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1892
Objects of Charity.
Editor Times-Herald:
DALLAS, Feb. 26, 1892.
I am taking the scholastic census
of the Sixth ward. In my rounds, I find at 109 Boll street,
an object of charity that should be seen after; a mother and
two small children that need immediate attention. Please call
the attention of the city authorities and charitalbe societies
of the city to the same, so they may act immediately. W. C. LINN.
- February
26, 1892, Dallas Daily Times Herald, p. 1, col. 2.
- o o o -
A
LAWN PARTY
_____
For the Benefit
of the Poor of
the City.
A
lawn party will be given at the residence of Col. Seth Shepard
to-morrow afternoon, beginning at 6 p. m. for children, and 8
o'clock for grown persons; under the auspices of the charity
organization for the benefit of the poor of the city. There should
be a large attendance.
- June
28, 1892, Dallas Daily Times Herald, p. 1, col. 5.
- o o o -
1896
HOME FOR
WHITE BOYS.
______
The
Charter of a New Institution to
Be Located in This City.
A
non-sectarian home for white boys is an enterprise recently launched
in this city. Below will be found a copy of its charter:
The undersigned, citizens of the
state of Texas, do hereby form ourselves into a charitable corporation
under the constitution and laws of the state of Texas, and declare
the objects of the corporation to be the placing of dependent
and helpless white children in good homes, where they will have
parental care and the advantages of educational and religious
training.
The name of the corporation shall
be "The Sam Houston Exchange for White Children of the State
of Texas."
The corporation will take charge
of neglected, destitute white children, whose parents are unable
to suitably provide for such children, by throwing around them,
those educational and religious influences necessary to develop
and raise them to the higher planes of womanhood and manhood.
the accomplishment of these purposes will be effected by suitable
persons and agencies and local boards of directors in the several
counties in the state, where practicable, acting under, and as
auxiliary, to the state board of control.
When such children are surrendered
to the corporation, they become its legal wards under a surrender
contract containing mutual dependent covenants, binding alike
on the corporation and the parties surrendering the child, and
no contract shall be made not having for its primal object, the
interest and welfare of the child.
And, if at any time it should appear
that the custodian of such child has disregarded his or her covenants
with the corporation, it shall be the duty of the corporation
to declare the contract at an end and to repossess the child,
to be again replaced with some good family who will observe the
contract.
The control of the corporation
is hereby vested in a state board of three directors, which may
be increased from time to time as expediency may require, and
the chief executive officer of the corporation shall be a state
superintendent and his assistants.
Auxiliary local boards shall be
formed in the several counties of the state, where expedient,
and these local boards shall be auxiliary to, and under, the
control of the state board.
The state superintendent and his
assistants are charged with the organization of the local boards,
subject to confirmation by the state board of control and removal
for sufficient cause. The corporation does not own any property,
real or personal, and neither owns or issues stock. It depends
entirely upon future acquisitions by charitable donations. Its
business is a work of charity for poor white children. It does
not issue shares.
The corporation shall have a common
seal and power to sue and be sued in the several courts of the
state on all questions involving its corporate rights and contracts.
It shall have power, through its officers and agents, to solicit
donations to the corporation to enable it to effect the objects
of its creation.
It shall have power to receive,
by written surrender or otherwise, any and all children surrendered
to it, and no child shall be reclaimed by the party surrendering
such child without the consent of the corporation.
It shall have power to fix the
compensation of its active agents and employes.
The corporation shall exist for
twenty-one years and by a majority vote of all those in attendance
at the time on the state board, the charter may be amended.
The board of directors shall adopt
and print and circulate by-laws, rules and regulations and manual,
giving full and explicit details relating to the power and business
of the corporation.
The location of the principal office
of the corporation is hereby fixed at Dallas, in the state of
Texas, until further and otherwise provided.
The following names persons are
hereby declared to be the state board of directors and state
superintendent for the period of one year: C. E. Bird, Dallas,
Tex.; Rev. Edward Wilkins, Dallas; E. E. Flippin, Dallas; John
Hallum, Dallas; N. L. Davis, Waco; Ben T. Seay, Dallas; Rev.
James Foster, Marlin; Geo. Hunter Smith, Waco; Miss Hattie A.
