USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > The challenge of a heritage : one hundred years of service to children, 1855-1955 > Part 4
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5
"A Will is a solemn matter, even with men whose life is given up to business, and who are by habit mindful of the future," and the Society, before encouraging people to think well of The Church Home Society's work in drawing up their Wills, looked back into the Testaments which had built the Endowment Fund and this is what it found out about the first Bequest -
[45]
"I, Abby A. Means, of Amherst, New Hampshire, being of sound and disposing mind and memory, and yet mindful of the uncertainty of life, do publish and declare this my last will and testament .... To the Home for Orphan and Destitute Children now located in Charles Street, Boston, I bequeath the sum of one thousand dollars."
Who was this Abby A. Means who made the Home a bene- ficiary in her Will drawn in 1857?
We searched the records in our Commonwealth's Department of Vital Statistics. Failing to find that which we sought, we turned to Bishop Lawrence for help. " Out of childhood memo- ries and family records " the following statements came:
" In 1855-1858 Jeremiah Mason, a distinguished lawyer, lived next door to my step-Grandmother Lawrence in Colonnade Row, now West Street and Tremont Street, where Chandler's Store stands.
" Jeremiah Mason's wife was Mary Means of Amherst, New Hampshire.
"Amos Lawrence had married twice. ... His first wife had a daughter Susanna. His second wife was Nancy Means of Amherst, New Hampshire. She had a sister Abby.
" Susanna married Charles Mason, son of Jeremiah. He was a clergyman. After Susanna's death, he came to Boston to live and became the rector of Grace Church. He founded The Church Home Society.
"Abby Means spent much of her time with her sister, Nancy Means Lawrence. She was naturally interested in the founding of The Church Home Society."
And so to the Probate Court of Amherst, New Hampshire, from which the extract of Abby A. Means' will was taken!
{ 46 ]
The Endowment Fund
BEQUESTS
1858 Miss Abby A. Means
1859 Miss Horton 500
1860 -1870
1860 Joseph B. Whall 4,000
1862 Mary P. Townsend 250
1863 Miss Sarah Greene 4,750
1864 D. Denney Rice 1,000
Miss A. M. Jeffries 377
1865 Miss Martha Sever 500
1867 Mrs. Amos Lawrence 940
Mrs. Lydia Tuttle Fessenden 500
J. Sullivan Warren 6,880
Miss E. Codman 100
1868
Grace Church 300 Mrs. Abigail Loring 6,271
Mrs. Susan F. Ladd 1,000
1869 Miss Betsey Clark 369
Caroline Burroughs
188
Rev. George C. Shepard 4,700
Miss Harriet Darling 100
1870- 1880
1871 Foster Waterman 1,000
Otis Daniell 5,000
1872 Mrs. Amos A. Lawrence 10,000
Mrs. Rebecca B. Hayward . 102
1873 Miss Eliza Burroughs 420
Miss Susan L. Thompson
500 John Henry Eastburn 5,000
1874 Rev. George D. Miles 506
Sumner Howe 4,552
Benjamin Tyler Reed 5,000
1875 Mrs. Charlotte Whipple 1,000
1876 George E. Hatton 933
James M. Beebe 10,000 Mrs. Anne H. Richards 200
1877
Mrs. Anne J. Phillips
1,000
1878 Dr. W. W. Morland 1,697
Thomas M. Coffin 3,098
Mrs. Sarah Ellen Mason 5,000
Miss Caroline L. W. French 500
Mrs. Harriet L. McVickar . 196
1879 Robert Means Mason 15,000
Mrs. Elizabeth Morton 1,000
1880 - 1890
1880 William Horton, D.D.
4,897
1881 Rev. Dexter Potter
500
Mrs. Catherine A.
