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United Methodist Children's Home of Ohio

The Legacy That is UMCH!

The United Methodist Children's Home (UMCH) is your hand in mission to children and families. The United Methodist Children's Home touches the lives of young people who are in critical trouble, who have personal problems, and problems with their school, their parents, and their communities. For many, the United Methodist Children's Home offers a shining ray of light to help turn their lives around. We offer the opportunity to return to their home communities changed, directed, and hopeful of what lies ahead.

History of United Methodist Children's Home

The United Methodist Children's Home has served thousands of children over its 95 years. For many of these children UMCH was their home when they needed help. UMCH continues to provide help to children and families in need of services today. This successful and dynamic program is the result of UMCH's rich history of service and dedication to children.

Tragedy Inspires a Loving Movement

This long and successful history of service was made possible through the efforts of many dedicated people. Our first glimpse of this movement begins in the 1903 Iroquois Theatre disaster in Chicago Illinois.

One day the wife and two daughters of a Delaware Ohio citizen (Mr. Dodd) went to Chicago to visit friends. Mr. Blue Beard, Jr. was showing at a local theater, and someone suggested that they take the children to see the musical. Fire broke out, and when the flames had been extinguished it was found that the mother and one girl were among the dead. Mr. Dodd brought his dead family members back to Delaware, Ohio for burial. Realizing that his remaining child Anna would be the sole heir to his estate, Mr. Dodd deeded the family farm to her. It is reported that Anna, then donated the first year's profits of $200 in memory of her departed mother and sister to start the children's home. It is speculated that Anna realized that she too could have easily been "orphaned" by life's circumstance and wanted to be able to help other less fortunate children. She turned the money over to Rev. Beechley and Rev. F. I. Johnson to be used to start a movement to build a children's home. They took the money to the next session of the North Ohio Conference, a committee was appointed to look after the matter and before the year was up, incorporation papers had been taken out and the movement launched. In 1904 the Conference drafted articles of Incorporation for the "Orphan's Home", all members indicating that they "profoundly believed it was their duty to care for the bodies and souls of the children." At that time, funds were still not available for this work to be started.

Collaborating for Divine Influence

During the same year, and for the same purpose, a movement was started in the West Ohio Conference. Reverend E. A. Harford, the Field Secretary of the Flower Hospital in Toledo was appointed with the development of this plan. At his suggestion and under his leadership it was decided to build one children's home for the entire state, rather than one in each Conference. Trustees were selected from all of the Conferences, and a new incorporation organized and authorized by the State to own property, to receive children, to keep and place them.

This incorporation went into effect in 1911, and Reverend E.A. Harford, the leader of the movement, moved to Delaware from Toledo to solicit funds by speaking in churches and interviewing private individuals.

At the time it was supposed that the Home would be located in or near Delaware. The civic association offered a fine park, valued at $24,000, free of all encumbrances. Other places became interested. Galion offered to present the trustees a fine farm of 80 acres, and Worthington agreed to raise $5,000 to be used to purchase the farm if located there. This proposition was supported by representatives of Columbus District Methodist's, who proposed to add $20,000 to the Worthington subscription. The board voted and finally agreed to accept the latter proposal. They elected a committee to select the exact location and purchase the land on which to build. For some reason very little of this money was ever secured. It is noted that W.W. Morral of Morral, Ohio who had agreed to put up $7,500 for a memorial cottage, permitted his money to be used temporarily for the purchase of property with the understanding his money would be restored for the building of a cottage.

The Pinney farm was selected North of the Corporation limit was eventually purchased. Ten acres of this land had been sold to Mr. Baumgartner and improved with a barn and eight-room house. The whole 144-acres, with the three sets of buildings, were purchased for $42,500 in 1912. The first payment was $1,000 only. The financing was made possible by the help of the Worthington Savings Bank, who furnished the money.

A Need Too Great

In the fall of 1912, Reverend Harford moved from Delaware to the farm, using the Old Pinney homestead as both residence and an administration building. At the first session of the North-East Ohio Conference in 1912, Reverend J.B. Jones was appointed as financial secretary and directed to assist the Superintendent in securing funds to pay off the mortgage on the farm. Subscriptions were taken for three years; these were turned over to Mrs. Harford, who comprised the entire office staff. She sent out notices and kept the books. Originally the plan was to pay off the mortgage and then begin to care for children, but "the best laid plans of mice and men often go astray."

