Conditions Misrepresented - Editorial

The Marietta Daily Times, December 23, 1930

Everyone realizes that general conditions in Marietta are below normal, with more than the usual number of people needing some help in securing ordinary comforts, although observers find the situation much better here than in most cities. But it is doing harm, rather than good, for some of us to be circulating wild stories of suffering and hardship for which there is no foundation. This city has always taken care of its own people and we are confident that it will continue to do so as long as there is actual need.

For instance, there is the story of one family in such dire need of food that to dodge starvation it cooked and ate a dog. No one should be so credulous as to believe that, much less repeat it as fact. Then there is the more serious one, although there is no more truth in it, that fuel gas has been turned off at hundreds of homes because bills were not paid.

During November, the last month for which figures are available, gas was turned off at only six residences for non-payment of bills. Four of these were chronic delinquents, who do not pay until threatened in this way. Another was a case in which a relative guaranteeing the bill asked that the gas be turned off in an effort to force the head of the family to make an effort to take care of its needs, and the sixth was a case in which the family left town. The Red Cross and the Salvation Army have guaranteed gas bills for a few families.

Every effort is being made to help every individual in the city who needs and deserves help. Persons who know of families who are suffering should report them to the Associated Charities or the Salvation Army. That will do much more good than repeating senseless stories that have no foundation in fact.

"Over the Hill to the Poor House"

The Marietta Times, Thursday, January 20, 1881

A  Day Among the Inmates.

Dilapidated condition of the Buildings, &c.

"Rattle his bones, over the stones,

Only a pauper, whom nobody owns."

Last Thursday morning, on invitation of Director John Strecker, Jr., the writer, in company with J. W. Fitch, Esq., of the Register, passed the day among the paupers at our county Infirmary. The journey to and from the institution was made in Mr. Strecker's sleigh, to which was harnessed his fast nag, which skimmed over the crisp snow and landed us at the institution in short order. 

It would be difficult to describe one's feelings as he enters the wooden archway which spans the main entrance. Only those who have experienced that pleasant grave-yard feeling on entering institutions of this kind can appreciate it. We found everything pertaining to the management of the Infirmary in apple-pie order. Mr. and Mrs. Willis, the Superintendent and Matron, having had years of experience in conducting institutions like this, everything necessarily moved with clock-like precision.

After thawing out before the large fire in the sitting room, which was very comfortable after our ride, and would have been much more enjoyable had we known just when the loose plastering overhead was going to fall, we started on a tour of inspection headed by Mr. Strecker, with the following result.

The Main Building,

which is used as living rooms by the superintendent and employees, was built some fifty years ago. It is a frame structure two stories high and far advanced in rottenness and decay. The roof is leaky, while the ceilings in every room are literally falling to the floor, and a vault-like smell prevailed throughout that strongly reminded one of subterranean abodes. The floors are rotten and rickety and the greatest care was necessary as we picked our way through the rooms to avoid an accident. 

In the parlor, the fire-place had secured a divorce from the balance of the building and was slowly but surely leaving it; a fire in the grate we were told was impossible on account of the smoke which crawled through from the thousand and one cracks and crevices. How a family raised and nurtured in the midst of home comforts could stay for any length of time in this old death trap was a mystery which I could not understand.

A visit to the cellar disclosed the fact that the building was kept perpendicular by a series of props placed so close together as to render navigation extremely dangerous in the dark. Light shone through here and there from innumerable cracks and gaps made by the settling of the building. During the cold weather a few days back, everything in the cellar and house was frozen through, even a bucket of water before the fire in the Superintendent's sleeping room being frozen to the depth of several inches. 

The sash in the building are rendered useless by age, and even putty refuses to associate with the decayed old frame, hence the greatest of care must be exercised in placing the glass in position or left out altogether. How in the name of humanity the officers of the institution are expected to survive in this mildewed, rotten old hulk is more than our philosophy could explain. 