Grantham 200
Anna S. C. Prince 17,912
1882 Hon. E. R. Mudge 5,000
Mrs. Emeline Lewis 200
Richard S. Fay 2,000
1883 Miss Mary B. Baury 2,000
Mrs. Lucy Lee Chickering 3,000
1884
Mrs. Emmeline F. Babcock 2,000
Hollis Moore 1,000
George A. Chaffee 100 Mrs. Elizabeth Tyler 777
Charles O. Whitmore 2,000
Mrs. Susan F. Eastburn 300
1887 Mrs. Sarah Ellen Haynes .. 691
1888 Mrs. Mary M. McGregor 500
Charles G. Emmons 500
500 Heirs of Mrs. David Sears . Henry Homer Linder 1,000
1889 Mrs. James B. Dow 100
Mr. and Mrs. James B. Dow Susan O. B. Dehon 1,000
1890 - 1900
1890 Miss Jane Mason 500
Memory of Stephen G. De Blois 500
The Rev. Charles Mason, D.D. 4,000
1891 Dr. John H. Dix 1,003
Mrs. Amelia Milton 500
1892 Mrs. Mary Ann Eliot 100
Mrs. Eleanor J. W. Baker . 5,090
1894 Frederick William Everett 500
Mrs. Abby W. Little
(Memory Delia Davidson) 1,000
Miss Ann Caroline Everett 500
1895 Henry C. Hutchins 1,000
Mrs. Augustus Lowell 2,000
1896 Mrs. Anne Bates 500
Mrs. Sarah Dodd 131
1897 Mrs. Joseph W. Clark 5,000
Mrs. Nathaniel Thayer 5,000
1898 Col. William L. Chase 8,376
1899 Richard Dillon 8,134
1900 - 1910
1900 Miss Charlotte Cotting 1,072
Miss Mary E. Cotting 1,000
Trinity Church, Boston, gift to Permanent Fund .. 2,000
Edward D. Peters 1,000
Mrs. Maria M. Curtis 250
Margaret A. Lavery 311
James Wood 1,000
1901 John Davis Williams French 16,891
Mrs. Lydia C. Bates 300
1902
Mrs. Richard S. Fay 1,000
William M. Connor 200
1903
Miss Mary L. Baldwin 1,000
Mrs. Nathaniel Walker 500
Joseph H. Center 1,000
Robert Charles Billings 2,000
1906
Mrs. Samuel Eliot 2,000
Emily M. Eliot 2,000
1907 Louisa Briggs Stanwood ..
6,150
[47]
22,275
$1,000
1885
1886
1904
1910 - 1920
1910
Mrs. Agnes L. Rice 9,000
The Rev. Arthur Lawrence 5,000
Mrs. Edward Cordis 500
1911 Hollis Moore 800
1912 Arthur J. C. Sowdon 1,000
1913 Sarah E. Cazenove 31,892
Miss Blanche Shimmin 1,000
1914 Mary Retz 200
1915 Joseph E. Storey 8,974
Benjamin Leeds 50,000
1916 Emeline Cheney 3,000
Jonathan Eastman Pecker . 950
Charles E. Dunham 16,351
Sophronia S. Sunbury 365
1935 Maria T. B. Hopkins 10,000
1936 Caryl Peabody Lovejoy 500
Harriet O. Coombs 503
1938 Anonymous 2,812
Jennie Milliken Alden 10,418
1940 Anonymous 1,000
1940 - 1950
1942 Mary J. Badger 555
1943 Grace Jones 47
Fanny M. Murray 1,500
Florence E. Burke 500
Charles D. Sias 5,000
Frank O. Hurter 1,087
1944 Mary B. DeBlois 300
Sylvia Skidmore
18
Edmund Q. Sylvester 1,500
Elizabeth Pflüger
18
Holly B. Lee
18
1922 Alexander S. McLean 2,271
Maria E. Daniell 2,000
Camilla C. Davenport 1,000
Mary M. Knight 200
Margaret S. Rice 1,030
William U. Moulton
25,274
Ellen T. Barnard
25
Florence Moulton Schaeffer
8,230
1924
Mary Hale Coffin
25
H. Lawton Blanchard 2,150
Anonymous 200
Mary Frances Drown 1,092
1926 Elizabeth F. Harvey
2,000
E. Pierson Beebe
10,000
Margery E. MacFarlane 7,705
Susan H. Miller
1,901
Charles F. Ayer 424
1,000
Mary Frances Drown
20,764
Emma Cartwright Knight
200
Anonymous " In Memory of Christopher "
100
Ella S. Jewell 8,833
Josephine Ellicott
1,000
Susan Connell 100
1949
1929 Amelia H. Dyer 4,680
Ida M. Mason
5,000
1930 - 1940
1930
Dora A. Collins
3,010
Clara P. Glidden
100
1931 Martha S. Reed 500
Helen D. L. Bisbee 1,000
Barbara Schneider 100
John Hammond Blodgett Anonymous
100
