HISTORY OF PCHAS

This year PCHAS celebrates the 120th anniversary of its founding. Through epidemics, mining accidents, the Great Depression and two World Wars, the agency has cared for children and families in need. Here is a brief look at the early years of the agency.

In the spring of 1903, as the redbud trees began bursting with life, Mrs. Blaney’s heart was heavy. She knew that she was dying of tuberculosis. She contacted the pastor of First Presbyterian Church in Dallas, Texas about her four children, whose father was gone. To care for the children, the Ladies’ Missionary Society rented a house and hired a matron. By the fall of that year, the Society had admitted more children and approached the Synod of Texas to take over the program. The Synod began searching for a larger property for the Presbyterian Home for Children. Because of Mrs. Blaney’s early death, many children would have a secure home.

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In 1904, the name of the home was changed to the Texas Presbyterian Home and School for Orphans. That same year, the Files family donated 342 acres in the Files Valley, east of Itasca, Texas, to build a new campus. The organization believed that housing children in multiple houses, instead of one factory-sized institution, was in the best interest of the children. In 1906, 22 children moved from the Dallas home to Files Valley. Trustees soon changed the name to the Southwestern Presbyterian Home and School for Orphans, to reflect the support of the Synods of Arkansas and Oklahoma.

By act of the Texas Legislature, the Itasca campus grounds were incorporated into an Independent Public School District. The Home operated its own school from 1912 until 1957.

The history of PCHAS includes mergers with other organizations. The first was with the Reynolds Presbyterian Orphanage and School, which was founded in 1916. The Presbytery of Abilene opened it in Albany, Texas. Within a few years, enrollment was up to 100 children. By 1923 it was re-named Reynolds Presbyterian Home and re-located to northern Dallas. The Synod of Texas accepted ownership of the Home three years later.

This new campus, although in the city, consisted of 72 acres with barns and sheds. The Home featured a nursery for children three to six years old; a dormitory with separate units for older boys, small boys, older girls and small girls; a vocational building for a workshop and storage; a library; a laundry, and a hospital with 14 beds.

The length of a placement in these group homes varied. Some children grew up without ever seeing family; others visited with family periodically and still others returned to their parents after only a few years.

While these two Presbyterian homes flourished in Texas, another was growing in Missouri. About 75 miles from St. Louis there was a farming community and a center for the mining industry called Farmington. In the early 1900s, Presbyterian ministers were called to establish an orphanage at a school that had closed. For the next 55 years, the orphanage provided a high level of care for up to 145 children at a time.

The Presbyterian Orphanage of Missouri weathered its early years and the Great Depression with resourcefulness and the generosity of regional donors. When in 1932 it received a large contribution of stock, it began raising funds for an administration building with a larger kitchen and dining room. This was completed in 1940. Another major donation funded a hospital, also completed in 1940. As in Texas, a printing press enabled the orphanage to publish a newsletter regularly.

For a long time, the press, operated by some of the boys at the orphanage, helped to earn income for the home.

Because the Orphanage rented eight acres for cows and a garden, the children enjoyed fresh dairy products and vegetables. By the start of World War II, the acreage netted a worthwhile profit.

Eventually, gifts from Joseph Sunnen, a St. Louis businessman, enabled the Orphanage to purchase land for farming. The 85 acres included enough pasture for 21 horses and four cows. Its orchard consisted of 75 fruit trees and a vineyard.

Soon the Orphanage, called Farmington Children’s Home by locals, purchased a neighboring property and the combined land was known as the “farm campus.” During the next couple of years the older boys moved to the farm and the Orphanage built two log cottages there. The “town campus” opened a fireproof dormitory for small boys and another for the girls, both in 1946.

Self-sufficiency has always been a priority for the children in our care. All our campuses emphasized education and the trades so that they could provide for themselves as adults. In Itasca, trustees established a loan fund for the Home’s college students.

Originally each of these group homes took in orphans whose parents had died from illness or accident. Then in the 1930s, the Great Depression deprived many families of their stability. As society changed, fewer children were abandoned and more were removed from families due to domestic violence or substance abuse.

The next issue of HOME will document a few of the agency’s transformations in the second half of the 20th century as it continued to serve children and families in need.