In a little 8x10 room adjoining the main building we found three old ladies whose combined ages reached 260 years, all helpless, huddled together in this illy-ventilated pen with scarcely room to move about. In the next room, without fire of any kind, was two beds, but only one was occupied by an old lady; still farther along in the same building we find a larger room occupied by five old men whose combined ages are 407 years, among them John Springer, who is now in his 111th year. These folks were comfortably fixed, having a stove in the room and plenty of space for exercise, but the lack of ventilation was evident and the same old peppery smell noticeable elsewhere was found here. Leaving the main building we enter a

Low, Squatty Brick Building,

which contains six little rooms or cells, all of which are heated by a stove in the hall. The inmates of this building are quite a study. An old negro, 82 years old, crazy as a loon, sits by a stove and preaches while another, a born idiot, with unmeaning eyes, stares at the floor.

Here in one room is an old Lutheran minister, scrupulously clean and neat, unable to speak a word of English - a pauper - we thought as we looked at the dejected and care-worn countenance of the old man that there must be a screw loose in the religious society that would allow a man to spend the best years of his life in their service and when old and helpless turn him over to the tender mercies of a county infirmary among idiots and half-wits. Another building adjoining this contained several old men and women, most of them in their dotage. Everything was clean and tidy, but all complained of the cold; their bed rooms were heated by a stove in the hall. 

From this building we follow a plank walk and come to what is called the new jail building which is two-story high, and the only decent building on the grounds. The lower story is occupied by idiots, one particular sad case being a little girl who is confined by a leather strap around her waist. Upstairs we found ten old men, most of them in bed; all of them complained of the cold. The same sickening smell was noticeable here as elsewhere. From this building we cross the yard, pass the kitchens, and reach the 

Old Jail Building,

a 2-1/2 story brick, which is fast crumbling away. The corners have dropped out, and the yawning gaps are filled with rags to keep out the biting cold. This building is the most wretched and squalid of any we have yet examined. The inmates pay no attention as we enter; they are mostly idiots, and long imprisonment in this loathsome place, crawling with vermin, has in a manner blunted what little sensibility they had left.

Of the 78 inmates now provided for, nearly two-thirds are too old and feeble to help themselves or leave their rooms.

We thought as we looked upon the misery huddled together in this putrid atmosphere, can it be possible that in a civilized community where plenty is found in almost every household, and want is comparatively unknown, that this is what we call charity? Can it be possible that you, the tax-payers of Washington County, that while you enjoy the peace and comfort of your cozy firesides, you are aware that out in the Infirmary are scores of helpless men, women, and children suffering and dying for want of proper accommodations, living in buildings in which no tender-hearted tax-payer would quarter his dumb animals? Shame on the economy that tramples the life out of our worthy poor. Shame on the economy that places human beings on a level with brutes.

Think of it my friend while you sit in ease and comfort in the midst of your family. The day may not be far distant when adversity and sickness may overtake you and yours, and as a last refuge you may have to enter the Washington County Poor House - poor in more than name. Think of these things and then enter your vigorous protest against such monstrous inhumanity now and forever more. Give the pauper at least a decent shelter in which to eke out the few remaining days of his life.

Pen fails to describe the utter helplessness of  these poor people. But for the vigilant care of Mr. and Mrs. Willis during the late cold snap, the news would have gone out to the world "that quite a number of paupers had perished from the cold in the Washington County Poor House" and yet at one time in their lives these people were just as much respected as any of today.

We learned that it required about 200 cords of wood and 3600 bushels of coal to keep the institution comfortable. The barns, pig-pens, cattle sheds and outhouses generally are in splendid condition, the dumb brutes receiving far better shelter than the poor humans. The buildings as they stand today are a disgrace to every tax-payer in the county, and efforts should be made at once to secure new ones.

The Directors and Officers

do all in their power to make the inmates comfortable, but comfort in such houses is nearly impossible. We watched the poor creatures eat their dinner, after which, sick at heart, and sorry that we had made the trip, we returned home, thankful that Providence had given us health and strength, and that we were not an inmate of the Washington County Poor House.

