The Setting: Susquehanna Valley Home
Early History
Text below is from the “History of Broome County,” edited by H. P. Smith, Syracuse, N.Y., D. Mason & Co., Publishers, 1885:
“The little waifs of fortune cast upon its care must be made to feel the fatherly and motherly spirit throbbing in their bosoms.... To this end every means that parental care and wisdom can devise is employed to make the early years of these little unfortunates as bright and free from vicious influences as possible.”
During six years, 316 boys and 200 girls have received their discharge, leaving thirty-six fewer inmates than at the beginning of the present administration; 310 have been taken into families, 109 restored to parents, twenty-seven were removed by Orange county to a home established by themselves at Middletown; thirteen were taken to St.Mary’s Home of this city, nine removed by Tompkins county to a less expensive asylum, forty-two were returned to superintendents of poor, six ran away, six died and four were sent to the House of Refuge.”
The Author’s Experience
Everyone called this tall, angular stone-covered, dark, scary place the Main Building. In the 1950’s, we ate our meals here. I could see it every time I looked out the front window of the girls’ house. Each morning, the girls would pull hard to open the huge heavy main door and hurry down a linoleum-lined hallway to the Cafeteria. Meals were one of the few times all the Home kids would be together. Our number, our existence here, was overwhelming.
Today, I look at that photo and lower my eyes. It was a hard time for me, for all of us. It got easier when I had my new friend and ally Donna by my side. But to me, probably to most of us, the Main Building was foster care. It was a powerful force that we did not understand. And it controlled our lives.