Hallum, Dallas; Wm. R. Houston, Dallas; Rev. J. H. Davis, Dallas.
- May
6, 1896, Dallas Morning News, p. 10, col. 6.
- o o o -
ORPHANS
AT CITY PARK.
______
The Inmates
of St. Joseph's Home
Enjoy an Outing.
The
sisters of St. Joseph's Orphans, assisted by Miss Barry and other
kind hearted ladies of the parish, gave the inmates, sixty in
number, a picnic at the City park yesterday. The party came over
tin the morning and remained at the park until 5 o'clock and
the little ones had the jolliest time that can be imagined. The
sisters and other ladies in charge return thanks through The
News to the managers of the Oak Cliff Electric Railway and the
Dallas City Street Railway companies and also to Hughes Bros.
for courtesies extended. The sixty neatly-clad, robust and bright-faced
children enjoyed themselves during the day as only children can.
- May
8, 1896, Dallas Morning News, p. 10, col. 4.
- o o o -
1897
CHARITY
WORK.
_____
The Wagon
Will Make the
Rounds To-morrow.
As
stated in yesterday's Times Herald, the United Charities wagon
will make the rounds on South Akard, Browder, South Ervay, South
Harwood and all cross streets to Grand avenue to-morrow. All
persons having donations of any kind will confer a favor by having
them ready when the wagon calls.
The demand made upon the charity
fund during the past few days have been very great and clothing
can be used to good advantage now and during the remainder of
the winter. The clothing will be placed in a building provided
by the city for that purpose, properly assorted and given to
the deserving poor. The association has received $903 in cash
contributions up to the present time. Messrs. Wakefield, Nott
and Wadleigh have consented to canvass the city for more cash
contributions, and this sum is expected to be doubled through
their efforts.
- December
21, 1897, Dallas Daily Times Herald, p. 5, col. 1.
- o o o -
1902
CHARITIES OF DALLAS
______
INSTITUTIONS FOR
THE AID AND
PROTECTION OF THE NEEDY
AND UNFORTUNATE
______
HAS MODERN CITY
HOSPITAL
_______
Orphans' Asylums,
Homes for the
Aged and Friendless and a Large
and Beautiful Sanitarium.
The charitable
and benevolent institutions of Dallas are numerous, and in their
scope, offer aid and protection to the orphan, the aged, the
sick, the needy and the unfortunate.
Most of them had small beginnings,
but have developed under the devotion and care of the people
to whom they owe their existence.
Most of them are broad in their
field, offering aid to the suffering without reference to the
lines of creed or caste.
PARKLAND HOSPITAL
Parkland (City) Hospital.
Twenty-seven years ago, the city
of Dallas began to take care of its indigent sick by the establishment
of a municipal hospital. The original hospital was on South Lamar
street. In 1893, on account of the growth of the population and
the undesirable surroundings, the present city hospital, now
called Parkland Hospital, was erected.
The building stands on a tract
of twenty acres at the corner of Oak Lawn and Maple avenues,
two miles north of the City Hall. It is 250 feet long by 90 feet
back, and contains six large and well ventilated wards. There
are extra rooms for offices, dining and operating rooms; also
for quarters for the surgeon in charge, and employes. Wide porches
surround the building. There are accommodations for about seventy-five
patients. The employes consist of a matron, a housekeeper, yard
man, cook and four nurses. The last fiscal year, a total of 752
patients were cared for, the average daily number of patients
was 41, each patient costing the city 67 2/3¢ per day. The
Health Officer and family live in the institution. His duties
are many, and he must be in his office at the City Hall a portion
of the day. He is required to look after the needy sick who do
not go to the hospital, but call there for medical attention
and live at home. The attention of the sick confined in the two
city prisons, and going to all emergency calls, comes within
the scope of his authority, and is attended to by the assistant
health officer.
The intention of the City Hospital
was to care only for the resident sick of the city, but many
people who are non-residents of the city, are sent here and to
other cities over the country for treatment, or because there
is often no hospital at the smaller towns, and the indigent poor
are sent to the larger towns, and arriving sick and without money
to go further, the city is compelled to take them until they
die, or improve sufficiently to take care of themselves.
