There was a time in Western New York when “I’m gonna take you to Father Baker’s” was a parental threat to misbehaving children. The threat was meant to instill fear that the child would be abandoned to a strict, punishing Catholic environment meant to reform “bad” behavior. While perhaps not as frequently invoked, the Good Shepherd Institute for Girls existed within the same time period and is the setting of Susan Wiggs’ novel Wayward Girls.
“A lot of different threads coalesced around the idea [to write Wayward Girls],” explains Olean native Wiggs. “I found a picture of the Good Shepherd at 485 Best Street, mentioned as a reform school for girls run by nuns. There was a Facebook page for survivors about it and another one called Buffalore with pictures and nostalgia around old Buffalo. I posted a picture of the Good Shepherd on the page and asked: ‘Does anyone have familiarity of this place, do you recognize it, do you have any memories of it?’”
She received more than 500 responses—overnight. …