Raised by the Church: Growing up in New York City's Catholic Orphanages
244
Raised by the Church: Growing up in New York City's Catholic Orphanages
244Hardcover
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Overview
In 1946 Edward Rohs was left by his unwed parents at the Angel Guardian Home to be raised by the Sisters of Mercy. The Sisters hoped that the parents would one day return for him. In time they married and had other children, but Ed's parents never came back for him. And they never signed the legal papers so he could be adopted by another family.
Raised by the Church chronicles the extraordinary life of Ed Rohs, a bright, mischievous boy who was raised in five institutions of the Catholic orphanage system in postwar Brooklyn, New York, from infancy in 1946 until he was discharged as an adult in 1965.
Rohs was one of thousands of children taken in by Catholic institutions during the tumultuous post-WWII years: out-of-wedlock infants, children whose fathers had been killed in the war, and children of parents in crisis. Ed gives a brief history of each institution before describing that world—the Sisters and Brothers who raised him, the food, his companions, and the Catholic community that provided social and emotional support.
When Ed finally leaves the institution after nineteen years he has a difficult time adjusting. He slowly assimilates into "normal" life and determinedly rises above his origins, achieving an advanced degree and career success, working for years in child welfare and as volunteer strength coach for the Fordham University basketball team. He hides his upbringing out of shame and fear of others' pity. But as he begins to reflect on his own story and to talk to the people who raised him, Ed begins to see a larger story intertwined with his own.
With original research based on interviews with clergymen and nuns, archival data from the New York Archdiocese, and government records, Raised by the Church tells the social history of an era when hundreds of thousands of baby boomers passed through the orphanage system. Through the story of one man, this book gives us a much-needed historical perspective on an American society that understood and acknowledged the community's need for a safe haven.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780823240227 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Fordham University Press |
| Publication date: | 12/02/2011 |
| Pages: | 244 |
| Product dimensions: | 6.30(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d) |
About the Author
Judith Estrine is a writer. She lives in New York City.
Read an Excerpt
CHAPTER 1
The Search for Solutions
It's a fantasy to imagine that our complex world has somehow lost its ability to provide compassionate care for the most vulnerable children in our society. It's a fantasy to believe that if we could only go back to the "good old days" the thorny issues would dis appear.
This book tells the story of how people of goodwill worked to find consensus among the conflicting philosophical, political, and moral beliefs about society's role in caring for the poor. It is a story of the constant debates about our obligations to the smallest and most vulnerable among us, because the truth is that there was never a golden time when conscientious people did not struggle with these issues.
Long before the American Revolution, colonists wrestled with the same questions that confound us today: How can society provide impoverished, orphaned and abandoned children with the tools to become contributing members of society? Where should they live? Who will care for them? How much will such care cost? And, of course, who will pay the bills?
In the 1960s, the federal government mandated that orphanages be closed. Foster care became "the answer," which is interesting because before foster care, orphanages were "the answer," filling the role of caregivers to young children. Before that, the solution was to indenture minors and ship thousands of urban children to rural -settings in the Midwest on "orphan trains." And before orphanages and orphan trains, institutions known variously in this country as "the poorhouse," "the poor farm," or "the workhouse" provided children and their indigent parents with custodial care.
The Poorhouse
As early as 1653, the Dutch community of New Amsterdam — later New York City — appointed two men as "Overseers of Orphans." Their responsibilities were to "keep their eyes open and look ... -after widows and orphans." The Dutch also created an Orphan's Court to "attend to orphans and minor children within the jurisdiction of this city." These early institutions were the first acknowledgement by early settlers that, in the absence of parental supervision, the community had a moral responsibility to care for its young.
A few years later, Boston made an official commitment when, in 1660, it created the first legislated social safety net in colonial America — the poorhouse. City leaders were influenced by the English Poor Laws, which made the surrounding community responsible for keeping orphans and widows from dying of starvation. Boston's poorhouse was a pungent mix of humanity that included the aged, alcoholic, disabled, mentally ill, unemployed, widowed, and children. Before there was Social Security, unemployment insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, or food stamps, the poorhouse provided millions of Americans with its scant aid and comfort.