Buckner Orphans' Home.
This is the oldest charitable institution
in Dallas County, and well nigh so as to the entire State of
Texas. It enjoys a splendid reputation as one of the leading
orphanages in the United States. It was opened in 1879 with three
children in a rented wooden cottage, but its unencumbered property
is now valued at more than $200,000, and it has care for 2,500
children.
There are many good, thrifty citizens
now in Dallas City and County who were reared and educated in
this "Home," and others like them are to be found in
the various walks of life in other States. Some are in the United
States army on the Philippine Islands, some have homes of their
own and some have obtained regular employment in different spheres
at the Orphanage itself.
Its buildings include two large,
substantial bricks, one for the boys and one for the girls; a
large brick power house and mill house. It is a home for its
wards, and a literary and industrial training school for them.
The main site of the institution
is five miles east of the city, where it has nearly 700 acres
of black land, including an orchard of 7,000 trees. It has its
own canning factory, grist mill, shops with planer, turning lathe,
power saws, etc.; also an electric light plant and a telephone
system, including eight instruments.
It has a special department with
buildings located in the city, on large grounds, with all the
conveniences of paved streets, cement walks, sewerage, hydrant
and cistern water, and electric lights. The main building here
contains twenty rooms, including an operating room, well furnished,
with all conveniences for surgical operations and the care of
the sick This is known as Buckner Home Annex, the Children's
Hospital. Like the parent institution, it is not restricted by
sectarian or sectional boundaries.
The founder and manager of this
great orphanage is a Baptist minister, and its board of directors
are Baptist deacons, but in its benefactions, it is strictly
undenominational, both in practice and in its organic laws.
Buckner Orphans' Home distinguished
itself immediately after the great devastating storm at Galveston,
September, 1900, by throwing its doors open to all the orphans
of that city and the entire storm-swept coast. Dr. Buckner was
among the first to reach the island after the storm. He brought
out at one time, twenty-nine children, and received many others
at intervals thereafter from the stricken city and different
sections swept by the storm. Ten of these children were returned
only recently to the rebuilt Galveston orphanage; others have
gone at intervals to friends; but, a number are still in the
home.
The property is inalienable and
can not be mortgaged or otherwise encumbered for debt. The founder
and manager has, at all times, carried all financial obligations,
personally, not officially; has often encumbered his own property,
, besides having made liberal cash donations.
St. Joseph's Orphanage.
About the year 1887, the Catholic
bishop of Dallas, Rt. Rev. Bishop N. A. Gallagher, then in charge
of the whole diocese of Northern Texas, seeing the need of an
orphan asylum for the orphans of this part of his diocese, was
looking about for a location and received through Rev. Father
Martiniere, from Mr. T. L. Marsalis, seven and one-half acres
of ground on Adams street, Oak Cliff, as a donation, the same
to be used as a location for an orphans' home. At once, the Catholic
ladies of Dallas commenced to raise money to build a suitable
building. Year after year, they carried on a booth at the State
Fair, aided by generous subscriptions from citizens and friends,
they completed the building, and in October, 1891, the institution
was opened and dedicated to the noble work of caring for the
poor homeless little ones. The institution is under the care
of the Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul. The Sisters
care for from 60 to 80 children, boys and girls, of all creeds,
from two to fourteen years of age, giving them a mother's care
and watchfulness and a common school education; teaching them
domestic habits, training them up in virtue and morals that will
make them useful law abiding citizens. They never let them leave
the home until they are well provided for as to homes and situations.
The home is under the fostering care of Rt. Rev. Bishop of Dallas,
E. J. Dunne, and V. Rev. Father Martiniere, and is supported
by charity alone, having no endowment. It is the desire of the
friends of the home to put up a better, more substantial and
commodious building whenever means can be procured.
Ann Browder Cunningham Mission.
The Ann Browder Cunningham Mission
Home and Training School of Dallas is conducted under the auspices
of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and is the property
of the Woman's Home Mission Society of that denomination.
The movement for the home was commenced
in 1893, with the object of providing a place of refuge for unfortunate
women. The King's Daughters of Dallas initiated the work, and
in 1895, presented the idea to the Woman's Parsonage and Home
Mission Society of the North Texas conference. It was taken up,
and in connection with the North, East and West Texas conferences,
the work progressed satisfactorily.
