blood flow

Hephzibah is celebrating its 125th-anniversary celebration with a series of stories about the children and families whose lives were transformed by our programs and services, as well as some of the “Hephzibah Heroes” who helped make our mission possible. We hope you nd them as inspiring as we do!

Once a Hephzibah Kid, Always a Hephzibah Kid

KEITH ELKINS

Our first 125th-anniversary story is about reconnecting. It began in 1935 when two distressed parents—financially strapped and broken in spirit by the relentless hardships of the Great Depression—were forced to accept the devastating reality that they could not afford to feed, clothe and care for their two children, Keith and Muriel.

“My parents had gone out to California five or six years earlier,” Keith Elkins wrote decades later in his book, Hephzibah’s Children: 1930 to 2000. “Now, in the depth of the Great Depression, they were driving back to their hometown of Chicago, dead broke with two kids: my sister Muriel and me. Emotionally depleted after failing to find their fortune in California and on the verge of a breakup, my parents could no longer provide for us. On October 23, 1935, they dropped us both off at Hephzibah Home. It was one month after Muriel’s third birthday and one day after my fourth birthday.”

Elkins, now 91, doesn’t remember much else about that day. But he does remember the relative comfort and stability of his life as a “Hephzibah kid.”

“Muriel and I lived at Hephzibah for about three years, and my memories of the place are very positive,” he says. “We were housed well, fed well, clothed well and taught well. I remember Hephzibah’s backyard playground, where I discovered that I got dizzy on the merry-go-round, that the backs of my bare thighs stuck to the slide in hot weather, that it felt good to swing along the monkey bars and that climbing on the jungle gym was easier than climbing the trees.” He also remembers weekend outings to the Lake Theater and other destinations in the community. “It was just wonderful,” he says.

The siblings’ sojourn at Hephzibah Home wasn’t a long one in the context of a lifetime, but it was an unforgettable one for Elkins, who went on to earn a doctoral degree in educational psychology at the University of Chicago, become a husband and father and enjoy a distinguished academic career as a professor at the SUNY Empire State College in Buffalo, New York. Throughout his adulthood, he also used his skills and talents to help others by serving as a board member for numerous nonprofits, an advocate for seniors, a benefactor and a volunteer.

Elkins attributes much of his personal and professional success—as well as the development of the moral compass that guides him—to the “steadiness” that he first experienced at Hephzibah Home.

“Now, toward the end of my life, I’m discovering that Hephzibah shaped me far more than I realized and gave me a sense

PROVIDED A safe haven during the Great Depression: Keith Elkins (fourth from top) lived at Hephzibah Home with his younger sister, Muriel, from 1935 to 1938 . Although he went on to accomplish a great deal in his life, he never forgot his positive experiences at Hephzibah and returned seven decades later to spearhead our rst annual Homecoming Weekend for Hephzibah Home alumni in October 2007.