Main
(Third in the series)
As intimated previously, change and the needs of change, were no different in the organization of the B.I.S. than any other human organization. Perhaps it even needs to be said it would be surprising if no changes were ever needed or made. My wife and I wrote a history of a county children’s home here in Lancaster, Ohio, and early in our research we found evidences of discontent, prejudices and other negative vibrations but we chose not to build on that because few of the former superintendents of that 99 year-old institution (Fairfield County Children’s Home) were alive to enable them to have a “last word”. Indeed, change in itself is a fact of life that serves as a guarantee that things will not always be as they seem and this fact alone serves as a relief valve to those of us who find the need to criticize and even condemn the work of others. As in the work of either of these county and state organizations, the work was often left to those whose willingness to help surpassed their abilities or qualifications and further they were often found doing a job that no one else wanted to do. It is almost like children criticizing a parent for the way they were treated, until they became a parent themselves. Leaders are not always able to find or are provided the trained and qualified workers needed.
A JOURNEY BACK IN HISTORY
We have to turn the pages of history back around 153 years to learn about Charles Reemelin’s extended trip visiting reform schools in the United States (but none of those convinced him as being what was needed).
“I wanted a school that was in no way a prison, except for temporary punishment.” His visits abroad took him to reform schools in England, France, Germany, Switzerland and Belgium. He was most impressed by an institution in Paris called, “Colony de Mettray.” In his visits there, interviewing boys and staff in that institution, he learned “…boys became good gardeners, fine mechanics and trusty laborers. … I talked with many boys there and found, that, with most of them, being taken there, was in itself a reform, because it effected a liberation from prison aid and discipline.” Charles Reemelin’s enthusiasm was challenged by a German Catholic Bishop who accompanied him to Mettray: “You will never succeed in establishing a Mettray in the United States, because you will not have the requisite persons for the right economical administration, or the right religious education.” The priest went on to caution Mr. Reemelin, “In the United States they have not yet learned the value of especially capable public administration, by servants in the best sense; to-wit: that of well disciplined persons, animated by a stern public spirit, that has its best reward in accomplishing high moral good.” Resource: Page 24, Survey of the Boys’ Industrial School, 1940. printed by the Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio.
This bishop’s advice had more truth in it than was pleasant for Charles Reemlin to admit but he hoped the United States would sometime reform their public administration. Many years had to pass before this prophecy of a Catholic bishop began to uncover circumstances and events that were to further challenge the work and mission of such a reform school in America. Fortunately, this experience probably became a benchmark to those whose minds were made up to “make this work” whatever circumstances arose. One thing, or so it seems to this writer, deeply set cultural philosophies are not to be overlooked and what works in one part of the world is no guarantee it will work (forever) in another part of the world. America is constantly changing in its views of values and ways of dealing with societal issues. The following words of Clarence Shepard Day contain the essence of reality in the examination of the beginnings of the B.I.S.,; however, the unfortunate and ultimate closing of this unique boys reform school in Ohio , was a fulfillment of that prophecy made by a Catholic bishop came to pass 150 years later. Again we are reminded of those lyrics from a song, “And nothing stays the same.”
"The world of books is the most remarkable creation of man. Nothing else that he builds ever lasts. Monuments fall; nations perish; civilizations grow old and die out; and, after an era of darkness, new races build others. But in the world of books are volumes that have seen this happen again and again, and yet live on, still young, still as fresh as the day they were written, still telling men's hearts of the hearts of men centuries dead.
— Clarence Shepard Day
In 1939, according to reports made in the previously mentioned book, the current administration at that time worked in cooperation with state appointed survey workers to address problems that existed and the results of that survey were published in 1940. As mentioned earlier it should not surprise anyone that problems (today they are called “issues” as if that would smooth over the “problems”) existed at the institution; what is good about all this is that accomplishments resulted to benefit the organization. Early on in that report, it was stated in some “General Conclusions”: “Fifth, Greater efforts by local communities to care for the delinquent boys at home, should reduce the number of boys sent to the school.” Excuse me, but isn’t that exactly what homes of the Judeo-Christian values have preached for centuries? What new idea is this? Virtuous men and women have valiantly fought for such circumstances and philosophies endlessly and the statement of President Woodrow Wilson attests this is nothing new:
“The sum of the whole matter is this, that our civilization
cannot survive materially unless it is redeemed spiritually.”
