|
By 1906 Cunningham Home began to hire local employees
to work in the orphanage due to a chronic shortage of
deaconesses available for the assignment. In 1910 the
Board of Managers changed the name of the Home to Cunningham
Children's Home and made it solely an orphanage. And
in 1921 the Board incorporated Cunningham Children's
Home in the State of Illinois as a not-for-profit institution.
"The house, nestled in a grove of trees on a hill, was
a two-story red brick with mansard roof. It had been
built in 1864 by Samuel Waters, proprietor of the Pennsylvania
House in Urbana. Cuningham described the house as having
fourteen rooms, three halls, bathroom, cellar, and ice
house. Adjoining this were a three-room gardener's cottage,
ample barns with carriage rooms, three wells, three
cisterns, steel windmill, pump and elevated water tank.
In addition, there may have been a duck pond with a
row boat at the front of the house." Between 1899 and
1906 the Cunningham Board of Managers added a large
dormitory, nursery, kindergarten and schoolroom, boys'
dormitory, and a hospital room to the original home.
From 1895 to1949 Cunningham Children's Home provided
custodial care to dependent children from the Central
Illinois/West Central Indiana geographic area. Children
slept in large dormitories grouped by age and sex. The
average age of the children during Cunningham's first
decade was 5.6 years and the average length of stay
was 10.4 months. During the fifth decade the average
age had increased to 7.6 years and the average stay
was 1.7 years. Referrals came from conference deaconesses,
pastors, family members, members of the community and
local Women's Home Mission Society auxiliaries. 
Cunningham also accepted children placed there by local
counties. The Board of Managers agreed to accept county
children as long as they received the rate the supervisors
would pay their county home. In 1898 Cunningham asked
the county supervisors to pay $1.87 per child per week.
If the county provided shoes, the cost was lowered to
$1.75. At this time the Illinois relief system was decentralized.
It depended upon private charities to provide social
welfare relief and often used private institutions for
child placements.
Children at Cunningham were rarely true orphans. True
orphans (children who had lost both parents) were quickly
placed in adoptive homes. The majority of children came
from households whose parents were in need of some help
due to the death or desertion of one parent, divorce,
sickness, etc. They were brought to Cunningham by family
members who then returned to retrieve them. The family
paid to keep the children at the Home. Some newly-single
parents surrendered their right to their children by
legally giving them to Cunningham Home. These children
were placed in adoptive homes, or if older, were indentured.
The community's need for an orphanage was manifested
in the large numbers of children brought to Cunningham.
By 1911 an additional building was needed for school
classrooms and a medical ward. Four more buildings were
constructed by 1940 housing dormitories, a dining room
and kitchen, an infirmary, a heating plant, and the
Cunningham farmer/gardener.
The farmer/gardener was an important position at Cunningham.
Until 1940 the Home used milk from their own cows. Vegetables
from the garden were a main supply of food in the spring,
summer, and fall months. Having the children work with
the animals and in the garden was important training
for the times. The boys learned how to garden and take
care of animals, while the girls learned domestic skills
through their chores in the laundry and kitchen. In
a farming community this was important knowledge and
experience to have.
The Cunningham children were familiar faces in the community.
In 1925, when the boundaries of the Urbana School District
were expanded to encompass the Cunningham Home property,
they began attending Urbana public schools . A former
resident remembers that "every Sunday we all piled into
the Cunningham bus and went to Sunday School and church
at the Methodist Episcopal Church in Urbana. The kids
from the home occupied the first several pews at the
left front of the sanctuary. Believe me, we had a bunch
of kids that had Sunday School perfect attendance pins
with attached bars that seemed a foot long."
Next: The Changing Child Care Environment>>
|
