As a teenager who was strongly pro-life, I always thought communities needed a home for unwed mothers where their baby could grow inside their womb in safety and they could give birth without doing so alone or on the street.
It wasn’t until my 30s that I discovered my mother had been an unwed mother in the early 1950s. My grandmother died when my mom was only 16, leaving her empty, lost and depressed. She sought love, comfort and purpose in the wrong place — the arms of a 26-year-old friend of her brother’s.
She wanted to marry and keep the baby. Her father refused to sign for her. They visited a physician who offered a referral to a medical doctor who could perform an abortion, even though the procedure was illegal at the time.
But neither my mother nor my grandfather believed in it.
Instead, they consulted Catholic Family Services. Along with three or four other unwed mothers, my mother lived and worked on the obstetrics ward of a hospital in another town, and a nun visited several times a week to tutor the girls who went by pseudonyms. All had to give up their babies for adoption. She labored alone and gave birth to a girl. Without informing the nuns, a sympathetic nurse let her see the baby, took a photo for her to keep, and gave her a crocheted bracelet with the name she would have given to the infant — Marianne. (Decades later, when she reunited with the baby, she discovered the adoptive parents had named her Mary.)
Instead of returning home after giving up her baby for adoption, my mother graduated from a boarding school.
Those memories flooded my mind earlier this month as I listened to Cynthia Waddell talk about the nonprofit Lewis County Maternity House, which Cooks Hill Community Church started in 2023 to provide safe, transitional housing for pregnant women and new mothers.
“There are a lot of young women out there, pregnant or with infants, that are unhoused, and unhoused can include if they’re couch surfing,” Waddell said during her presentation to the Lewis County American Association of University Women chapter at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Chehalis. “We kind of prayed about it, talked about it, looked around to see what resources we had. As it happened, we found a house, and so we bought it.”
The house opened its doors on July 1, 2024, to provide housing for up to a dozen residents, either pregnant or with a child up to 12 months old, for as long as two years because, Waddell said, “real change doesn’t happen overnight.”
“It is about giving women a safe place to stop, breathe, and begin making a different plan for their life and the life of their child,” she said. “The women who come to us are often facing circumstances that are incredibly difficult. Many are homeless, couch surfing, or leaving an abusive or unhealthy situation, and most have experienced trauma and also financial instability.”
Waddell, a Portland native who earned her degree from Southern Oregon State University, served on the Lewis County Maternity House ministry’s board since its inception and took over as director in June. She taught parent education for 18 years in the Centralia College Child and Family Studies Department Program and worked six years at Gather Church as a community health worker. She still works there with the Parents and Teachers program.
Lewis County Maternity House offers a bridge, she said. “We provide safe, stable, confidential housing. But then we help residents begin addressing other areas of their lives that are necessary for long-term independence.”
Although more than 80 women have applied, only 14 have been housed, along with four infants. That’s due in large part to women changing their minds once a crisis has passed, but the numbers show a need in the community.
“Oftentimes I’ll get an application, I’ll respond, and I never even hear back,” Waddell said. “I always want to remember what is behind those numbers: a woman, a baby, and a future.”
Although the house is faith-founded, she said, it is not faith-forced. “We welcome everyone, no matter what their religious background is. We don’t require them to go to church or meetings or anything like that.”
They do random drug testing because “we are a clean and sober home.” She kicked out one woman who refused to abide by rules governing no alcohol or drug use.
Most of the women never finished high school. Some were kicked out by their families; others seek escape from abusive or toxic relationships. Still others were trapped in the sex work industry. Most don’t have strong support systems — parents, family members, friends — who can help.
“When they walk through the doors, we don’t want them to feel defined by their past or things that have happened to them,” Waddell said. “We want them to feel that this can be the beginning of something very different.”
Although housing is crucial, Waddell said, it takes more.
“Housing gives them the stability, but then we need to surround those women with the resources that help them build on that stability.”
The program offers birth preparation, parenting education, trauma-informed emotional support, financial literacy, job readiness, and medical care. Women can access food and a roof over their heads as well doula services, job applications and interviewing techniques, life skills classes, and mentorship. They receive help obtaining prenatal care, high school diplomas or GEDs or college educations, and long-term stability as they seek ways to support themselves and their children. The goal is to break generational cycles of poverty and instability, Waddell said.
“We don’t believe there should be a one-size-fits-all plan,” she said. “We work with each resident to develop an individualized case management plan. We get to talk about where she is today, where she wants to go, and what steps will help her to get there.”
They work with many partner organizations, including Centralia College, Gather Church, Cooks Hill Community, counselors, educators, and medical personnel. To support the Lewis County Maternity House, go to lcmaternity.org/get-involved.
One woman who stayed more than six months said she was couch surfing after being physically hurt by her father and emotionally abused by her family. She gave birth to a baby girl in January 2025. At the house, she found people who cared about her.
“Just being within this community, it truly opened my eyes to what I can be,” she said. “I feel like I can literally do anything that I put my mind to.”
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Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at memoirs@chaptersoflife.com.