1932 Abby R. Loring
3,404
1952
Direxa A. Pcarson
906
1933 Flora E. MacGlaughlin
1,000
George Shaw
200
Gertrude F. Sharpe
687
Ellen Mitchell (In Memoriam) 250
Elizabeth L. Mitchell 500 Caroline C. Schneider 300
Dorothy Rand Worman 10,742
1934 Anna L. Shurtleff 250
Margaret Sullivan
210
1953
Mary Flower
Sarah E. Bent
483
Annie C. Bayles
500
Florence L. Macdonald 1,500
1935 Elizabeth Jackson 8,110
Georgia A. Randall 500
Della Chace Butler 3,251
Anonymous
192
1920 - 1930
1920 Harriette Mason Rodman 1,000
Sarah C. Townsend 1,000
1945
Helen P. Harvison 1,000
Fanny M. Murray 457
1923 Agnes W. Van Brunt 5,000
1946 Elizabeth Elliot Fay 4,485
Mary Estelle Clapp 3,770
Theodora I. Ayer 2,000
Frances L. Rogers 8,905
1925 The Rev. Arthur H. Wright Charles J. Mason
50
1927 Harry Burnett
2,500
1928 Maria E. Hatch 10,000
1948 Anonymous
520
Caroline Farrington Clark Memorial 800
Anonymous
102
1950
Eugenia Tiffany
1,000
Amy J. Bird 3,171
Anonymous 117
1951 Lawrence Coolidge
1,000
24,451
Ellen F. Mason 8,000
Anonymous 196
Speiden Foster 1,000
{ 48 ]
200
Betsy J. Bowles 9,798
1947 Marion T. Shepard
The general purpose and policy of The Church Home Society's Board of Directors is to safely invest the capital bequests, using the income only for current expenses.
From the Book of Common Prayer
" The Minister is ordered, from time to time, to advise the People, whilst they are in health, to make Wills arranging for the disposal of their temporal goods, and, when of ability, to leave Bequests for religious and charitable uses."
Form of Bequest
I give and bequeath to The Church Home Society for the Care of Children of the Protestant Episcopal Church of Boston, Massachusetts, incorporated in the year 1858, the sum of $ to be applied to the general uses of said Corporation.
The Board, mindful of the future of its Staff, approved the principle of Contributory Old Age Insurance and went on record as favoring the passage of Legislation then before Congress (1940), an amendment to the Social Security Act including non- profit Agencies in the Old Age provision of the Social Security Act. The Congress, however, did not enact this Legislation until 1950.
In 1945 the Church Home Society with sixty-five of the Greater Boston Community Fund Agencies became a Charter and Contributing Member of the National Health and Welfare Retirement Association and the first far-seeing Retirement Plan for non-profit Welfare Agencies was begun.
[ 49]
The Second World War -
" The Frog Pond, Boston, July 1940 - Running water. A thou- sand jets of water rimming an oval bowl. Voices, Italian, Irish, Polish, Jewish, American. Gay voices; earefree voices. Voices without fear. Voices of America's children at play.
The Serpentine, London, July 1940 - Water. Its surface un- broken save for the reflection of great silver balloons - defense balloons - with their trailing arms of magnetic steel, silent part- ners of Britain's fighting and bombing planes. The Serpentine, where British children played; where mother ducks and their ducklings commanded the respect of British Bobbies. The Ser- pentine - mirror for the vagaries of an English sky.
The Frog Pond and the Serpentine - symbols of a free America and a shackled Europe. Symbols of American and European childhood today."
