There has been an interest here recently about the Delaware County Children’s Home that was located on Minnetrista Boulevard & North Walnut, so I thought I would post again about it. As you can see in the photo, the front steps (facing Minnetrista) are filled with youngsters and employees of the home. The children’s rooms were on the second and third floors of the building. Eventually they established a room for the nursery where the previous kitchen use to be. There was a boy named Charlie that needed his own room downstairs as well. Other than those exceptions, there were no separate bedrooms, just one big room on each floor with the children’s beds lined up next to each other. (Charlie never had a chance of being adopted. He was crippled. Potential parents wanted perfect looking children with no flaws about them. When he was 16 he was sent to the infirmary. That was the cut-off age according to the rules of the day). On the east side of the Home, not noticeable in the picture, was a playground with a swing and other things to play with and play on. Right behind the home was the laundry house. A lady named Mary was one of the laundresses, and would come in and do the sheets and clothes and whatever else that needed washing for everyone. A big barn was behind that. The home had a garden, and the live-in gardener taught the boys how to tend it as well as take care of the horses and cows and do other things of that nature. As for the girls, the home had its own seamstress. She would make clothes, mend clothes, repair clothes, you name it. Just dealing with the children’s garments was a job all unto itself. The girls were taught to sew as well, or “use the needle” as was sometimes said in those days. Of course there were other chores the children did about the house. formal garments dressed in winter
Dr. Green saw to the day-to-day medical needs of the kids. The Matron in charge was Sophia Jump. She lived in the home, as did a lot of the other staff. She made sure the kids were very well taken care of. There was also an assistant Matron as well, her name was Millie Campbell and I believe she took care of the nursery. Mrs. Jump wanted all the boys to dress alike. It wasn’t hard to spot the orphan kids when visiting the fair or circus or any other public event. They were dressed in their cute little gray uniforms. They even had matching hats. Children were placed at the home for various reasons. Sometimes moms got sick. Sometimes parents were declared unfit, and the home’s attorney sought to have them placed there by the courts. Disease took parents too. The Consumption left a lot of kids without their moms and dads back then. Mrs. Jump looked for the next of kin every time a child was brought in, like grandmothers, etc., but often that never worked out. She always told the children from the start that being there was just temporary until she could find a permanent home for them. It was mostly boys at the home, not near as many girls. I would say on average the population was about 30 children give or take. There were times it got even lower than that, in the 20s. There were times it got plenty high, in the 50s. The community loved the kids. During the holidays residents and businesses donated things to them; toys, candy, clothes, they were never forgotten.
As for education, the Children's Home had its own school, but a few of the kids went to other schools in the area. Next to the fair grounds on Wheeling pike was Mound School. Some of the children went there. It wasn’t very far. A road next to the home led straight to it. Some of the kids attended Conn School out in the country. It was located at the SW corner of Center pike (Walnut) and McGalliard on Simon Conn’s farm. Of course that area is no longer the country and very much a part of city life. A Marathon station sits where Conn School was.
As with all places like this, things happened. Parents charged with neglect sometimes tried to kidnap their children off of the grounds, at times successfully. The police got involved in those situations of course. There were strange things that happened too. There was a little girl that was adopted out to very rich parents from another town. A friend of the child told her in school one day that if she would kill her new parents, she would be rich and could buy anything she wanted. The little girl, who was only 8 or 9, attempted to do just that. I believe she put an insecticide in her mom’s coffee. The poor woman got very sick. The child was going after ol’ dad next. At least that’s what she told everyone. They brought her back to the Home. I can tell you stories about the kids there. Some will make you angry, some will make you shake your head, and some will make you laugh.
Eventually they didn't believe the building was in good enough condition to be used as a children's home anymore. It was very drafty for one. In the fall and winter months it was hard to keep the place warm. I know toward the end they were heating it with coal, but I believe it was also heated with gas at some point. Gas pressure got to be a problem at times. The building was taken care of by the staff and was clean, but it was getting harder and harder to manage and became unsanitary, not to mention unsafe. They should have just built a new Children’s Home there, but too many were salivating over the land for other purposes. The children and staff still occupied the home for a few more years, even after it was condemned, while the powers that be searched for another location. The property was eventually sold to Frank and Ed Ball. They had their eye on it for awhile. The Balls, the Hospital Association, and others, were hoping to see the site converted into a hospital. At the moment I'm fuzzy on when exactly the building was no more. All I can tell you is the Ball brothers bought it in 1906, and in 1907 the property was turned over to them and the children and staff moved over to the Yorktown pike location (Kilgore Avenue). Sophia went on to be Matron there for a bit and then retired. She was weary from taking care of kids day-in and day-out. She just wanted to relax for the rest of her years. Not too long after she retired, she sat down to dinner and had a stroke and died. That was in 1908. I pass her grave when I’m at the cemetery and sometimes I’ll stop. Her tombstone simply reads “Mother”. How fitting. She was Mother too many.