The Superintendent was hardly settled before a woman appeared from Toledo and asked him to take her little girl, who wandered all day through the streets while the mother worked. He talked it over with his wife and they decided to take the little girl into their own home. Soon they were asked to take two boys from Cincinnati, which they did. The boys had been discovered sleeping in a store box in the alley. They were requested to take a girl from Delaware whose mother and father both died within twelve months. They received her and a few months later her brother.

The appeals to take children kept coming, cases so needy it seemed cruel to turn them away, so that with four of their own, Reverend and Mrs. Harford soon found their table room exhausted and their house crowded to the door. In 1913 the Superintendent moved out of the administration building into the Baumgartner house. The pressure from the outside was so insistent and heavy that something had to be done; the visits of the men to the pulpits had spread the news that the Methodist Church had gone into the field of child welfare, and the needy came clamoring from everywhere. The debt was still very large, but necessity has always been the mother of invention and the spur of hesitating souls, so the board directed the Superintendent to organize his force and move ahead. Strange as it may seem, there was more money and for the debt after the home was organized and operating than before.

By 1914 it was reported that 30 children were in residence, with 10 being placed in foster homes. A waiting list of 30 was reported with 2 to 5 children being turned away weekly due to a lack of facilities.

The Love of a Mother

For sometime prior to moving, Reverend Harford had been searching for a capable woman to act as housemother to the children. He decided to offer the position to the woman who was the matron for the Home for the Aged in Cincinnati. She was a widow whose husband had died and left her with four children; she kept the family together, supporting them with the work of her own hands and it was thought at the time, that her experiences would prepare her for the large task of helping the church care for other needy little ones. Mrs. Clara Mae Patterson accepted the position.

The day Reverend Harford moved out of the administration building, the only furniture the home had was a cook-stove and a kitchen sink. He borrowed a table, the children sat on store boxes, and there were six knives and six forks for sixteen of them. There were no beds, and everyone slept on the floor. Mrs. Patterson began her work by eating from a box and sleeping on the floor with the children.

Dr. Arbuckle was one of the incorporators and with Reverend Harford and Mrs. Patterson, went to Carlise's furniture store and asked them to sell the Home certain furniture and charge it to his account. He then went to Howard's store and asked the same thing. At three different furniture stores he pledged his credit for $700 worth of furnishings, agreeing to pay if the new institution faulted.

With this furniture Mrs. Patterson began in earnest the work of caring for both boys and girls. In her they found warmth and kindness - a mother. So much in fact, she became known as "Mom Pat" to the children. It soon became evident, that all of the children could not be kept in the same building. Mrs. Brumbaugh, a widow and a minister of the West Ohio Conference, was employed and the larger boys were moved to the farm cottage.

She was a woman endowed with a double portion of the heroic spirit. The only heating equipment in her cottage was a cook-stove in the kitchen and a wood fireplace in the living room. The bathroom was a boarded-up space on the porch, warm in the summer and cool in the winter; the equipment was a wash basin and a galvanized wash tub. There was a pump in the yard for pumping water, and the lighting system consisted of several units of kerosene lamps. There was no telephone and the mail came when you went after it. It was nearly a half mile to High Street; the road was made of very rich, black dirt in the summer, and black mud in the winter. Wearing their high-top shoes and by diligently dodging fence corners, the boys were made to negotiate their way to the administration building and the road to school. The two women who did the work were almost as cut off from the rest of the world as if they had been marooned on a deserted island in the Pacific Ocean. Here Mrs Brumbaugh lived and with one helper, and cared for twenty-four boys.

The work of the office became increasingly heavy and Mrs. Welling, whose husband had died and left her a widow with one boy, came to take charge of the books. Room was at a premium and a bed was set up in the office with a screen around it. Here Ms. Welling and her little boy slept at night. In the same room she carried on the business of the Home during the day.

For a time the Superintendent did all of the social work himself, but soon it became evident that this could not go on for long. Miss Essie Long was secured as a social worker in 1922. She visited the homes and placed the children. She could tell you many incidents, valuable and interesting. One is at least worth recording.

One night in Columbus a family heard a noise on their front porch; going out they found a basket and in the basket, a baby. In the basket with the baby was a sack of candy, an apple, and a powder puff. The folks took the baby into the house and fed it then called the police. Two members of the force came over and took it to the detention home. The next day they contacted the Children's Home, and Reverend Harford accepted placement of the child. Miss Long was given the responsibility for caring for the child. A woman from the West Ohio Conference heard of the baby and agreed to support the child if they would permit her to give her the name Matilda and the name of a church she and her husband used to attend. Governor Willis was invited to the Children's Home, and he gave the baby his wife's birthday to be hers as well. Ms. Long took a special interest in the girl and when she left the employment of the children's home, took the girl (with permission) and raised her as her own.