The United States Committee for the Care of European Chil- dren, operating through the United States Children's Bureau, with the authority of the United States Government, planned to bring to this country great numbers of British children, together with French, Belgian and Dutch children, in so far as the immi- gration quotas of those countries would allow, thus to protect them from the terrors of war, from famine and from death, and to save them for their families and their native lands.
Regional Committees were formed - the New England Com- mittee with Alfred F. Whitman, Executive Secretary of the Boston Children's Aid Association as Chairman; Cheney C. Jones, Superintendent of the New England Home for Little Wanderers, Chairman of the Committee on Group and Emergency Care, and Ralph Barrow, Executive Director of The Church Home Society, Chairman of the Committee on Child Care.
Bishop Sherrill asked The Church Home Society to be the Diocesan center for all matters relating to European children, a letter from him so informing all clergymen in the Diocese.
[ 50 ]
The Boston Transcript sponsored a plan to raise money and to find foster homes through its daily columns, and as the great wave of responses flowed in, the Transcript's Committee pooled its resources with those of the New England Committee, furnish- ing volunteer workers and most generous financial help to be used for the expenses of travel - mceting of boats in New York and Montreal, transportation of children to Boston, and tempo- rary care of children pending their placement in foster homes.
Backed by the Board and a Staff strong and resolute in its willingness to sacrifice self and time, the Society accepted for supervision fifty-four of the 250 placed British children, without added expense and with no lessening of service to The Society's own children. Two new workers were added to the Staff, both trained, one giving her services, the other's salary being met by a " friend of The C. H. S."
By the end of 1945 all fifty-four of the children had returned to England - to their parents, or to a parent; to houses they once knew as home, or to entirely new locations, depending upon the area from which they had come and the destruction that had been wrought upon it. A high level of care had been given them in their American foster homes. During the awful years of separation from their own families, relationships were kept green, foster parents and the Society's workers becoming warmly acquainted with the children's own parents through letters and pictures that shuttled back and forth across the Atlantic. Many of the children were given exceptional educational advantages, in- cluding college work and the development of latent talents in the Arts.
Young ambassadors, these Britishers, who at an early age had tasted and shared adversity, who gave to young Americans new values of stability, solidarity and sacrifice, and who carried back to England the rare good-will of a still young and free country.
" Now God be praised who matched us for this hour!" No one related to The Church Home Society during the terrible
[ 5]]
years of the War will forget, nor would they have forgone, the thrilling experience of working with the British children.
The exigencies brought on by our country's entrance into the War were felt in the day by day work of the Society - the possible drafting of the Staff for the Armed Services and for disaster relief; training for the evacuation and emergency care of children; safeguarding of the Society's records, storing old, mak- ing duplicates of current records and storing them in accessible places.
Rationing on all fronts demanded a further paring of expenses; transportation difficulties affected the stocking of The Penny Wise Thrift Shop's shelves by the Associates and lessened sales and income. Transportation, plus the fact that the Society now had so many infants (war babies) in care, and so many older children with disturbed personalities in distant institutions, brought an end to the Annual Children's Services which had been celebrated by children, parents, foster parents, Board and Staff since the days in South Boston.
The C. H. S. pointed with pride to its 65 young men and young women serving in the Armed Services of our country - one having attained the rank of Lt. Commander.
During these tense times The Society was asked by the State Division of Child Guardianship and the New Orleans Children's Home - an Episcopal institution - to give two workers “in- service training," that through training, experience and observa- tion, the one might qualify for a supervisory position and the other learn steps essential to transferring an Agency from In- stitutional Care to Placement. This was done, both Agency and workers benefiting from the relationship.
Stimulation and refreshment, essential to holding courage and compassion and faith high - were given the Staff each Autumn over a period of weeks in the quiet of the Executive Director's home. Here informal discussions on the " Psychology of Christian Personality," " Faith as a Tool in Social Work," " Music and Art,
{ 52 ]
Handmaidens in the Satisfying of Human Need," etc., were par- ticipated in.
