Christmas at the Junior Home
As a cold December rain sounds on the roof, it is not difficult to imagine the desperate plight that the mother of Joe Buckley found herself in November of 1931. Her husband had just been buried after dying in a TB sanitarium, and she had five young children to feed and clothe. Two years later Eddie Pollack’s mother found her self in a similar situation. Her husband, a carpenter, had died of a heart attack and she had six young children.
These mothers were fortunate in just one aspect of their lives. Their husbands were paid-up members of the Junior Order of United American Mechanics, and their children were eligible to go to live in the Junior Home in Tiffin, Ohio.
The Junior Order was a fraternal organization which was founded by men who were Anglo-Saxon, and Protestant. It grew to be the largest fraternal organization in the country. At its height in the thirties, it had a half a million members. Each member contributed a dollar a year for the support of the Junior Home in Tiffin and another smaller home in North Carolina
Christmas at the Junior Home
Joe was seven when he came to the home with his brother and sisters, and he entered the first grade and continued there until he graduated. When he entered, the enrollment at the home was eleven hundred. His mother followed her children to Tiffin from Portsmouth, Ohio and found work here.
Over time dormitories or cottages were built that housed around forty-five boys, others were home to the same number of girls although there were always more boys than girls. The last dormitory was completed in 1931. There was a nursery for children as young as two years old. Some of the children’s mothers found work at the Junior Home as matrons and cooks.
The Junior Home was surrounded by 1,100 acres and the residents were able to provide all of their food from the gardens and the crops that were sold. Children went to school full time until they reached the seventh grade. Then they had three classes in school for a half day and spent the other half day in vocational training. The rules specified that the Junior Home kids had to leave after graduation. Many went into the Armed Services where they adapted easily to that routine. One student each year was chosen for a scholarship to attend Heidelberg College, provided by George Kalbfleisch.
The high school had a band and sports teams. In fact, their sports field, Redwood Stadium, was used by Calvert, Columbian, and Heidelberg for their football games until Columbian Stadium was built. The Junior Home had the first in-ground swimming pool in Tiffin. The first lighted stadium and the first public address system in Ohio were part of Redwood Stadium.
The boys and girls there had a very active social life. Movies, mostly westerns, were shown in the auditorium on Saturday and Sunday nights. Everyone dressed up and went to church.Many dances were held. The various cottages held parties where they played “Spin the Bottle” and they had dates. However, everyone had to be in bed with lights out by nine o’clock for the younger ones and ten o’clock for the high school age kids. Older kids were given passes and were allowed to go into town. Joe worked in town his senior year at two different jobs.
The Christmas season actually started in September when each boy and girl made out a list that included three items. One of the items was to be clothing. Footballs, dolls and games were on some lists. These were turned into the Superintendent, “Dad” Kernan, who let the various Junior Order Lodges around the country know of their requests. The lodge in Cincinnati and the one in Tiffin were especially active in providing gifts. Each kid expected to get two of the three items on his or her list. Then as the gifts came in, they were accumulated in locked rooms in the cottages until Christmas Day.
There was a competition among the cottages for the best decorations. On Christmas Eve, each cottage had a Christmas Eve program. On Christmas Day after breakfast the kids opened their presents and received a bag of candies and nuts and an orange. There was much excitement with kids running around from one cottage to another to see what their friends had received. Christmas Dinner was usually chicken and all the trimmings served in late afternoon. There was a special Christmas Service at the Church in the evening. The Reverend Daniel Webster Loucks, a Lutheran minister, served as the full time chaplain.
Then the parties and dances began. For two weeks on every night the cottages sponsored these happy events. The Junior Home “kids” dated both other “kids” and Tiffin girls and boys. There was never a case that Joe can remember that a couple had to get married. He credits “Dad” Kernan’s teaching about integrity toward the opposite sex for that fact.
Both Joe and Ed spoke with feeling about what a wonderful community the Junior Home was during the time they were there. Each cottage was a little community and the spirit of the home was one of kindliness toward one’s fellow man. “Dad” Kernan came to be loved and respected by all the “kids” and the Junior home had such fellowship and warmth that still every year over 200 of the former “kids” come back for a four day weekend over Labor Day. From its beginning in l896 until 1944 when the home closed, 4800 children have called it their home
When Joe Buckley left the Junior Home after he finished high school, he was given fifteen dollars. He cried as he carried his belongings in a big trunk across the Huss Street bridge to his mother’s home.
- Mary