Disappearing Orphanages
No complaints are being heard, but orphans and orphanages are fast becoming a thing of the past.
A group of Palestine residents can testify to this after several years of trying to carry out the provisions of the will of a wealthy neighbor, Miss Sarah Cartmell.
When Miss Cartmell died in 1948, she left the bulk of her nearly $800,000 estate to build and operate homes for the destitute aged — and orphans.
After her will was contested in the court for several years, it finally was cleared and a comfortable home for the aged was built on a wooded tract in the outskirts of Palestine. It immediately became home for twenty senior citizens.
A ranch style home for orphans was built on an adjoining lot and the call for twelve orphans went out throughout the state — in newspapers, on radio and television, and in letters to various social agencies.
But, although the board of directors of the Cartmell Home for Aged and Orphans was liberal in its interpretation of the word "orphan," none could be found.
In February of this year, after waiting for about sixteen months, the directors decided to shelve plans for an orphanage and to use the building as an added facility for the aged. The directors left the door open to orphans, however, saying the conversion was made "until such time as there shall appear a definite need for a home for dependent and destitute orphans in the state."
The experience of the Cartmell board brings on the questions: Just what is the orphan situation in the state? Has the time arrived when orphans are able to receive proper care and guidance, whether from a relative, a state institution, or a private orphan's or children's home?
Apparently it has. And the same appears to be true throughout the United States.
Few Children's Homes Have A Waiting List
In its search for orphans, the Cartmell board found that there are few orphans in Texas who are not being cared for and that there no longer exists a need for more orphans homes in the state.
A Cartmell survey of children's homes revealed that few of those being cared for were full orphans (both parents dead) and that only a few more were half orphans (one parent dead.) Most of those being cared for are neglected and dependent children from broken homes. Few of the homes had waiting lists.
Royce Thompson, manager of the Cartmell Home for Aged and Orphans, conducted the survey.
"We went along with our planning for the orphans home according to the Cartmell will, knowing the need was small," said Thompson, an attorney and a former FBI agent.
"We realized that if the need didn't develop, we could use it in connection with our home for the aged," he said. The need didn't develop and probably won't.
Jerome Meyer, executive secretary of the Faith Home in Houston, confirmed that homes in this area are caring for very few orphans.
"Some (orphans homes) are going out of business and others are converting to care for other types of children," Meyer said.
In Galveston, administrators of Saint Mary's Orphanage, the Lasker Home for Homeless Children and the Galveston Orphans Home echoed Meyer's statement.
Statistics on the number of orphans in Texas are not available, but a person can get an idea of the situation by studying the figures for the United States as a whole, which probably present about the same ratio as Texas.
Although there has been a great increase in the number of children in the country, the incidence of full orphans in the population has dropped to one-tenth of one per cent.
Records of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare show that in 1920 there were 6,400,000 orphans (both half and full) under eighteen years of age in the U.S.
Of this number 750,000 were full orphans.
Number Drops Nearly 700,000 In 40 Years
By 1940 the total number of orphans had decreased to 3,840,000, or 9.5 per cent of the total child population. The number of children under eighteen with both parents dead was 290,000.
The steady decline in the number of orphans continued until in 1960 it was estimated that there were about 2,955,000 children with one or both parents dead. Sixty-thousand of these were full orphans.
Thus, in forty years, the number of children under eighteen with one or both parents dead decreased in the U.S. from 16.3 per cent of the total child population to 4.5 per cent, while the number of full orphans dropped from 750,000 to 60,000.
"Throughout the nation, very few states report a need for additional care for orphans," said Martin Gula, consultant on group care for the Children's Bureau of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare. Gula has worked with social agencies in Texas on various occasions.
The report of the Governor's committee to the 1960 White House Conference on Children and Youth pointed out the orphan situation in the state.
"In the early days of Texas," the report read, "the high maternal death rate, epidemics, and the hazards of pioneer life orphaned many children. Religious, fraternal and state institutions were established to feed, clothe and care for them.
"Today the orphan is rare .... But the paucity of social resources in Texas has required these institutions to continue, though their population is now composed chiefly of the rejected and neglected child of living parents."
Medical Science Gains Reduce Orphan Numbers John H. Winters, Commissioner Of The Texas State Department Of Public Welfare, Said There Are 129 Children's Homes In The State-92 Private, 21 State Supported, And 16 With Local Public Support.
Due to the changing parental status of children needing care away from home, very few, if any, of these facilities limit admission to children of deceased parents!' he reported.
"The management of each institution has control of admissions to the respective institutions and we do not know how many children in each institution are true orphans," the commissioner said.
Why is it that orphan's and children's homes in the state are caring for few orphans? And why is it that the need for more orphanages no longer exists?
One reason, of course, is that there are fewer orphans because of advancements in medical science.
"Because of modern medicine and drugs, not so many women die in childbirth as formerly, and many parents who might have died of an illness several years ago now are able to recover," Thompson said.
There has been an 85 per cent drop in mortality in childbirth in the past 50 years.
