Children’s Home

Picture a big, brown, two-story house in a small clearing in the Ozarks rocking with the noise of ten boys and girls from six families. Now add a large dose of homesickness, mix in a set of inexperienced house parents, and you can visualize our job in the fall of 1953. We had a beautiful setting with the hills aflame with gold and crimson in the fall and adorned with blossoming dogwood trees in spring.

The children came from remote areas of Mexico to attend school in Sulphur Springs, Arkansas. Their parents stayed in Mexico to translate the Bible for people with unwritten languages. Carol, a high school girl, was the oldest and our two-year-old Danny the youngest. We had a sixth grade boy, four third grade boys, a second grade girl, a first grade girl, and our four-year-old Jean. I don’t know how I would have survived without Carol. She not only helped with the cooking, she washed and curled the three little girls’ hair on Saturdays. Planning meals and shopping seemed a formidable task at first, but that could be mastered to where it became routine. Dealing with the emotional needs of the children brought daily challenges. Seemed like every time I turned around, there was a fight to settle. In a sense of fairness, I tried to find the problem and who started it. By the end of the first week, I said, “Enough, already!” We sat them down and explained that we were going to become a family that worked together and played together without fighting. To reinforce that concept, I told them the next time I found two of them fighting, I would take them to the basement and paddle them both. Wouldn’t you know, the next fight that erupted was between the second grade girl, Rachel, and our darling little Jean. No, I didn’t make excuses. I paddled them both. After a few trips to the basement with various ones, the fighting subsided. Along with the discipline, we gave them a lot of love and as much individual attention as we could manage.

Timmy, one of the third grade boys, was my biggest challenge. There were nights when I heard him crying and went to stay with him at his bed until he went to sleep. At school, Timmy sat staring out the window dreaming of his little burro in Mexico instead of doing his work. I told the teacher to send home whatever he didn’t finish and we would see that he got it done. How were we to accomplish that? I had an idea. Timmy liked to eat better than he liked anything else. When he came home from school, I told him he had to get his homework done before he ate supper. He would sit and dawdle until he heard someone setting the table. Then he buckled down to his work. Sometimes late, but he never missed supper. Was I cruel? I made it up to him with extra love and attention—and Timmy passed third grade that year.

Each morning before the children went to school, Ed drilled them on Bible memory verses. Each afternoon when they came home, I told them a Bible story with flannel graph pictures before they went out to play. On Sunday mornings, we all crowded into the old brown Chrysler and went to Sunday School. I went directly to the kitchen when we got home and busied myself with putting dinner on the table. One Sunday when we called everyone to the table, Danny was missing. Knowing his habit of lying down and going to sleep wherever he happened to be, I looked in the back hall. No Danny. The whole crew joined in the search. We looked on the sun porch, in the basement, and everywhere else we could think of. We were about ready to begin searching the woods when I went upstairs to his room. There he was asleep in his crib.

On Sunday evenings, Ed went to church by himself and we had church at home. This turned out to be a favorite time for the boys and girls. We sang hymns and choruses and the boys took turns preaching the sermon. It was amazing the messages those kids could come up with. On the last Sunday, we turned it into a testimony meeting. Tears ran down my cheeks as one by one they stood and praised the Lord for the privilege of spending that school year in the children’s home.

I often wondered why our two pre-schoolers never played outside when the others were away at school. Perhaps they were afraid of the harmless tarantulas and praying mantis. They told me years later that the older kids convinced them there were bears in the woods that surrounded the big brown house.