1940s The early 1940s are hard for the Children’s Bureau, which loses its office space, and huddles in cramped quarters over an auction gallery, until the purchase of a building at 1310 Delaware Avenue. Its offices remain there until 1969. Provision of services in southern Delaware has long been a goal of the Children’s Bureau, and that goal is met with the opening of a part-time office in Milford. Disruptions caused by World War II – including limited rations of food and fuel – plague the Children’s Bureau. Child abuse increases sharply, yet housing and foster family shortages make needs difficult to meet. An interagency foster home recruitment campaign is launched. The Family Society also responds to the War, commissioned by the Selective Service Board to conduct social history screenings of draftees, a contribution later recognized by a Congressional citation. After the War, as the community tries to pick up pieces of family life, The Family Society turns its attention to providing family and marriage counseling services. In 1942, a Joint Board Committee of The Family Society and the Children’s Bureau is convened to consider the possibility of merging the two agencies. However, after considerable study, the agencies’ executive secretaries–B. Ethelda Mullen at The Family Society, and Ruth Weisenberger at the Children’s Bureau–recommend against merger, stating: “We are fully aware of our responsibility, our readiness and, in fact, our keen interest in having our programs related to each other. We feel that consideration of the merger has in itself integrated more closely the services of the two agencies.” This is just a preview of what eventually happens 50 years later.
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