The scarcity of foster homes - again believed to be directly attributable to the War, to families moving from old sites to War industry areas; to crowded living quarters; to men entering the Armed Services and to women replacing men in industry - finally became so grave that thirty-five of Massachusetts' Child Placing Agencies, both Public and Private, entered into a Joint Home Finding Campaign appealing to people throughout the State to share their homes with a child as a patriotic service in War as in peace. The Campaign was sponsored by the Chil- dren's Department of the Boston Council of Social Agencies and The Church Home Society's Executive Director served as Chair- man, its Publicity Department with a small committee from the other Agencies being responsible for the printed material and posters used.
Two thousand homes were sought - the State Division of Child Guardianship having the greatest need. One thousand families asked to be considered and of this number, owing to the requirements of a wholesome family life, only a certain percentage was used. However, the Campaign proved to the Agencies that with time and infinite patience foster homes could be found.
Later the Campaign was renewed under the auspices of the Massachusetts Child Council, with somewhat the same result as followed the first.
Juvenile delinquency, caused by the breaking down of family life and the curtailment of character building and recreational resources, and Child Labor, due to shortages in man power, with high wages; inordinate spending; defiance of parental authority; black markets; misunderstanding and strained relations between neighbors and races brought a greater number of older boys and girls, the pawns of these conditions, into the Society's care. Their complex and deep-seated problems demanded care beyond that which obtainable foster homes could then give and the Society
[ 53]
used more frequently, as it does today, modern Study Homes and Schools, educational and disciplinary in nature, for placement.
The Hon. Reuben L. Lurie, President of the Massachusetts Child Council, addressing an Annual Meeting of the Society with the question "Is It Well With the Child?" said " the problem of Juvenile Delinquency is common to us all, since we are all responsible for community situations. It is not limited to War, but intensified by it." There was at this time only one Judge in the Commonwealth trained in children's problems and no woman's judge sitting full time on girls' cases.
Both Board and Staff members served on Committees of the Massachusetts Child Council studying and promoting Federal and State legislation relating to Child Welfare. Two of the most important pieces of State legislation were The Juvenile Court Bill, based on the principle that the handling of juvenile delin- quency is a distinct and special kind of business and should have a separate and specialized judiciary and probation service, and the Report of the Commission on Investigation and Study of Adop- tion Laws and Practices in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Out of the former there came The Youth Service Board and out of the latter a modernized Adoption Law.
In the year 1942 the Society formalized its interest and concern for Personnel Practices by creating a Standing Committee of the Board, under this name, with Board and Staff participation in its membership and deliberations. An early statement regarding salaries and working conditions said, " Unless the Society pays salaries comparable to the going rate hereabouts it will not long be able to recruit first class workers, so that finally first class service will not be given to the children in its care." The years of growing professionalism in the Social Work field which fol- lowed sometimes found the Society one half lap behind the " going rate hereabouts," but never without an eager recognition that the Staff, the heart of the Agency's work, deserved the best. The Society has had on its staff some outstanding caseworkers.
[ 54]
Many, seasoned in its ranks, moved on to positions of recognized responsibility in both Public and Private fields of Social Work. Out of fairness to them all the temptation to name some of them is forbidden.
In 1946 Mr. Baylies resigned as the Society's President, having served seven years in his second term, and he was succeeded by Mr. Lawrence Coolidge who served as President through 1948 and as a member of the Board until his death in 1950.
Just prior to Mr. Baylies' resignation and early in Mr. Coolidge's term three of the Society's Directors died, Mrs. Courtenay Baylor, Mrs. Henry H. Fay and Mr. Clarence H. Poor - Mrs. Baylor, " whose search for truth and determination to act upon that knowledge " gave to The Church Home Society strength in its time of weakness and vitality to the consecration of its service; Mr. Poor, whose quiet, winning personality, backed by a sound judgment of, and participation in, Diocesan affairs, steered The Society through much of its planning and policy making, and Mrs. Fay, a member of the Board for forty-four years, of whom the following minute was written -
ELIZABETH ELLIOT FAY
" We are living in a time which is essentially attuned to youth. Until within a few weeks past Mrs. Henry H. Fay was vitally a part of this age. Mrs. Fay seemed to integrate the qualities of youth with her experience in life - a spontaneous confidence that right can prevail and a willingness to see her job through. Her ex- perience in living reached back almost a century, yet at no moment did she cease to be responsive to the conditions and ideas that surrounded her - there was no day in her life when she dropped anchor and said, ' I will pause here.' Her spirit rather was familiar with each passing decade. She lived through years of rapid change with serene dignity for she was guided by a faith that worked. She never faltered in her values of right and wrong - she rejoiced in
{55]
them. These values were the foundation of her life and gave power to her opinions and actions.