Woodrow Wilson
Are we then to be surprised when a need is found at a state reform school that problems exist? Even a cursory observation of our society gives a basis for the following quote:
“A happy childhood is poor preparation for human contacts.” Colette
French novelist, Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette -- January 28, 1873 – August 3, 1954
This observer of life freely announced that idealistic “happiness” is not the total answer either. Finally, it was good that minds could be brought together to find the root of the real problems and they were addressed. Later the school was able to continue, at least until “society” moved in again, making still more “improvements”. Criticisms from on-lookers are not always those that come from the well informed. Again, in our research for the history book, A PLACE TO CALL HOME, we were once told about an occasion where some people drove by a “group of children being made to work in the heat of the day in a garden”; after exclaiming this to be unreasonable work for children, the response of one of the children put the complaint in perspective, “But when we get done we can go swimming!!”
Work and everyday goings on, at an orphanage or a boys’ reform school were not exactly a Sunday school picnic environment. The children at the Fairfield County Children’s Home were there through no fault of their own but they were taught by precept and example that as a result of their labors in the field, in the barn lot, in the poultry houses, there would be food on the table. In other words they were taught individual responsibility is part of the marriage of life where “each and all” become one. Certainly it was not different in principle at the B.I.S. but one distinct fact exists, the boys at the B.I.S. were there because of a crime against society, so why would or should they be treated less propitiously than children at the orphanage? At least, as the thief on the cross was able to see, “we are here because of our crimes, and this man has done no wrong”. How we raise children has been an issue ever since the first child was born.
At least, in whatever era or generation of confinement, in a children’s home or a reform school, attempts were being made to teach young people there are responsibilities for all: shirking responsibilities only makes us further wards or dependents on the community, state or government. If someone finds fault with this, we lose touch with the reality that individuals are responsible and it is not realistic to claim “it’s not my fault” when a person is obviously guilty. Most children we interviewed (as adults who had matured through their residency at the Children’s Home) looked back with appreciation for the home they were given when their homes were ravaged by a turn in societal circumstances. In all honesty, some could not swallow such pride (guiltless individuality) and resented the years they spent at the orphanage. Are we to assume every boy who graduated from the B.I.S. or the Fairfield School for Boys would totally appreciate how they were treated as a resident?
Let’s leave the philosophical arguments and agendas to the historians and look back into those annals of time to see what the “current residents” in 1930’s had to say about the B.I.S. It is good, however, to mention Terry Selby, of Lancaster, Ohio, who has followed these essays since their beginning, related an occasion when he was able to participate in a sporting event at the B.I.S. After being in a boxing match with one of the B.I.S. boys, his remark was, “Boy, some of those boys could fight.” Perspective helps in any examination of facts.
HUMOR NOTES from “Boys’ Industrial School Journal”
Usher: (to cold dignified lady): Are you a friend of the groom?
The Lady: Indeed no! I am the bride’s mother.
The man who laughs at the awkward way his wife parks a car should see himself sewing a button on his shirt.
DEPARMENTAL NEWS ITEMS
THE SHOE SHOP
(written by one of the boys)
”Well, well! Here we are folks, back in this month’s journal. These notes find us working on new shoes and repairing those that need repairing. We have lost a few boys since our last report; also receiving a few new ones.
We still have the same line up on the working outfit. That is Federico, chief line boy and Big Shot-Slim, his helper.
Our enrollment for this month is 17 "all day" boys, 2 A.M. and 4 P.M. boys. All trying hard to keep their positions assigned by Mr. Moore, our instructor.
Crile, our blocker, is busy blocking out soles, heels, and half soles, also insoles. He said that “IF” he had a dime for every time that blocker hit boom on that block he’s be a millionaire and then some.
Mr. Moore, our instructor, has made up his mind at last to to on a vacation that he has been talking about. That leaves us working speedy ahead in our work so as we will not fall back in our work the first or second week he’s gone. We boys up here wish him a happy trip, for he sure deserves it, as he is the coolest, mildest office[r] to work for; just ask the boys up here and they will flood you over telling you the nice things he does for us. Oh, he just now said it is time to sweep, and so is it is so hot, I guess I will play around and then I won’t have to use a broom. I’m kind of a lazy fellow anyhow. The repair boys are the ones that use the broom the most, because they are the ones that make the dirt and now and then one of the other ones sweep out when all the repair boys are not here. Then when the floor is swept each and every boy tries to find some odd work to do until the whistle sounds, and then we close up for the day.”
