I am happy to read news of a reunion for those of Bachman Memorial Home for Children. Years ago, when I was in the choir of the First Presbyterian Church, children of the Bachman Home would come to the church every Thanksgiving and perform for the congregation and then be treated to a wonderful Thanksgiving dinner. On those occasions, I was reminded of my own childhood and my having been raised in a similar home for children in Cedartown, Ga. provided for by the Methodist Church on a wonderful scale.
One can never overestimate the value of such homes and the good they have done and are still doing. In my case, it was
December of 1930; lives were deeply affected by the Depression and the lack of jobs for hundreds of families in my little town of around 10,000. It is unfortunate that, in many instances now, children have been placed in foster care which I do not consider comparable in value to the institution in which I was raised. It came about like this.
In 1914, a young woman named Ethel Harpst had been sent from Boaz, Al. to Cedartown to help care for indigent children whose parents were either dead or jobless or unable to care for their offspring. The Methodist Church had established a settlement house in the Goodyear Mill Village there which offered a kindergarten and day care for mill workers, and other attentions for the poor such as a night school, and church that was held in the settlement house until a church building could be garnered. Miss Harpst, a brilliant innovator and manager, directed all of these activities. This settlement house, known as the McCarty Settlement, was patterned on the famous Hull House established by Jane Addams in Chicago. In this wondrous place people found a haven and needed help for the most trying of times. Jane Addams won the Nobel Prize for her similar efforts.
It was not long after Miss Harpst began her service in the Settlement that tuberculosis was seen to be prevalent and mothers began to be carried away by this disease and others for which there were no cures, and many fathers were hoboing around trying to find work so that children were being left in dire straits. Often, Miss Harpst would attend the dying mothers, preparing them for burial and doing all she could to assist the bereaved families. At one bedside, the distraught mother, seeing that her end was near, begged Miss Harpst to take her children and care for them at the settlement. Miss Harpst told the mother that she would do the best she could, and when the mother died, Miss Harpst took the two children with her to the mission. Soon others begged for the same help, and before long, the settlement was running over with needy children. They were sleeping in hallways and in every nook and cranny available.
Some women in the town, seeing the need, established a home for several of the girls but more just took their place so it became apparent that a larger facility needed to be arranged. A wonderful man in the town, Mr. J. C. Walker, who was the City Clerk, bought an eight-room house on a lovely hill, had it renovated, and offered it to Miss Harpst for her brood. She had to get permission from the Women's Missionary Society but they gladly supported her and told her yes, so on a cold December day in 1924, she and about 20 children advanced to the gracious old home on Bradford Hill and began their new lives there. But, suffice it to say, that home soon became also insufficient, and in 1928, a beautiful three-story brick building was constructed, the only three-story building in Cedartown. The boys remained in the old house until a new dorm was built for them in 1933. Then, from 1933 to 1942, other buildings were added because it was obvious to the Methodist Church and wealthy benefactors in New York and across the country, that here was something unique and worthy of support and adulation.
In time two farms were added to the Home's property where the boys and girls could help provide some of their own support, and a huge wooded area was thrown in so that the children had plenty of space to walk, run, learn, and enjoy nature. At the peak of the success of Ethel Harpst as mother to deprived children, there were over 150 children in her care. The Home was not an orphanage. Most of the children had one or even two parents. Miss Harpst did her very best to give the place a home-like quality and it was her intense desire to serve as "Mother " to us all. My sister and I were taken there by our mother, as I said, in December of 1930, and I can assure you, even though I was four years old, I had a fabulous Christmas. I grew up there, graduated with honors from high school and was sent to Tennessee Wesleyan College to study music, but I have never forgotten the Home, Miss Harpst, and the salvation, both physically and spiritually, that she brought to my life. If I were writing an essay on the greatest person I have ever known, it would be about her.
The Home facilities are still there but it is now an institution designed to help children who are psychologically unable to function in society because of abuse and mistreatment and they are placed there by courts. The State of Georgia provides some of the financial support but the Methodist Church is still intrinsically involved. Mrs. Henry Pfeiffer, of New York City, provided hundreds of thousands of dollars for the buildings and most of them bear the name of her and members of her family. She also provided the money for my college education for which I have been ever so grateful. So you can see how those long ago visits by the children from Bachman Home to our church at Thanksgiving brought back memories of my growing up at The Ethel Harpst Home for Boys and Girls in Cedartown, Ga.
Mildred Perry Miller
Millermaj@aol.com