The Haskell Home and James White Memorial Home
By Mrs. E. H. Whitney
A YEAR has passed since our last mention of these Homes and their needs in the REVIEW. “Tell the people of your work and its needs,” was the instruction given in view of the coming collection. We have given in the current issue of our little quarterly sheet, The Haskell Home Appeal, a report of the receipts and expenditures of the past year and also a statistical report of both of the Homes. Other items concerning the Homes are also to be found in this issue of the Appeal. This number, as has been the case with the other collection numbers, is sent, through the courtesy of the REVIEW, to its list of subscribers. As to the past year, the summer was spent by the children, after school closed, for the most part on the farm. All indoor work, except what was absolutely necessary for the comfort of the family, is dropped during the summer season, so the energies of caretakers and children may be devoted to the fruit farm and market garden, both of which did well last year, and thus helped to contribute to the support of the family. The children enjoy the outdoor work, as a rule, and are glad of the change from study. The opening of the fall term was deferred to October, in order to give more time to the harvest, and no special indoor manual training was attempted until winter closed in. The education of the children is thus made practical, and we try to teach them not only to work, but how to do it intelligently. While we have been compelled to make their work contribute toward their support as far as possible, we have endeavored not to lose sight of the educational side, and we do not see that their studies are hindered by manual work. Some years the children have done repairing of chair seats for the Home, and some outside work, and have made and repaired mattresses for the beds. We have not done as much of this work this year for various reasons, one of which is lack of sufficient help for the instruction. The school work is conducted by loyal, devoted, Christian young women who recognize their duty to develop not only the intellect, but the character of the children, and to lay the foundation of an intelligent Christian faith, and an acquaintance with the doctrines so dear to us as a people. It has been our constant endeavor to secure earnest Christian women as caretakers for the different families, and those whose lives and teachings were in harmony with our faith. This has not been an easy task, as not every one otherwise qualified is able to deal tenderly and wisely with children, and this lack has added to the perplexities of our work almost more than our straitened finances. Homes have been offered for quite a number of children. These applications we have filled as far as we were able, but have had to defer many of them for lack of suitable children, for whom we had a legal right to thus arrange. The Home is not like most State institutions, given permanent custody of the children placed in it. A limited number only are thus received. In a very large majority of cases we are urged to take the children temporarily until they are old enough to help do for themselves, when the mother hopes to recall them. In a number of cases those placing the children in the Home have expressed in the correspondence their willingness to relinquish them to us, but when once here, they have refused to permit them to be placed in homes, even when most desirable ones have been offered. We have tried to keep our aims high, and our earnest desire is to have the work in all respects what the Lord would have it. Like the apostle Paul, we have to say that we count not ourselves to have apprehended, but are still pressing toward the mark. The James White Home for the Aged has always shared with the Haskell Home in whatever donations have been received. In this Home are a number of our aged brethren and sisters, some of them pioneers in the message, and many of them whose experience runs back to its early days. These are, as a rule, cheerful and contented, and appreciate the privileges they are enjoying. In some cases these are more than they have had at any other time of their lives.