A Patron Saint

Bishop Theodore S. Henderson, on his first meeting with the Superintendent of UMCH stated, "Command me for whatever service I can do for the children's home." It is noted that Bishop Henderson - who served during the Great Depression - was able to convince every church to send 1 penny, per member, per month to the Children's Home. During a time when a new car cost $500, he was stated to have raised over $40,000 in one year.

Changing to Meet the Needs of Children and Families

For many years the Methodist Children's Home included a functioning farm with crops, horses, cows, chickens, and pigs. The children learned to work with animals and with the soil in wholesome labor. Former residents tell of hoeing corn all the way from High Street to the river, then being permitted to jump in to cool off, swim briefly and hoe their way back up through the corn to the barn. Then they could do their chores!

By 1917 more than two hundred children had been received. Of these, 43 were placed into foster homes and 34 had been legally adopted. The original farm debt had been paid off. At long last the William and Della Morral cottage was under construction at a cost of $31,369. It was a happy day in 1919 when an electric transformer was installed and the cottages wired for electricity.

Gradually the old farm houses were replaced by brick cottages designed for children. In 1923, Edwards Cottage was completed as a memorial to Helen Edwards, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. J.H. Edwards, who was stricken with a fatal illness. In 1929, the Columbus District Methodist layment made possible the construction of the Columbus Infirmary which contained facilities for children and an infirmary. It was later remodeled and was known as Wesley Cottage.

A gift from the Charles S. Cherington estate enabled the United Methodist Children's Home to construct two attractive modern, ranch type lodges. These were dedicated January 1952 in memory of his mother Julia Hurst Cherington. In 1960, the home was able to build a new Administration Center. The Cheney Multipurpose Campus Center containing a chapel, gymnasium, kitchen, storage facilities, and school classrooms were dedicated in 1962. This was in honor of Mr. and Mrs. John R. Cheney. In 1989 children moved into new cottages and a new dining hall. The old Wesley, Edwards, and Morral Cottages were demolished, and Jones and Harford were added to "the circle" of six cottages.

Over the years, portions of the farm land were sold and the funds invested on behalf of the United Methodist Children's Home. This money helps to continue the mission still today.

A Transition from "Care" to "Treatment"

From its beginning as an orphanage in the early 20th century, the United Methodist Children's Home has been a program that provided a warm, secure place for orphans, homeless children, and children from whom one or both parents were unable to provide care. Here children found a warm, loving place which was home until they were adopted, placed in foster homes or were returned to their families. Some grew to adulthood here when adoptive or foster homes were not available.

From 1911 to 1935, the Methodist Children's Home of Ohio remained an orphanage. After 1935, the home began to address the growing need for the care of dependent and neglected children from homes disrupted by divorce, separation, abandonment, death, or poverty. Children between the ages of five and fourteen were accepted. At one time it was reported that there were 350 children in residence at the home.

By the 1950's professional social services staff were utilized in casework "one-to-one" counseling and group work programs. Gradually most orphans or neglected children, consistent with social service practices, were placed in adoptive or foster home settings rather than in an institution. This shift in the care for children, required the United Methodist Children's Home to change its purpose to providing more short-term focused "residential treatment care" for children.

By 1990, adoption was no longer the natural choice for unwed mothers and the Como Group Home for pregnant and parenting adolescents and their children was established in Clintonville. The program helped girls manage the transition from adolescence to adult parenting as well as development of life skills while continuing their formal education. This program was closed in the late 1990's due to a declining demand for this type of program.

UMCH added a Treatment Foster Care program in 1993, which provides services for troubled, abused and neglected children. The program can serve as a step-down for children ready to successfully complete the Residential Services program.

In 1995, UMCH was certified by the Ohio Department of Mental Health, offered mental health services. By the end of 2002, UMCH had contracted with the local Alcohol, Drug, and Mental Health Services Board in order to receive Medicaid funds to provide reimbursement for the provision of diagnostic assessment, individual and group counseling/psychotherapy, and medication-somatic services. Individual and group community support program services also became available within UMCH's services.

As the needs of children and society continue to change, so does the United Methodist Children's Home emphasis on community based care and services. Our ongoing support to children and families will lead to further initiatives to improve outcomes, reduce length of stay in care and provide more intensive services to families to avoid out-of-the-home placements.