  

County Will Get Butter, Pork

The Marietta Daily Times, December 7, 1933:

D. Ray Metzger of Columbus, field agent of the Ohio State Relief Commission, spent Thursday in Marietta and made the announcement that a car load each of federal pork and butter will arrive in Marietta next Monday for relief distribution. The commodities will be consigned to the C. L. Bailey Grocery Company and distribution to various parts of Marietta and Washington County will be made at once following the arrival of the train.

Frank Buckley will be in charge of distribution for Washington County. There are 12 distributing points in Marietta and about 30 places in Washington County

Foodstuffs have been apportioned on the basis of 10 pounds of salt pork per family on relief while butter will average four pounds per family for each week. Of this amount, Washington County will require 7,480 pounds of pork and 2,903 pounds of butter.

Noble County families on relief will receive 370 pounds of pork and 146 pounds of butter, according to allotments assigned to Ohio counties. The allotment four Morgan County is 1,940 pounds of pork and 778 pounds of butter.

The Marietta Daily Times, December 8, 1933:

Food Allotment Plan Announced

Frank Buckley, federal food distributor in Marietta and Washington County, announces that a program of food allotment has been worked out for distribution of pork and butter. The federal relief will go to families where the head of the family is not employed on either public or private projects. Indications are that the federal relief will be extended during the winter months.

About 300 families in Marietta and 630 in Washington County will be aided through federal food relief, and this number will total about 4,500 people to be helped in the county and city. Allotments of pork and butter will be received in Marietta monthly for weekly distribution, according to present plans, as announced by Mr. Buckley.

According to the schedule, a family of from one to four persons will receive two and a half pounds of pork per week; a family of from five to seven persons will receive four pounds of pork; a family of from eight to 10 persons will receive six pounds of pork; and families with 11 or more members will be allotted eight pounds of pork. Apportionment of butter will be made in proportion to the size of the families. The federal relief commodities will arrive in Marietta early next week.

Four Boys To Be Whipped Soundly By Court Order

 The Marietta Daily Times, November 20, 1922

Four Norwood boys, Charles and Cecil Duff, Homer Hendricks and Samuel Brown, are to be whipped soundly before they are put to bed tonight, and the fathers of the youngsters will administer the lacings under direction of Judge Schramm of the juvenile court. This is being done in an effort to make the boys quit swearing and fighting.

Representatives of the three families, who appear to have engaged in a neighborhood fuss on East Greene Street, were before Judge Schramm on Monday morning, and the facts showed that the two Duff boys have been fighting the Hendricks and Brown boys, and the four, by their fistic encounters and profane talk, have become an unbearable nuisance at the Norwood school and along the streets between the school house and their homes.

An extended effort on the part of Judge Schramm was necessary to straighten out the tangle, but the facts finally were related by the boys. Then promises were exacted and the applications of hickory oil were prescribed. The fathers were cautioned to make the whippings sound ones and they promised to obey orders.

The fact was developed during the hearing that conditions at the Duff home are not what they should be. There are eight children in the family and while the father is a hard worker, his wages won't keep things going and want stalks about the place. The court will endeavor to assist the family, not only in providing the necessities of life, but in the management of their home.

Washington County Infirmary and Children's Home

The Marietta Register, June 10, 1869

W. C. Hood of the Marietta Times recently paid a visit to these institutions and discourses of them in his last paper in this wise:

Last Monday afternoon, at the invitation of F. A. Wheeler, one of the Directors, we paid a visit to the Washington County Infirmary. A ride of three miles brought us to the farm.

This consists of about 170 acres, the most of which was purchased thirty years ago, and it was then a worn-out farm. The soil was light originally and "washes" in a heavy rain. This would suggest careful tillage to anybody who knows aught about farming, but it seems not to have had that effect on some who had managed the place, for two years ago the ground had got to be almost sterile. Large quantities of manure are now hauled out from Marietta, and all that can be supplied by J. H. Dye's livery stable has been engaged. The object is to make the Infirmary a self-sustaining institution. 

There are about five acres of old orchard trees and sixteen acres of fruit trees more recently planted. The probabilities are that there will be an abundant, if not an excessive, supply this season.

Last year eight cows were kept. The product of the dairy was 1,000 lbs. of butter, of which 400 pounds were sold. The inmates regularly have the morning's milk for their supper.