Seven city lots were donated for
a site for a new and larger building, which was placed upon it.
In 1898, the property was deeded
to the Woman's Home Missionary Society, and all funds donated
and expended pass through the general treasury. The Woman's board
of Nashville, Tenn., appropriates $4,000 a year to the maintenance
of the Home.
There are now 58 girls sheltered
in the Home. When they enter, they sign a pledge to obey the
rules and remain at least one year.
During that period, their bodily
and spiritual needs are cared for and they are given advantages
of practical education in scholastic, sewing, cooking and laundry
branches, and it is the intention to place the school on an equal
footing with the best training schools.
Special care is given the spiritual
welfare of the girls, and all those at present there are Christians.
Six hundred girls have been taken
into the Home and assisted to honorable positions in the world
where they could earn a livelihood.
The founder of the home is Mrs.
W. H. Johnson, who published The King's Messenger in its interest.
Mrs. Ann Browder Cunningham donated the property and the Home
is named in her honor.
The Woman's Home.
In the year 1886, a number of ladies
of the city of Dallas, seeing the great need of some place being
provided for the purpose of affording a temporary shelter and
assistance to women of reputable character who were in need,
formed an association for charitable work. At the Texas State
Fair, lunches and other meals were given by these ladies, and,
as the result, sufficient funds were obtained to enable them
to purchase the building, corner of Young and Jefferson streets,
and on the 22d of November, 1886, the institution was formally
opened as a charitable institution under the name of the "Woman's
Home," the only charitable organization in the city of Dallas
providing a temporary home for women who were in need, through
sickness or in poverty. In 1892, the ladies of the Home, seeing
the great necessity for securing a more desirable location for
the institution, it was removed to its present location, 406
South Akard street.
Two thousand and fifty-five persons
have been recipients of the hospitality of the Home since its
inception in 1886. One hundred and nine babies have been born
within the walls of the institution.
The Home will celebrate its sixteenth anniversary, November 23,
1902.
ST. PAUL'S SANITARIUM
St. Paul's Sanitarium.
St. Paul's Sanitarium, one of the
most complete and best furnished hospitals in the United States,
is located at Dallas. It is conducted by the Sisters of Charity
of St. Vincent de Paul, and is for the care of both pay and charity
patients.
The movement to induce the order
to locate a hospital in Dallas was begun in 1897. The members
of the medical profession of the city took an active part in
securing the hospital, and it was largely through their efforts
that the donation of the larger portion of the plot of ground
on which the Sanitarium stand, was made. After the location was
secured, the building was erected at once, and was planned on
the very latest methods for caring for the sick and given the
very best attention to people suffering from accidents and injuries
of all kinds.
Suites of rooms are furnished to
suit the purses of the wealthiest or those in poverty. The best
suites of rooms are furnished luxuriously. There are also rooms
for lower prices, going down in the scale to where they are only
expected to pay the expense of caring for the sick. In the charity
ward, any person not able to pay for treatment is taken and cared
for.
There are eighteen Sisters in charge
of the Sanitarium, assisted by a strong corps of nurses and a
faculty of twenty physicians of the city.
The cost of the building was $185,000,
and it contains eight wards with accommodations for 200 patients,
and forty-five private rooms and two operating rooms. The operating
rooms are fitted with every modern device to assist a surgeon
at his work, and are finished with white tiling on walls and
floor, with enameled iron furniture.
St. Matthew's Home for Aged Women.
This institution is an offshoot
from the Charity Chapter of St. Matthew's Cathedral. It was found
necessary, four or five year ago, to rent a building in which
a number of superannuated pensioners of the society might have
rooms, as a measure of economy and ease of administration, and
a long disused house in the Southern suburbs was secured for
this purpose. It was a rookery, leaky and gusty, the owners of
which, would spend no money upon it. The floors were rotten,
and the roof was imperfect, and most of the stairways had been
burned up by previous tenants who suffered under a scarcity of
legitimate fuel, but it was some sort of shelter, and was prized
by a number of aged folks who would otherwise have had to accept
the hospitality of the poor farm.