Still, limited as it was, the poorhouse met an urgent need. As settlers expanded west across North America, they were sure to build poorhouses in addition to churches and schools. In time, some of these humble institutions evolved into full- fledged community resources. In some counties and towns, while remaining available for its original use, the local poorhouse grew to play a major role as an agricultural center and was reinvented as a source of revenue for the government.
But a safety net can stretch only so far before it begins to tear. As the population grew, so, too, did the poorhouse population, and by the 1820s conditions there ranged from barely tolerable to horrific. Usually, the institution's administrator held his position only because of political patronage. It was an early example of a "no-show" job. The average administrator did as little as he could, which was in line with the thinking of the poorhouse governing body, whose aim was to spend as little money as was absolutely necessary. This neglect translated into the horror stories that have come down to us from that time: people with mental and emotional disabilities chained to the wall and treated like animals; criminals and alcoholics lurching in the halls, terrifying children and preying on old men and women; and the like.
The Deserving Versus the Undeserving Poor
By the 1840s, people could not pretend that the poorhouse was an acceptable answer; conditions there became so awful and the taint of criminal negligence so obvious that society could no longer get away with its benign neglect. Muckrakers like Dorothea Dix campaigned on behalf of the mentally ill, and the wealthy, educated classes in both the United States and Great Britain engaged in passionate debate. Should the "deserving poor" — that is, children, the mentally ill, and the aged — be treated the same as alcoholics and able-bodied vagrants (the "undeserving poor")? This led to another, stickier question: Was it right that the "deserving" children of "undeserving poor" parents be made to stay in the poorhouse with them, or should they be moved to a more rarified environment?
In Pygmalion, George Bernard Shaw satirizes society's tendency to neatly characterize impoverished people as either "deserving" or "undeserving" poor. Eliza Doolittle's roustabout, heavy-drinking father declines a generous handout, announcing that he is one of the "undeserving poor" and that he wants to keep it that way.
Nevertheless, a movement took shape, built on the premise that children living in poorhouses would be much better off if they were taken from their parents and installed in a more genteel environment. What could be wrong with moving young people away from the degenerative poorhouses? Who could object to bringing children into a protective environment, giving them every advantage and the opportunity to flourish? Men of goodwill imagined an ideal world, with routine, discipline, and regimentation converting all but the most hardened street urchin into model citizens.
The Orphanage Is "The Answer"
And so it happened that well-meaning philanthropists and religious societies established orphanages — society's newest solution to the perennial problem of what to do with parentless and abandoned children. For a short while, these institutions succeeded in realizing the utopian ideals of their founders. A few lucky children were nurtured and protected, and yes, they grew up to be law-abiding citizens. But of course the experiment failed. Setting aside the questionable ethics of snatching children away from their parents, there was the more practical problem of where to put them. The orphanage as originally designed was a contradiction: an elite institution that was free and open to all needy children.
Once again, the safety net could not hold. The number of children who needed to be taken in and cared for far outnumbered the available beds. And it certainly was too expensive for the governments paying the bills. It became impossible to build orphanages quickly enough. Reality overcame fantasy, and nowhere was "reality" harsher and more in evidence than in New York City, whose system, for better or worse, became the template for orphanages being built around the country. That is why the history of the orphanage in the United States begins there, and in its sister city across the water, Brooklyn.
sowcmorg Communities and Organizations
Edward Rohs
Judith Estrine
In the wake of war, famine, and an influx of impoverished immigrants, in the early 1800s an illiterate army of vagrant children coalesced in New York City. Seldom numbering fewer than ten thousand in any year they were known as "Street Arabs". Some became newsboys —"newsies" — a prominent part of the urban landscape and victims of some of the worst child labor laws in the country. Very young boys (and occasionally girls) hawked papers for a penny and suffered homelessness, harassment, muggings, long hours, and uncertain weather. In 1899 they struck several NYC newspapers and won a significant, if symbolic, victory. The chapter also describes the indentured child movement. Indentured minors were legally bound to farmers, tradesmen, and artisans until they were legally emancipated at 18; the "orphan trains" that shipped thousands of urban children to rural locations in the Midwest; and the growth of public orphanages, with those being built in New York City acting as the template for institutions built around the country.
