100 Years of Home

Since 1909, the Children’s Home has provided area kids with a place to grow, a place to heal, and a place to call home.

Michael Breedlove
October, 2009

There’s a small brick wall standing just outside Edwards Hall in the center of the tranquil, 212-acre Children’s Home campus. On the wall, you’ll find the following words inscribed onto a plaque: “In loving memory of all the children who lived here, and to the hopes of all the children left to come.”

The plaque is stationed on what’s known as Alumni Memorial Plaza — a simple brick structure built to commemorate the Children’s Home’s 100th Anniversary. It was paid for by some of the countless folks who, at some point, called the campus their home.

Despite having an immeasurable effect on both its children and the surrounding community — and despite its location in the very center of the city — the Children’s Home seems to be a treasure that few in Winston-Salem truly understand.

During its prime in the mid-1900s, the home housed anywhere from 350 to 450 children. Most of these kids were orphans or children from disrupted homes. While current social service laws have changed the makeup and mission of the home, it still exists with one overriding purpose: to support, stabilize, and love children.

The Foundation

Around the turn of the 20th century, the Methodist ministers in North Carolina’s 44 western counties decided they needed a place to house children who were without a home. While originally labeled an orphanage, the home wouldn’t be limited to orphans. Instead, it pledged to look after kids who were simply victims of unfortunate circumstances. After surveying a few locations, the ministers selected Winston-Salem over towns such as Hickory and Lenoir as the site for the new home.

In 1909, 11-year-old Carrie Bower arrived at the recently completed Children’s Home. She was the first of nearly 10,000 kids who were helped there.

That isn’t to say most kids were thrilled when they arrived. Feelings of confusion, desolation, and anger often accompanied them, as the circumstances that led them there were almost always chaotic. But the home’s setting — with its rolling green hills and pastoral backdrop — was anything but chaotic, allowing the healing process to begin shortly after arrival.

To keep the children in line, workers at the home implemented a series of rigid routines based around diet, exercise, religion, and work. For starters, each child was given a daily job to complete. These jobs, which ran the gamut from farming to sewing to cleaning, provided the kids with a little pocket change to spend however they pleased. More than that, the jobs served to increase each child’s sense of self-worth.

Make no mistake, though — the work was anything but easy. Earl Wade will be the first to tell you that. As a graduate of the class of 1965, Wade still remembers waking up hours before sunrise every other morning to milk the dozens of cows grazing on the property. The Children’s Home has always been largely self-sufficient, so the milk would later be pasteurized and served at the dining hall. “All we ever drank was milk,” Wade recalls. “I got tired of it eventually. In fact, I don’t think I’ve had a glass of milk since I left.”

Despite the hard work and heavy-on-the-dairy diet, Wade maintains that the Children’s Home was “a special place to grow up.” In fact, you’ll still find him hard at work
at the home even today — albeit as a paid employee. He now serves as the superintendent of buildings and grounds.

Every now and then, when he’s repairing a fence or mowing the lawn, Wade says he reflects on his time at the home. He still talks fondly about the support he received and the lessons he learned. More than anything, though, he likes to talk sports.

Surprisingly, athletics were a big part of life at the Children’s Home. Although the kids would head to RJ Reynolds High School for their education during the day, they’d return home to play football, baseball, basketball, and a host of other activities.

Despite always being under-equipped and undermanned, the home was surprisingly competitive in all its endeavors. A big part of its success — at least on the gridiron — stemmed from Head Coach Wilburn Clary. The North Carolina Hall-of-Fame inductee coached the team from 1937 to 1966, leading it to a 39-game winning streak at one point.

“We’d play teams like Davie County and Asheboro, and a lot of times we’d beat them,” says Wade, who starred on the football team under Clary. “We were just tougher than the other schools, I guess. When you’re getting up every morning at 3:30 to go milk cows, you have to be plenty tough.”

Some of Wade’s old football remnants — including his cleats and letterman’s jacket — are now on display inside the home’s recently completed historical museum. Other notable relics include an old dental chair, a projector used to screen movies, a first-aid kit from the infirmary, and the old bell used to signal meal times. The items are encased in large birch display cabinets that were built by another Children’s Home alum, Fred Tanner.

Like Wade, Tanner gushes about his time at the home. He arrived as a confused 2-year-old shortly after his mother died in 1943. He left 16 years later as an earnest young man. “The Children’s Home was my home,” he says. “The home mothers were my mothers. The teachers and the coaches were my family.”

Although he’s nearly 70 now, Tanner can spout off stories about his life at the home like they just happened last week. A few years ago, he decided to take all of those stories and compile them into a book he titled Tanner: “Boy Orphan.”  The 270-page book is full of colorful memories and anecdotes about life at the home, including the tale about his ill-fated attempt to run away.

“I guess I was about 11 when some of the other boys talked me into running away,” he recalls. “I didn’t really want to leave, but it sounded like fun at the time.”
Despite being gone for what “seemed like forever,” Tanner and his crew didn’t make it very far. They were caught about a mile from the home on Coliseum Drive.
“I was glad we got caught,” he says. “We didn’t have anything to eat or anywhere to sleep out there. I’d never been happier to get home and get a whippin’ in all my life!”

Although he now lives four hours east of Winston-Salem in the town of Hertford, Tanner still comes back to the home to lend a helping hand when he can. While misfortune might have brought him there initially, he says gratefulness continues to bring him back.