THE BUTCHER SHOP
(one of the boys reported)
The past month the weather has been very hot and hard on fresh meat, but our cold storage has been working fine.
Temperature is held at 32 to 33 degrees and the meat keeps fine until it goes to the table. The boys will all have a chicken dinner Sunday. We have been busy all morning cutting up chicken ready for the pan.
Among our last lessons have been the several different uses a beef rump can be put to. The many different cuts of pot roast and how to save all the meat on a beef head.
Our spare time lately has been put in cleaning and painting pork barrels, getting them ready for winter. It takes about 60 barrels to take care of our pork. Well, we are through carving chicken and we all have cut fingers. You see we are not used to carving chicken, they don’t want to lay still long enough to get the “ax.”
The people “holler” about it being hot outside and we cry about it being too cold (in the cooler).
More to come from old records of the Boys’ Industrial School once in the Hocking Hills near Lancaster, Ohio.
THE WORDWRIGHT
Written by my wife, Jean, with some concluding thoughts by The Wordwright.
As I was cooking broccoli recently, its wafted fragrance passed my nose. I was immediately taken back to Home Economics Class where I learned to prepare a couple of dishes we never had at home. Broccoli was one of them. Mother never grew this vegetable, so she bought some for me to prepare.
Another dish we learned to cook in that class was Spanish Hamburgers. My mother had never fixed that for our family either, so I prepared Spanish Hamburgers, adding one more recipe to our country home cuisine. Evidently it was a good choice because we had Spanish Hamburgers after that and we still do today. They are known as Sloppy Joes in this day and age, somehow I like the sound of Spanish Hamburgers better.
I still have the baking book we were given in Home Economics Class. It contains a lot of basic recipes for cake, muffins and such.
Open windows and doors on a sunny, warm day after being closed all winter, allow a refreshing fragrance to come inside. The birds chirping add to the enjoyment of the coming spring.
I well remember the smell of our everyday closet; as a child, where my mother and dad kept their work clothes worn while tending chores at the barn. We had a couple cows, sheep, hogs and chickens. The dirty boots worn on rainy days added to a smell I can still remember.
Gardenias will quickly bring to mind the corsages my husband, Bill, would buy me in our younger days. He said he didn’t know of any other kind of flowers to buy. They turned brown quickly on the edges so you could hardly wear them more than once.
Another important fragrance, smell or whatever you want to call it, was how my mother smelled to me as a young child. She was a stay-at-home farmwoman whose duties were ones that took her outdoors a lot. She would naturally perspire; she was not a dirty person, just that her clothes would absorb a work odor. Even if I had been blind, when she held and cuddled me, I would know it was Mother. It was not objectionable to me – is it possible there is such a thing as a “mother smell”?
Since we lived in the country and a road ran by a field in front of our house, I learned the sounds of all the neighbors’ cars. I didn’t even have to see the car to identify the neighbor who was going to town. Cars were not as plentiful in the 1930’s and 1940’s so it was not hard to recognize one from the other. I would hear one going by and say, “There go Siscos to town.”
Another sound, which would find us running outside, would be an airplane. We would look skyward until the plane was out of sight. Even today I find myself looking up if I hear one going over our house but I don’t run outside to view one. It’s amazing how our memory records such things and for so long a time too, I’m 75 now and those sights, sounds and smells are still fresh in my mind. ###
I am grateful my wife adds her occasional words for use in The Wordwright. Today, the sound might be a life-flight helicopter, and thoughts of accidents on the highway immediately come to mind. Commercial jets fly at such altitudes their sounds are no longer heard. The ear-piercing sounds of emergency vehicles often interrupt our peace and quiet. And, strange as it may seem that “sound” of everything electrical stopping when the electric goes off!