Of hay, the farm for a few years prior to 1868 did not yield enough, but last year there was a surplus which was sold for $146, and there is still about a ton left.

Mr. Gill this year will have pork enough, he thinks, heretofore, there had not being half the needed quantity derived from the farm.

Of potatoes there was a deficiency in 1868. This year the Superintendent has planted six acres, all looking well, and thirty acres of corn.

The garden comprises an acre and a half. Mr. Gill has newly fenced and enlarged it. Last year he raised eight hundred head of cabbages, 50 bushels of sweet potatoes, a large bed of onions, plenty of peas, several kinds of beans, and of beets, more than a sufficiency. This year he has set out fifty grape vines. None had been planted before, old as the place happens to be. Not one of the paupers is a good gardener. An old German who was such, and who loved the employment, died about two years ago.

In the management of matters about the farm houses, Mr. Gill has no assistants other than his wife, his daughter, and Miss Julia Wheeler, a relative. There are sixty-one inmates, and of these thirty-five are "foolish," insane or demented. Forty-eight take their meals in the common dining room; to the others, food is carried. The victuals are wholesome and enough is furnished. We saw the paupers at their supper, and judging from appearances, we think that extreme poverty has the merit of giving its subjects a better appetite than all the tonics known to the medical profession and all the "bitters" ever advertised.

Two old women had attained an advanced age. Mrs. Grant is 94. She claims that her father was a relative of Lewis Cass. Mrs. Cole, another old woman, is 95. In the nursery were three babies - two white, one colored - born there. Illegitimate, of course. One was but three weeks old. Its mother was walking about, completely recovered and quite at her ease.

In what is called the jail, several raving lunatics are confined. One of them, a burly German with the neck of a bull, was very noisy. A poor woman, whose reason had been overthrown by abuse from her husband, was afflicted in addition to other maladies, with the voracity ascribed to the shark. If she could but get enough, she would eat till death choked her. She lay on the floor with her face pressed against the grated door of the cell and stretched her hand through the bars as if piteously pleading. Her whole demeanor was that of a caged animal, such as one may see in a menagerie.

To conclude with the Infirmary: Mr. Gill, as Superintendent, devotes his time to the strict performance of what he has to do, and he is plainly an improvement upon some of his predecessors. Perhaps the farm, such as it is, may never be completely self-sustaining, but he is making it as nearly so as he can. In this he has the cooperation of the board of directors, and without it little, perhaps, could be effected.

It was after six o'clock when we left the Infirmary and at the request of Esquire Wheeler, we went up the Muskingum River road to the Children's Home. This is now in charge of Dr. S. D. Hart and his excellent wife. They are assisted by three nurses, a cook, a dining room girl under the direction of the cook, and one seamstress, who is employed through the year, except when work presses, and then two are required. The Doctor himself goes out to work in the fields, and he has one man hired to help him. Eight boys big enough to be of some use are set at whatever they can do.

There are fifty-four children in the Home at present. The oldest is 14 years of age; the youngest, an infant of seven weeks. There are two other babes, each about a year old. The ages of most of the children range between 2 and 6 years. Nearly half are illegitimate. Their mothers are not really able to take care of them, or else they are too shiftless and indolent.

We were shown through all the rooms and found everything comfortable and in order. It was growing dark. The children were collected in what is called a school room. A hymn was sung, prayer was offered by Dr. Hart, and then they began to prepare for bed. Our little party, at the same time, set about returning to Marietta. We had spent a thoughtful afternoon, first with old people whose lives were destined to end under the clouds, and then with young folks whose lives had begun under a cloud. And yet, neither the aged nor the youthful unfortunates were exactly the most miserable folks we had seen on the earth.

  

Township Trustees and Orphan Children

The Marietta Intelligencer, June 3, 1847

As the excitement growing out of a recent case involving the rights of a certain orphan child in Marietta has subsided, it will be profitable to examine the principles involved in that case. Not only every orphan child - but every person in the community who may have the orphan children of his poor friends or relations cast upon him - is deeply interested in them. I will avoid allusion as far as possible to the unpleasant circumstances attending the case and state only such facts as are necessary to a correct understanding of it.