Street Arabs
newsies
child labour laws
newsboy strike
Indentured Child Movement
orphan trains
public orphanages
New York City orphanages
CHAPTER 2New York City in the Nineteenth Century
Between 1810 and 1860, New York City's population grew from 119,734 to 1,174,799, in large part because of a huge influx of immigrants from Ireland, Wales, and Germany. Being a port of entry, New York was the place where most immigrants settled, and the majority of these immigrants were desperate for work. Some men left the immediate urban area and got jobs working on the Erie Canal, living on edge of subsistence — some for fifty cents a day and jiggers of whiskey. Like most immigrant groups coming to the United States, the Erie Canal workers labored at jobs nobody else wanted. It was backbreaking and dangerous and they died by the thousands, of malaria, yellow fever, and cholera.
Immigrants who remained in New York City did not have it any easier. Epidemics of yellow fever and cholera swept through the city. There was famine. The Napoleonic Wars and the War of 1812 caused a practical standstill of both international and domestic shipping and manufacturing. The outbreak of the Civil War exacerbated political strife, economic upheaval, and social maladjustment. There was widespread unemployment, and children as young as five were forced to find ways to keep themselves and sometimes even their families from dying of starvation. In the absence of child welfare laws, a boy could be legally employed at age twelve.
A large floating population of vagrant children coalesced, living on the streets and surviving by their wits. Seldom numbering fewer than ten thousand in any year, they were an illiterate army of orphans and runaways, known as "street Arabs." Almost entirely foreign-born, they were the city's newsboys, bootblacks, flower girls, street sweepers, peddlers, and musicians. Some became gamblers. Others survived by becoming pickpockets, beggars, pimps, and prostitutes.
Newsies
Newsboys — or newsies, as they were called — were a prominent part of the urban landscape of the time. Very young boys, and occasionally girls, hawked their papers for a penny, and represented some of the worst of child labor abuse in the country. In his classic account of New York in the 1870s, the journalist James McCabe wrote, "The newsboys constitute an important division of this army of homeless children. You see them everywhere, in all parts of the city. ... They rend the air and deafen you with their shrill cries. They are ragged and dirty. Some have no coats, no shoes and no hat."
Newsboys suffered homelessness, harassment, muggings, long hours, and uncertain weather conditions. Newspaper publishers charged fifty cents for a stack of one hundred newspapers and there was no reimbursement for unsold papers. And although reformers tried to help, it was not until the newsboys took action themselves that things began to change. After several publishers raised the cost of a bundle to sixty cents, New York City newsboys went on strike in July 1899. Tying up the city for two weeks, they won a limited victory when the publishers agreed to reimburse them for papers they could not sell. But before their dramatic victory, skirmishes had already occurred in other cities.
On October 14, 1884, the New York Times reported one such incident in Pottsville, Pennsylvania, when several newsboys refused to deliver the Evening Chronicle. Four newsboys broke ranks, returned to the news office, and picked up their supply of papers, "but as soon as they left the office they were attacked by the strikers and one was severely beaten. The young fellow turned on his assailants and stabbed one in the arm. The proprietors of the Chronicle threatened to have the whole party arrested, after which the four boys were allowed to deliver their papers without further trouble. The boys had been getting the paper at sixty cents per one hundred but they wanted it at fifty cents."
Today, homeless adults raise our anxiety level, our guilt, our rage — and sometimes a combination of all three. In the 1850s, homeless children who lived on the street were seen as a threat. There was always talk of placing them in an orphanage, but it remained only talk because there was no place to house them and nobody was willing to pay the enormous sums needed to have orphanages built. Not that these street urchins were likely to have gone willingly, or, for that matter, that they would have stayed. Word on the streets of New York was that orphanages were little more than overcrowded holding pens where children were treated like criminals, marginally clothed and fed, and nominally educated. Why would any streetwise child go to such a place?
Indenturing Children Is "The Answer"
From the 1850s to the 1920s, one "answer" to the problem of helping vulnerable New York children was to have them indentured to farmers and tradesmen, where they would work for a number of years in exchange for food, shelter, and a modicum of education. Archbishop John Hughes of New York was instrumental in founding the Roman Catholic Orphanage Asylum (RCOA) in 1853, with the aim of caring for boys to the age of twelve and girls to the age of fourteen.