The state of affairs touched the
heart of a generous woman of this city, and two year ago, she
gave a house and lot, far in the Northern suburbs of Dallas,
to a new society of ladies who charged themselves with the furnishing
and maintenance of the place as a Home for Aged Women. The society
secured a charter from the State, and raised the necessary money
to make a most comfortable home for the unfortunates in question.
Like all other charities connected with St. Matthew's Cathedral,
this home has no religious test, and there are, as inmates today,
a roman Catholic, a Primitive Methodist, an adherent of Christian
Science, as well as members of the Episcopal Church. At present,
it is supported by the contributions of the members of the society,
which includes some of the best known women of Dallas. Mrs. A.
H. Belo is the president and Mrs. J. S. Armstrong is the secretary
and treasurer. But, the founder of the home and the giver of
the property is Miranda Morrill.
St. Matthew's Home for Children.
St. Matthew's Home for Children
is a charity that, from its inception, has had the ungrudging
support of the citizens, without regard to their religious affiliations.
It is not an orphan asylum, and although it is carried on under
the direction of the Episcopal Church, is not designed for the
benefit of any particular religious belief. It takes children
from vicious surroundings of all sorts, whether they have parents
or not, whether they are legitimate or illegitimate, the only
conditions being that the children are in need and the home has
room.
So far, the work has been carried
on in a rented building, quite ill-adapted to the purposes of
the institution, and handicapping the efforts of those who have
it in charge. A lot was bought some three year ago, and there
is now in the bank, the sum of nearly $4,000 toward the two-story
brick structure that an architect has planned gratuitously.
Now there is a question as to whether
the lot owned by the home is large enough for its purposes, and
friends have interested themselves in the effort to exchange
it for a larger one, where a cow or two could be kept, and a
kitchen garden planted and plenty of space for play ground reserved.
The lot must be near enough to a public school to permit the
attendance of the children, and accessible from a street car
line. So soon as these matters can be settled, it is the purpose
to begin building, and although the money in hand will not suffice
to complete the structure that is contemplated, those in charge
have reliance that the charitable people of Dallas will see them
through with their enterprise, as they have so generously supported
them hither to.
There are, at present, about thirty
children under the care of the home, and it is planned to accommodate
twice that number in the new quarters.
The Young Women's Christian Association.
The Young Women's Christian Association
of Dallas has been developed from the organization formerly known
as the Girls' Co-Operative Home, which was established in 1891
by a number of philanthropic women of Dallas, who wished to help
by means of the co-operative plan, those self-supporting young
women of the city whose salaries are often inadequate to provide
for them the comforts and safeguards of home.
This organization, which was charted
in 1892, filled its purpose for some years, being well managed
and showing steady financial gain, acquiring its real estate
and making necessary improvements thereupon, and would have probably
have continued along the same lines, but for certain misapprehensions
as to its name and purposes, which arose in the public mind,
and which finally led the directors to apply for an amended charter
under the present name.
It became known that the provisions
of the home were being stigmatized as a charity, and that persons
were confusing it with a different institution, with the result
that many of those who most needed its advantages would not consider
them for a moment, thereby defeating the purposes of the women
who founded and had stood by the home for many years. These facts
decided the officers to seek the amended charter and a name not
subject to misunderstanding, under which, all of the old benefits
and many new ones, are offered to any self-supporting woman of
good moral character without question as to nationality or creed.
The object of this association
is to throw around, all who seek the shelter of its roof, the
blessings and safeguards of a truly Christian home, in the sense
that all are trying to do Christ's work in his way.
The United Charities.
The United Charities is n organization
of the charitably inclined people of the city, including every
creed. The object is to give aid to the needy and deserving during
the winter months.
The organization maintains an office
with a secretary, and when calls for assistance are numerous,
they secure the services of a policeman from the city to make
inspections as to the necessities of the applicants for aid.
The Untied Charities distributes annually, large quantities of
clothing, shoes, hats, groceries, fuel and other necessaries
of life to the needy.
- April 23, 1902, Dallas
Morning News, p. 66, col. 1-3.