The parents of the orphan died nearly at the same time in Cincinnati about five years ago. They were both members of a Presbyterian church in that city and on their death-beds committed their children to the care of two or three benevolent ladies, who were members of the same church - and requested that they might be placed in families where they would be instructed in the religious principles and faith of their parents.

One of these children was sent to a family in Marietta. As it was supposed there would probably be some property left for the children on the settlement of their father's estate, the person to whom the child was sent took guardianship of her. Afterwards ascertaining there would be no property for her, the letter of guardianship was not renewed when she became 12 years old. Her only surviving grandparent, her uncles, and elder married sister, earnestly requested the friend in whose care she was placed to keep her in their family till she became 18. Both they and the child objected to her being bound to service. She has remained in this family to her own entire satisfaction and that of her relations and friends till the present time.

About the last of April, in consequence of some unpleasant reports which had been put in circulation, the Township Trustees interfered, and without allowing a hearing to her friends, without communicating with the relations, and against the strongly expressed wishes of the child herself (now supposed to be nearly 16 years old), bound her in service as a domestic in a respectable Methodist family in Marietta. 

The child refused to go with her new master, and as her friend and protector did not compel her to leave him, she was brought before one of the Judges of the Court of Common Pleas on a write of Habeas Corpus. The return on the writ stated the principal facts above mentioned and also that the child was and had been furnished with everything necessary and proper for her. On these facts, the plaintiffs claimed that the child was a destitute orphan and that the Trustees were authorized to take her from her friend and bind her to service, and so the Court decided.

The orphan still refused to leave her old friends, and her master finding he could not take her with him without violence, told her to return to them and remain there till he called for her, and there she still is, contented and happy.

In reviewing this case, it appears to be the law of Ohio:

1st. That an orphan child without property or some responsible person liable for its support is a destitute orphan, no matter how well treated and provided for it may be, nor how able and willing its friends may be to continue to provide for it.

2nd. That the Township Trustees may take such child from its friends without notice and without assigning any reason for their conduct and bind it to the most menial service allowed by the laws of Ohio, contrary to the wishes of the child and of all its relations and friends, and while they keep within the letter of the law, there is no redress. The court must ask it, if of the proper age, to choose its own guardian, but the Trustees may give it to whom they please as its master.

3rd. It follows also that the guardian of such child (he not being responsible for its support, where it has no property) can have no such control over it, except by binding it out himself, as to prevent it from being taken from his custody and bound out by the Trustees against his will.

4th. That the want of property, according to the laws of Ohio, creates distinctions and disabilities to which the poor must submit, but which cannot affect the children of the rich. it is not the probability that the child may become chargeable that justifies the interference of the Trustees, but the fact that it is poor.

I have no complaint to make of the decision of the court or of the law in this case. I have no doubt, not only that the Judge decided it according to his honest convictions of duty, but that he would have gladly allowed the injured parties a hearing if he had believed it to be in his power. If the fathers and mothers of Ohio who have nothing to give their children but education, industry, and virtue, are content to leave them, when they died, to the operations of such laws, it is not for me to complain. There is a strong, and it is a natural and proper repugnance in a parent to binding his child in service to another, but no poor man can safely leave his children without thus providing for them.

There is also an unwillingness on the part of many excellent persons, who would gladly receive and bring up poor orphans, to take them as indented servants, but they can have no assurance of being able to keep them without it.

The poor orphans adopted and educated as their own children by rich relatives and friends must be bound as servants or the Township Trustees may take them away at their pleasure.

The pious orphan young men and women who are pursuing their studies in our colleges and seminaries, under the patronage of education societies and benevolent individuals, may be taken at any time by the same authority and bound out till of age to any service the laws allow.

And the large number of the orphan children of the poor, who are earning an honest living in the families of their brothers and friends, or gaining an education by their own unaided efforts and talents, are not safe a moment from this same degrading control. But it is not necessary to multiply cases of the iniquitous operation of such laws, or of the danger of trusting such power in the hands of even the best men. They will readily occur to everyone.