" Mrs. Fay became a member of the Board of Managers of The Church Home in 1901. From 1908 to 1917 she served as Presi- dent, and from 1917 to 1925 she was Vice-President of The Church Home Society and an active member of its Board of Directors until her death. To this Society, by reason of her ex- perience and knowledge gained through forty-four years of service, she was as one having authority, yet her voice was never authori- tarian. She spoke with intimacy as having kinship in spirit with each of us and above all she spoke with the love of children in her hcart. We have lost in Mrs. Fay's death a vital irreplaceable leadership - one to whom ideals never lost their reality."
Bishop Norman B. Nash, D.D., succeeded Bishop Sherrill as the tenth Bishop of the Diocese and became the Society's Honor- ary President.
The years of the War's backwash and the period of inflation demanded greater sacrifice and greater service from Board, Staff and Associates - the cost of service to children topping $100,000 for the first time in the Society's history.
The Associates were out in the Diocese, 164 strong in 143 Parishes. They were in daily communication with their fellow parishioners. Seasoned with years of voluntary service to The C. H. S., they willingly added their skills in knitting and sewing, which they had given to War Relief Organizations, to interpreta- tion, money raising for Special Projects, collecting of salable goods for The Penny Wise Thrift Shop, that The C. H. S.'s work might go on.
It is right to record The C. H. S.'s Associates' Group as one of the finest examples of voluntary effort at work in the Diocese of Massachusetts. Pecksniff would have said that The C. H. S. and the Associates were two halves of a pair of scissors when apart, but that together they were something!
[ 56 ]
Fearless Re-evaluation
The Executive Committee of the Greater Boston Community Fund and the Board of Directors of the Greater Boston Com- munity Council sobered by the results of recent Campaigns ap- pointed a Special Committee on the Survey of the Social Needs of Greater Boston's Health and Welfare Agencies.
This Survey, which covered more than three hundred Health and Welfare Agencies in Greater Boston, was one of the largest and most exhaustive ever attempted in the Welfare field. It was organized under a Citizens' Committee, with Mr. Robert Cutler as Chairman, and a large staff of national experts, led by Mr. Robert Lane of New York City.
The Survey continued through two years and in 1950 the Reports were considered by the Agencies. Many far-reaching recommendations were made touching the whole structure of the Agencies, the Fund and Council, and so indirectly The Church Home Society.
The two recommendations which were directed to the Society were:
1. Reduction or elimination of certain services: i.e., family work, health work and related efforts;
2. Further collaboration with the Boston Children's Aid As- sociation, seeking to use their staff and experience.
Some of the Society's activities were curtailed - the Society trimmed sail. In the two years following - 1950-1952 - the sug- gestions for further joint operation were entered into, ending in the purchase of the buildings at No. 3 and No. 5 Walnut Street, Boston, by the Judge Baker Guidance Center and the two organi- zations, the Children's Aid Association and The Church Home Society. Today in these attractive and conveniently located build- ings the two Societies are operating jointly telephone service, clothing department; home finding; and the Preventive Medical Clinic at the Boston Dispensary.
[ 57]
Following the completion of the Greater Boston Survey and the consideration of its recommendations by the Society, a com- mittee from the Board met with a committee from the Diocesan Department of Social Service to determine what steps should be taken to further implement the recommendations. It soon be- came clear that some basic decisions had to be made regarding the future relationship of the Society's program to the Diocese, and a consideration of its place in the whole structure of the Diocesan Social Services. Therefore it was felt that decisions regarding The Church Home Society could only be made in relation to the other institutions and agencies of the Diocese. The cooperation of the Episcopal City Mission and other institu- tions and agencies was sought in exploring the problem and the whole matter was then submitted to Bishop Nash with the request that a study be made by the National Council, Depart- ment of Christian Social Relations.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.