My own life contains a memory bank of sights sounds and smells—I can still smell the fragrance of oats cooked by my Great Aunt Vashti Wilson; the very texture and taste is clear in my mind to this day. Aunt Vashti also baked short bread, and this mere mention starts specific glands working. Toast being made at the table or in the broiler section of the gas oven in our kitchen brings back aromas; bacon frying in the skillet, with eggs cooking, all add to those memories that take us back when we were home as children. We had a toaster that had a unique feature allowing the toast to be swung out and away from the heating elements and turned on a pivot to swing back and toast the second side. The fancy modern toasters, where you dropped the bread into the top and bread could be toasted on both sides at once, were not on our kitchen table. Even then I marveled at the design of that special toaster.
The fragrance of popcorn cooking at a theater’s concession stand, and the other smells that flow through the corridors of our brain’s memory storehouse that recall the visits to the candy counter at Kresges (or another Dime Store) or the smell of tobacco at the drug store. The smell of a match that had just been struck by Dad as he lighted his pipe; this was before the days when fears of cancer outweigh the joy of an occasional smoke. The smell of Dad’s hunting jacket or the mixed odors of gasoline and oil as I stomped on the kick starter of my 1942 Cushman 3-wheeled motor scooter; and the rush of excitement as the sound of that single-cylinder motor promising an afternoon of traveling the streets of Lancaster or wandering the roads of Fairfield County.
All of us have such memories enjoying that “random access memory” for decades to come--long before we were to learn the word RAM. Computers have nothing on the brain God gave us.
THE WORDWRIGHT’S WIFE & BILL HIMSELF
EVER WONDER WHY?
Volume One
I have chosen to identify this bit as "Volume One" because it might just be there will be other pieces I have collected in my correspondence with a special friend of mine who taught biology in Transylvania University in Lexington, Kentucky, for quite a few years. Every once in a while, often when sitting at the dinner table, my wife, Jean, and I will wonder why birds flock the way they do or fly in a circular pattern as they "take off in a flock". We are always grateful I can go to my computer and send off an e-mail to J. Hill Hamon, that retired biology professor, and get his professional opinion. The following data was the answer our friend, J. Hill, sent our way. Even though our religious inclinations and beliefs vary considerably I cannot help but feel there is persistent truth in much of what the consortium of human knowledge has been mined from studying God’s vast and manifold creation. Total agreement between the assorted levels of our society is not always essential, in fact I would rather acknowledge the wisdom in whoever came up with the axiom, "We are all ignorant, just about different things." And another quote: "Since we cannot know all that there is to be known about anything, we ought to know a little about everything." Blaise Pascal
With that, we share what our friend wrote us about birds.
"On the birds, the flocking behavior depends a great deal on the species. Usually in circling, the birds are "choosing" (trying to find) a leader which they can follow. In the case of pigeons, it is more complicated. The family Columbidae, and in fact most of that scientific order, Columbiformes, have minute iron oxide crystals in certain cells of the brain, and can detect the earth's magnetic field, and can orient on it. Amazing!! Homing pigeons are especially adept at this. And guess what, thousands of species, including humans, have similar iron crystals in their brains. We usually "blast" our fragile senses by much stronger signals -- we are very visually oriented, and in fact, when presented a choice of signals, will ignore most vibrations in lieu of following visual ones. We believe our eyes more than we believe our delicate senses. Does this begin to answer your question? The iron oxide crystals act like a magnetic compass and align with the magnetic lines of force of the earth. I'm not surprised at finding such similarity in most living creatures -- we are all related, on a genetic level, containing the same chemicals arranged in the same patterns. Most people don't like to think that they are related to cockroaches or crab lice, but we are! It is a humbling thought, and at the same time a profound philosophical truth. It makes me appreciate my fellow creatures and my little place in nature."
That’s all for now – until we find something else to give some answers to the eternal question: "Ever wonder why?"
THE WORDWRIGHT
by JEAN STEEL VENRICK, Wife of The Wordwright
Copyrighted - October 4, 2002
This sounds like a children’s story but it is not – it’s a true story.
For the background, we need to go back fifteen or twenty years ago when I was in my dieting era. We had gone to the Christian Armory on Morse Road in Columbus, Ohio where I found this delightful small paperback book entitled "Skinnie Minnie Recipe Book" by Frances Hunter, Published in 1976-77, cost only $2.95.
I was delighted with some of the recipes featured, some pared down to really cut the calories, others not to my liking at all. I kept it with my diet cookbooks.