“Things have changed since I was there,” he says, “but they’re still putting out the effort to help any way they can. They’re still trying to make a difference in kids’ lives. That’s what’s important.”

The Future

In order to keep up with the ever-changing social service laws, the Children’s Home has had to change its approach to helping kids. Gone are the days of having 400-plus children staying on campus overnight. These days, the home is a licensed mental-health treatment center, catering to overnight residents and day-treatment patients. The kids it serves come from all over the state, and do so for a variety of reasons.

“First off, we handle emotionally challenged kids,” says George Bryan, president and CEO of the Children’s Home. “These are the kids who are battling eating disorders, suicidal thoughts … problems like that. Then there are the abused and neglected kids, many who were brought here by the state.”

The home also provides respite care for kids who are developmentally disabled, such as those who suffer from autism or Down syndrome. “We let parents bring their kids here for a long weekend while they get a break,” Bryan notes. “We understand that sometimes, it’s just too much to take.”

There’s also Friendship House, which offers families involved in cancer treatment at Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center a place to stay, and My Aunt’s House, which will provide shelter for homeless teen mothers when renovations wrap up. The home also serves as a child-placing agency for family foster care, and recently became a licensed adoption agency that specializes in foster-to-adopt placements.

“We only have about 50 overnight residents now,” Bryan says, “but we’re still seeing hundreds of kids every day. These kids come for counseling, school, foster care — just a variety of reasons.”

But the home does more than meet the needs of children and families these days; it is extending a helping hand to the entire community. The home recently welcomed the Sawtooth Center to campus while its downtown building is being renovated.

Workers at the home are hoping to engage the community even more in the future. They’re planning to transform the old football stadium into a lacrosse field for area teams to use. They’re also preparing to open a 15,000-plant strawberry patch to the public next spring. In addition, the on-campus farm is now available to rent for birthday parties, corporate events, and other social functions. According to Kim McPherson, coordinator of experiential services, workers at the home are trying to be “good stewards of the land.”

“I think the Children’s Home was very closed off and independent for a number of years,” she says. “But lately, we’re really trying open ourselves up to the community and fill whatever needs there may be.”

But while workers at the home continue to search for ways to help the community, they’re also in search of a little help themselves. With the recession came a big hit in annual giving — both from foundations and the state government. To combat this, workers are stepping up their charitable fundraising efforts.

Their efforts seem to be working, as more than 700 private donors have made contributions to the home this year. According to Bryan, those private funds provide about a quarter of the support a child needs while staying there.

“Funding is always a concern,” he says. “All the kids we house have their own needs. They need meals. They need haircuts. They need doctor trips. There’s just
always something.”

By providing for the kids, the home is essentially giving them the support they need for a better today and a brighter tomorrow. As Tanner likes to say, the “home gave me more than a place to sleep. It gave me a chance at life.

“Every kid needs a place they feel welcome,” he continues. “Every kid needs a place they can call home.”

For Tanner, Wade, and the thousands of other graduates, the Children’s Home will always be that place.

To learn more about donating or volunteering at the Children’s Home, call 336-721-7656 or go to tchome.org

Sidebar: Farm Friends
There’s a donkey chewing my notepad. No, seriously, there’s a donkey chewing my notepad.

When I agreed to do a story on the Children’s Home’s 100th anniversary, I assumed I’d learn a lot. But as I sat inside the home’s milking barn on a sunny Thursday afternoon, watching helplessly as a miniature donkey devoured a whole day’s worth of notes, it became obvious I was learning more than I ever wanted to know.

Somehow, leaders at the home had talked me into participating in an activity known as Wu Wei, which loosely translates to “just be.” It’s one of the many equine-assisted learning activities that was recently introduced. The objective? Sit in silence and observe how the animals react to you. On this particular day, I was sharing the barn with one big horse, four mini-horses, a donkey, a mini-mule, and one curious mini-donkey named Deac.

“Oh, he likes you!” said one of the four teenagers in the barn with me.
“Really?” I asked. “Can you make him stop liking me?”

You might be wondering how this all applies to helping kids. Well, for starters, kids at the home desperately need something to smile about. Most of them are in dark places in their lives, whether it’s because of domestic abuse, abandonment, or emotional fragility. Needless to say, watching barnyard animals make friends with the unsuspecting magazine guy caused quite a few smiles.

More than that, the exercise provides kids with a window into their own worlds. After the Wu Wei experiment, we huddled up on a picnic table just outside the barn to reflect on what we saw.

“Luna (the mini-mule) kept slinging a Hula Hoop at me,” says one of the kids. “She just wants attention … a lot like my little brother.”

“Did you see poor Radar?” notes another. (Radar is a small, all-white horse). “He doesn’t fit in with anybody. He must be the outcast.”

That’s when equine-therapy leader Laura Gentry takes a moment to dig a little deeper. “Is there a time when you’ve felt like the outcast?” she asks.

For a few minutes, each kid delves into his or her personal circumstances. Their responses, though too detailed to print, were both heartfelt and thought-provoking, causing even the magazine guy to reflect on his upbringing a bit.

“A lot of our kids have issues they need to work on, whether it’s anger management, cooperation, or self-esteem,” Gentry later tells me. “The animals provide a great outlet to work some of those emotions out.”

One word of advice, though, should you find yourself inside the milking barn — donkeys apparently find paper the rarest of delicacies.