Other reasons given by social workers and other interested parties for fewer orphans receiving institutional care:
1) The public conscience has grown sufficiently to be opposed to congregate care of normal children.
2) The foster home has been embraced by many social workers as ideal for the normal child and more of the fewer orphans are living with foster parents.
3) The demand for adoptable children has increased.
4) Because of Social Security survivor's benefits and other types of insurance, many orphans who formerly might have gone to a children's home are now taken in by relatives.
5) Economic assistance programs, such as Aid to Dependent children, have helped to maintain many half orphans with their mothers.
Foster Home care is favored over institutional care for the normal child because he may receive more affection, training, privacy, attention, security and satisfaction.
When the child's own home has to be ruled out, the increasing practice has been to consider first, foster family care for the child. And, if that is neither feasible nor possible, then to consider institutional placement.
No Child Unadoptable, Social Agencies Find
"Renewed emphasis is being placed on the concept of a family of his own for every child," said Mrs. Mildred Arnold, director of the Division of Social Services of the Children's Bureau, U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare.
"If a child cannot live with his natural parents or with relatives, the only other really permanent solution is an adoptive placement," she said.
Mrs. Arnold said there is no problem in finding adoptive homes for white infants.
"However," she said, "any child who is not Caucasian, in good physical condition and an infant has a tough time when he needs adoption.
"But hopeful things are happening to him, too. Social agencies are beginning to find out that no child is unadoptable and are even beginning to react against the term 'hard to place child.'
"New efforts for these children, being undertaken in many places, are bringing results and steps taken in a number of states toward the organization of an adoptive resource exchange should spur efforts on," Mrs. Arnold added.
Where foster home care is concerned, in 1900 there were approximately 95,000 children being cared for in institutions throughout the United States, with negligible use of agency foster boarding homes. In 1933 there were 140,000 children in institutions, with 70,000 in boarding homes.
By 1950 the ratio was almost exactly reversed, with 180,000 children in foster family care and only 96,000 in institutions. This has brought on a change in the role of the institution.
Commissioner Winters said, "The needs of children coming into foster care are changing so that the role of the institution is changing.
"The institution is still a very much needed and important resource for some children for given periods of time, such as adolescents, the emotionally disturbed child, and children whose attachments to their natural parents are such that they could not tolerate a close personal relationship with foster family boarding parents," he said.
The Commissioner said there is an added need for group care in Texas for:
1) Negro children and youth of all ages, who benefit from group care.
2) Children with behavior problems of varying degrees of severity, who need a controlled environment with skilled personnel in charge.
3) Children with various severe physical handicaps, such as the cerebral palsied child; children with multiple handicaps, such as deaf-blind.
4) Mentally retarded children.
5) Adolescents from 14 to 17 years of age at the time of admission, who may be non-conforming.
6) Dull children, whose intelligence quotient is too high for the state schools for the mentally retarded, but who cannot follow academic public school programs and the regular activities in a child care institution.
Special Services Taking Care Of Changing Needs
"It is fortunate that many institutions in Texas are revamping their programs by adding Social Service Departments and other specialized services necessary to understand and meet the needs of children and to change the plan of care when these needs fluctuate," Commissioner Winters said.
The Texas Governor's Committee to the 1960 White House Conference on Children and Youth said:
"Many institutions in Texas (orphans homes) have changed to imaginative and sensitive programs of adoption, foster family care, and financial supplementation to meet today's needs as the original founders met the needs in their day.
Others have seen their role as one to supply therapy to the damaged youngster, while some give group care to those children who cannot adjust to another parent-child relationship."
Child care needs in Texas are essentially the same as those in other states.
"Practically every state reports the need for good quality group homes or institutions equipped to serve emotionally disturbed children, homeless adolescents, mentally retarded and otherwise handicapped children who cannot adjust to foster family care," consultant Gula said.
Gula feels that one of the most important tasks in the field of child care is the job of coordinating all of the public and voluntary services in behalf of children.
"This would require a concerted study by citizens, courts and agencies of children throughout the state who are unserved or poorly served — and the best long range plan in developing services for these children," he said.
Mrs. Arnold feels there is a great need for improved diagnostic practices in child welfare.
She said that Children's Bureau staff members have reported to her that careful planning for children, based on an understanding of the individual child's needs and developments, was lacking in many agencies.
"In social work, we take great pride in our emphasis on the dignity and worth of every individual, yet so many children in foster care are losing these important values," Mrs. Arnold said in a speech at the National Conference on Social Welfare in Atlantic City.
"To me this makes it imperative that we do everything we can to prevent such losses to children. This will take every bit of imagination, skill and ingenuity we possess," she said in a challenge to social workers.
Most social workers agree that although the care of orphans has become a small part of the function of children's homes, the institution is still a most important part of the child care program and that most are entering into their new role with enthusiasm and wisdom.
Gula said the present day partnership in child welfare is beginning to encompass the social scientist, research consultant and community planner — along with the supporting citizen and contributor, the parent, volunteer, professional worker and legislator.
"There is still much to be done," Gula said, "but all that has been done augurs well for children and their families in the future."