Then one day my diet book came up missing! I was heartsick because I thought I knew what happened – I generously gave a hospital twig book sale a bag of books. Then I knew I would never see my little book ever again for I was sure it was not that widely circulated. I, or we, even went to the Christian Armory to see if they had another copy. I looked and looked at bookstores and book sales wherever we went. No one ever heard of it. In fact I could not even remember the name of the book, author, or what it looked like. I was frustrated. I finally resigned myself to the fact that it was gone FOREVER!
Then, and this is the good part, September 28, 2002, this group was having their annual book sale again. The cookbooks and other health books are always on a table or two by themselves, and that table is crowded when the doors open at 9:00 a.m. It’s a "grab, grunt and growl" situation as my dad would say. If you see a book you only think you might like, you take it now! I went around the table at least twice as the crowd swarmed, grabbing a book when I could see one.
The crowd subsided. There were a few lonely books no one wanted. I had seen this one little book on my previous trips around the table but now I could stop and look at the leftovers. I picked up this book with the big milkshake with a strawberry on top and started through it. To my surprise in the front was the author and her husband’s picture. I recognized her as the author of MY LITTLE LOST COOKBOOK. I nearly yelled outloud, "Eureka, I found it!!" Never could I have been more happy with anything in my whole life. I was ecstatic! "Skinnie Minnie" has been found and I paid all of 25 cents for it. (It was lost for at least ten years!.)
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People in my age bracket (born in 1932) have more varied experiences of the "garbage collector" than the average city dweller today. I will spare some details about the "quality" of the garbage but believe me, it was a different kind of garbage that was set out in the alley than you find set out on the street (in FRONT of your house) today! May I hint briefly -- in the days of my childhood there was a unique odor connected with the garbage truck!
John Clayton’s bi-monthly magazine, "DOES GOD EXIST?" Has a great story on the same subject – so why "re-invent the wheel", here is the story in his great little magazine, as he writes about this same subject:
"Imagine what it would be like to live in a large city where the garbage collectors went on strike for a year. We have been in a few places where there had been a strike for a few days, and the odor and potential for disease was absolutely horrendous. Some of us may rank garbage collecting as one of the least likely careers that we would want to go into, but mankind is faced with major ecological and space problems with his own waste. Think of how much greater that problem is in the natural world. How do you dispose of an elephant when it dies? Think of the problems involved when there is a mass die-off of almost any group of animals due to a disease or a natural disaster. Humans take huge bulldozers and practice mass burials to avoid the epidemic of disease that a disaster like a tsunami or a flood brings, but the natural world outside of man has nothing quite like that.
In reality there are a number of different garbage collectors that handle the deaths of living things--worms, dung beetles, and some mammals like hyenas. In the past dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurs rex ate mostly dead animals, and probably did very little killing of living things. Most of us know that one of the most efficient and useful workers in the disposing waste is the vulture, but what we may not realize is how incredibly well designed the vulture is to do what they do. The turkey vulture's real name is Cathartes aura which is Latin for "cleansing breeze." That really is a good description of what the vulture does.
The easiest way to spot a vulture is the presence of a bald head. The bald eagle is not really bald, but the turkey vulture is. The head is free of feathers and has an oily material on the skin that prevents any carrion (dead meat) from sticking to the bird as it eats. Vultures cannot kill anything. Their feet are not made to be a weapon and cannot cut or tear things. Vultures are designed to eat dead things within 24 hours of when it dies, and their sense of smell cannot detect something dead if it is over 24 hours. Vultures heat their bodies by spreading out their wings while in a tree to warm up, and they cool themselves by defecating on their feet.
The vulture is designed to keep a big area free of dead things, so it is specially designed to soar on thermals. An adult vulture with a six-foot wingspan will only weigh about three pounds. They will catch thermals and ride them up as high as 20,000 feet so they can monitor the area that they serve. Groups of vultures spiraling to gain altitude are called kettles because they look like water boiling in a pot. Hawks watch vultures to find thermals, and vultures can soar for hours using their design for staying aloft to keep the earth clean by God's "cleansing breeze."
--Data from Dick E. Bird News, March/April 2005, page 3.
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ADAPTED and copied with permission from John Clayton’s magazine, DOES GOD EXIST?
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