"At all events," he announced, "boys over twelve years of age cannot be allowed by me to remain in the Asylum." He had little choice because there simply was no room. Only the youngest could be accommodated in the institution, and the RCOA made the decision to place adolescent boys and girls with tradesmen or families, which often meant "binding out," or indenture.
The Form of Indenture, a contract used by the asylum, stated that "children with neither parent nor guardian living" could be indentured for a specific period of time, during which the child was obligated to perform certain duties. In exchange, the party to whom he or she was indentured was obligated:
to teach and instruct [the child] in the art, trade, mystery, business and [relevant] occupation of [occupation]. And during all the term aforesaid, the said [tradesman] shall and will allow unto the said [orphan] competent and sufficient meat, drink, and apparel, washing, lodging, mending, and all other things necessary and fit for a [occupation] and shall and will teach and instruct, or cause the said [orphan] to be taught and instructed to read and write, and in so much of arithmetic as is needful for persons in the ordinary ranks of life; and shall give unto the said [orphan] at the expiration of the term of service a new Bible and Prayer Book and a complete suit of new clothing; and shall cause the said individual to attend Divine Worship on Sundays and Holydays [sic] (whenever such attendance is not too inconvenient) during all the term aforesaid and shall not allow the indentured to be absent from the service of the said [tradesman] without express leave, or suffer the [orphan] to haunt ale-houses, taverns, or play-houses, nor at cards, dice, or any unlawful game to play.
Where were New York City children indentured? In 1860, of the fifteen boys from the RCOA who were indentured, two went to saddle and harness makers, four to farmers, two to plumbers, one to a gardener and florist, one to a baker, one to a boot- and shoemaker, one to a rope maker, one to an apothecary, one to a butcher, and one to a dry goods retailer. Of the four girls indentured that same year, one went to a dressmaker, and two were indentured to milliners. One girl was indentured to work in what was called a "fancy store," which today would probably be boutique shop selling luxury merchandise.
The Orphan Train Movement Is "The Answer"
Charles Loring Brace, a reformer of the period, wrote, "I remember one cold night seeing some ten or a dozen of the little homeless creatures piled together to keep each other warm beneath the stairway of The [New York] Sun office. There used to be a mass of them at The Atlas office, sleeping in the lobbies, until the printers drove them away by pouring water on them."
Brace was a Protestant minister and a reformer who, in 1853, founded the Children's Aid Society. He hated the very idea of the orphanage system, believing that the longer a child remained in the asylum, the less likely he would be to do well in life outside the institution. Brace argued that orphans should be placed in foster care, and he looked west for relatively unexplored vistas. His answer was to ship thousands of orphans out on the "orphan trains" to farms in the Midwest, where they were indentured. Strapping young boys and girls were in great demand. Waiting farmers picked the children they wanted, and often begrudgingly made do with puny substitutes. When the orphan train movement began, it was estimated that thirty thousand abandoned children were living on the streets of New York City. The New York Foundling Hospital also supported the orphan train as a way to help these children. In fact, the orphan train movement is now recognized as the beginning of documented foster care in North America.
(Continues…)
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Table of Contents
My Ten Beliefs for Success ix
Acknowledgments x
Prologue xi
Introduction 1
Part I Orphans in America
1 The Search for Solutions 9
2 New York City in the Nineteenth Century 13
3 The Twentieth Century 21
Part II Raised by the Church
4 The Sisters of Mercy: A Tale of Two Cities 27
5 My Earliest Years 33
6 St. Mary of the Angel 45
Part III Homes for Boys
7 St. John's Home for Boys 61
8 St. Vincent's Home for Boys 85
9 Growing Pains 109
Part IV On My Own
10 Alone in the Real World 127
11 Inventing Another New Life 157
12 Milestones 175
13 Reflections 197
Postscript: September 11, 2001 207
Appendixes
A Vinnie Boys in the World 211
B The Foundling Hospital 213
C Suggested Reading 215
Notes 217
Index 221