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Judge and Mary Cunningham
Judge Joseph Oscar Cunningham (1830-1917) was one of
Champaign County's most influential citizens--a newspaper
owner and editor, attorney, judge, Republican party
activist, acquaintance of Abraham Lincoln, and a member
of the first Board of the University of Illinois. Both
Cunningham Township and U.S. Route 45 (Cunningham Avenue,
Urbana) are named after him.
Mary McConoughey Cunningham (1830-1921) was born in
Bainbridge, Ohio and educated at Oberlin College Preparatory
School where she met Joseph Cunningham. They were married
in 1853 after which they moved to the rich plains of
Urbana.
On Thanksgiving Day 1894, Judge Joseph and Mary Cunningham
donated their rural Urbana home, "The Cedars," and 15
acres of surrounding property to the Women's Home Missionary
Society of the Illinois Conference (WHMS-IC) Methodist
Episcopal Church. The warranty deed stated:
"That our home shall forever
be kept as a Children's Home, hoping and praying that
it shall in some degree turn attention to the pressing
demands in our midst, for the care and nurture of our
own."
A codicil to the warranty deed specified that if the Home
was not used for the purposes of helping needy children,
the Cunningham heirs could make legal claim upon the property.
This created a living trust between the WHMS and the Cunninghams
to care for children in perpetuity.
In the beginning Cunningham Deaconess Home and Orphanage
had two missions. The gift of the home to the WHMS-IC
merged the Cunningham's benevolent desire to help dependent
children and their desire to respond to the Illinois Conference,
Methodist Episcopal Church's call to establish a Deaconess
Home. Cunningham Home served as a base for the deaconesses
who served as child care workers for the orphanage and
as lay ministers for the community. Next: Narrowing the Focus >>
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