- o o o -
1921
HOPE COTTAGE IS
OVERFLOWED WITH
PARENTLESS BABES
Babies,
babies everywhere is the present condition at Hope Cottage, according
to Mrs. Emma Wylie Ballard in charge. Forty-six babies, the largest
number in the history of the cottage, representing an increase
of 100 per cent in the last five months, are now being cared
for.
A tent will be built outside the
cottage for the overflow. The babies are being brought in faster
than parents can be found who will adopt them.
"We must have another building
to handle the babies," said Mrs. Ballard. "A tent can
only do for temporary use. I cannot understand why there is such
an unusual increase." Mrs. Ballard made a monthly report
on Hope Cottage to the Dallas County Humane Society at a meeting
Thursday noon.
- May 5, 1921, Dallas
Daily Times Herald, p. 23, col. 7.
- o o o -
1923
PROTECTIVE BODY TO
OPEN HAVEN OF HOPE
FOR DESTITUTE GIRLS
______
Young Women on Brink
of Shame Will Find
Opportunity to Make New Start at Rescue
Home; Will Be Opened Thanksgiving Day
_____
BY B. C. JEFFERSON.
Where Girls Will
Be Able to Make New Start |
|
The residence
shown in the accompanying picture is at 2206 Thomas avenue near
the First Methodist church, South. It is here that the Girl's
Protective association will open on Thanksgiving Day a home for
girls who are being rescued from delinquency and starvation.
The house will have room for only fourteen young women but the
inmates will be released as quickly as possible to make way for
newcomers. There already is a waiting list. Mrs. Albert Walker,
welfare director, announced that Mrs. C. L. Cox will be matron
of the home. Staff photo by Rogers. |
When a
motion picture producer wishes to flavor his production with
something that will work the audience up to the proper degree
of hatred for the villain, and to the point of shedding tears,
he usually flashes a few hundred feet of film showing a poor
working girl wandering the streets.
This is done so often, the trick
is called "hokum" by the sophisticated, but the sad
part of it is that such pictures are painfully true to life.
Such scenes are generally set in New York, "the great heartless
city," but they might be laid in Dallas, as hardly a night
passes that the emergency bed at the municipal girls' lodge is
not occupied by a sobbing, heartbroken young woman.
At present, there are only two
public havens of refuge in the city for a girl who is penniless
and friendless. One of them is the emergency bed at the girls'
lodge, the other is the disease ward at the county jail, where
girls are interned for venereal treatment. There are several
places where they can go if they are able to pay for their lodging,
but charity has little to offer.
* * *
Small Beginning.
It is an effort to meet the need
for such an emergency that the Girls' Protective association
has arranged to open a rescue home at 2206 Thomas avenue on Thanksgiving
day. The home will be a feeble effort, as it will have room for
only fourteen girls, but Mrs. Albert Walker, welfare director,
and Mrs. C. H. Huvelle, president of the association, hope that
it will prove a nucleus for something larger.
Two classes of young women will
be taken into the home -- those who are released from internment
at the county jail, and those who have been driven by misfortune
to brink of the shores of decency, and who are willing to go
anywhere as a last resort.
The Girls' Protective association
is the only auxiliary to the city welfare department that will
receive benefits from the funds of the community chest. The association
has been striving to open such a home for several years, but
without success. In the meantime, the need has become desperate.
A large percentage of the girls
who come to the attention of the welfare department are those
who have been living in Dallas for a year or more, and the home
being established will be expressly for Dallas girls, but the
care of newcomers is, in itself, a problem. Many young women
arrive here expecting to be met by relatives. Sometimes, the
relatives fail to come, and they are at a loss what to do. Three
or four such girls are sent to the girls' lodge every week by
the Y. W. C. A. traveler's aid society. If the emergency bed
is already occupied, the matron is compelled to rise to the emergency
by some means. Sometimes, these girls are able to leave the next
day, but occasionally, they are totally helpless and have nowhere
to go. The new institution will be used to handle the destitute
cases, as far as possible.
Hope Cottage, for foundlings, shows
that the public is coming to the rescue of helpless foundlings,
but there is another angle to the story. The mother is, in some
way, suffering the penalty of indiscretion . The city county
hospital has the only maternity wards in the city operated on
a charity basis. Mrs. Walker says the next objective of the department
is to establish a convalescent home for destitute mothers. A
place is needed where they can remain until they are able to
return to work. The home on Thomas avenue is not designed to
meet such a need.
