archival research, and how forgotten lives can be brought back into the light.

Admission: $10 general | $8 for museum members.

Carol Marie Newall
Carol Marie Newall is a mother of three and grandmother of four who lives with her husband in the Muskoka Lakes district north of Toronto. She enjoys reading, writing on Substack, @dontcallmegranny, decorating, hosting friends and family and hiking the nearby trails with her standard poodle, Luc. She’s a graduate of the Ted Rogers School of Business at Toronto Metropolitan University. This is her first book.
In 2011 Carol inherited a cardboard memory box stuffed with old sepia photos, letters and documents, a bible and a cracked white china doorknob—the last bits and pieces of her late grandmother’s life. It contained nothing of any value but, to her, the contents were priceless. For months she examined the photos and reread the correspondence, but found only a few vague clues about Winnie’s life. Why was she sent to Barnardo Homes? Who was her family? What happened to her brothers; did they leave behind descendants of their own? Ten years later, having traced online resources, interviewed family members, searched her brain for illusive memories, and dug through archives in Canada and the UK, she was able to learn how young Winnie Cooper, one of 100,000 reluctant British child immigrants, found a home and made a life in Canada.