* * *
Home Will Be Too Small.
"We shall try to take care
of as many girls as possible by finding permanent homes for them
as quickly as we can, but for the home to serve the proper purpose,
each girl must be allowed to stay until she is ready to be released,"
said Mrs. Walker. "The object will be to take a girl into
the home and give her domestic training, and, when necessary,
convalescent treatment, so that they will be able to make a decent
living."
Girls who come to the attention
of the welfare director are of many types. Some are arrested
by the police on the streets, but are not really of criminal
type. Some are those who leave country homes and come to the
city to find work. Others are young married women who have been
deserted by their husbands. Others are working girls, whose salaries
were so inadequate, they were victims of temptation. Those who
will go to the home from the county jail are the unfortunate
Magdalenes who have been treated for social diseases. They usually
are subject to re-arrest as soon as they step out of the jail.
* * *
No Place For Widows.
The home for delinquent girls at
Gainesville, maintained by the state, has saved many girls sent
from Dallas, but girls do not go to Gainesville unless they are
sentenced for delinquency. The problem the welfare department
is trying to solve is that of the girl who is on the verge of
delinquency, but who has not overstepped the bounds of decency.
"It is appalling how numerous
are such cases," said Mrs. Walker. "Board, in even
the cheapest rooming houses, is high enough to take all the wages
of many girls. Little is left for buying clothes, and at the
same time, employers are compelled to require their girl employes
to dress neatly. Orphan girls, who are working beside girls,
who also draw low wages, but, who are assisted by their relatives,
find it impossible to keep pace with their friends. They become
desperate, and there is but one result."
Another class of young women who
cannot be sent to Gainesville, is the deserted wives. A married
woman is no longer a juvenile, and therefore, cannot be given
the benefits of the juvenile laws. The number of deserted wives
is increasing, and in most desertion cases, the relatives of
the unlucky wife show little sympathy. They take an "I told
you so" attitude.
The working mothers' home, opened
by the city several years ago, accommodates a few widowed mothers,
but the home is too small to meet the needs. Deserted wives who
have no children, are in a more difficult position than unmarried
women, for the state has no place for them, even when delinquent,
except the jail or the penitentiary.
* * *
World Still Cruel.
The attitude of the world toward
girls who have been branded with the scarlet letter is not as
cruel as it was forty years ago, but records of the welfare department
show that they have not yet succeeded in eliminating the so-called
double standard of morals. Employers are forced to comply with
the rules of society in their demands of their girl employes.
Many stories of misfortune are
told to Mrs. Walker. A few weeks ago, a girl working in the office
of a large firm at a salary of $12 a week, told the matron she
had a girl friend who was in trouble and needed advice. In a
week or two, the girl was reported ill. An investigation was
made. When she returned to work, she was met with a discharge
slip. No other job could be found and the man in the case had
found it convenient to leave the city. The girl's plight was
another case for the welfare department.
That many girls are waking up to
the fact that there may come a time when they will be thrown
on their own resources, is proven by the larger number who are
attending the free night schools to learn stenography or some
other special line of work, but, many of them are disappointed
when they finish school, for hundreds of fairly competent stenographers
are working in Dallas now, at $12 a week.
- November 18, 1923,
Dallas Daily Times Herald, Sec. V, p. 3, col. 1-4.
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[Note: Medford B. DeLoach, engineer at Texas Ice & Cold Storage
Co.,
was residing at 2206 Thomas (near its intersection with N. Pearl),
in 1920. Source: 1920 Worley's Dallas city directory, p. 668]
1930
Classifieds
Personal and Business Notices
HOPE COTTAGE, 2301 Welborn St., Dallas, Tex. Phone 3-5587.
The purpose of this institution is to care for dependent and
abandoned babies under 2 years of age, subject to adoption; supported
by the Community Chest and licensed by the state health department
to carry on such work.
...
"COLONIAL Maternity Home." for unfortunate girls;
reasonable; licensed. #311 Colonial. 4-5550.
- September 3, 1930,
Dallas Daily Times Herald, Sec. II, p. 12, col. 2.
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