INDIANAPOLIS — The state of Indiana will close a 143-year-old home for troubled children in May, disappointing alumni who had found refuge there and the veterans groups that supported it.
The Indiana State Department of Health said it would close the Indiana Soldiers’ and Sailors’ Children’s Home in Knightstown and move its 114 students in grades 5-12 into community settings after the current school year ends in May.
Indiana Health Commissioner Dr. Judy Monroe noted the state would need $65 million to $200 million to renovate the 50-acre, 53-building campus that once housed 1,000 children.
“We really need to put our money into services, not bricks and mortar,” Monroe said in an interview Wednesday after announcing the closure to the staff at the home about 25 miles east of Indianapolis. “Institutionalizing children is just not where society is at today.”
However, alumni fondly recalled the years they spent there.
“It was the best thing, really, that ever happened to me,” said Tim Brown, 71, who became a star running back with the Philadelphia Eagles. He and his brother moved there from Richmond in the 1950s after their father, a World War II Army cook, and their mother split up and the family disintegrated.
“People say, ’Oh, you went to the Children’s Home,’ and I say, ’Thank God,”’ Brown said from his current home in Palm Springs, Calif.
Private funders founded the home in 1865 to care for and educate orphaned and destitute children of Civil War Union Army veterans. The state took control two years later, and in the 1890s the school began accepting the destitute children of all veterans. Eventually, it opened its doors to other at-risk children, with preference in admission given to those of veterans.
Veterans groups including the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars adopted the home as one of their pet projects and paid for new buildings and capital improvements. The Indiana Department of the Legion pays for the class rings and class trip of graduating seniors.
“We have a tremendous number of e-mails and phone calls from our members around the state who are very concerned about this,” said Hugh Dagley, assistant adjutant of the Indiana Department, which is holding its midwinter meeting this weekend in Indianapolis. “It’s going to be cussed and discussed.”
The home received financial support not only from the Indiana Department but also individual posts around the state, Dagley said.
Monroe said the decision to close the home was unrelated to recent Indiana budget cuts but rather culminated from a three-year review that also included state education, budget and social services officials and architects.
The state spent more than $10 million to operate the home last year at an average cost of nearly $250 per child per day, Monroe said. Parents and guardians could remove their children at any time, and 72 children out of 185 left during that year. The average length of stay had fallen to just two years.
It’s much different from the experiences of Susie Yagher and four younger siblings who went there from a troubled family in southern Indiana in 1969, when she was 15 and the home housed 500 children. Yagher, 55, of Ormond Beach, Fla., operates a private Web site for alumni of the home’s Morton Memorial School.
“We are all just devastated,” she said. “Everybody was in the same boat, and you became brothers and sisters, basically.”
She feared the state would convert the campus into a prison, making it no longer accessible for alumni to visit.
Joseph Fistrovich, chief financial officer of the Indiana Department of Correction, said officials in the administration of Gov. Mitch Daniels have informally discussed turning the grounds into a prison.
“At this time there is no funding in the budget,” Fistrovich said.
News
Knightstown ‘Children’s Home’ to close
- News
-
-
RCCF Education Fund Grants awarded
The Rush County Education Fund Grants Committee recently met to review grant applications for the 2012 grant cycle and to make their recommendations to the Rush County Community Foundation's Board of Directors.
-
Commissioners hear of feasibility study
The Rush County Commissioners met earlier this week and heard a report regarding a feasibility study currently underway regarding the city possibly running an ambulance service out of the Rushville Fire Department.
-
Pool open
Waggener Community Pool will be open from noon to 6 p.m. Saturday and 1 to 6 p.m. Sunday. The pool will be closed Monday and Tuesday and then open again Wednesday as was originally scheduled. Information: 932-7100.
-
Farmers Market
The Rush County Farmers and Artisans Market kicks off the 2012 season at 9 a.m. Saturday in the 100 block of East Third Street in downtown Rushville!
-
Good Samaritan recognized for heroic efforts
The lives of three complete strangers became intertwined the morning of Oct. 25, 2011.
-
Lion Project showing community pride
If you've been paying attention, you'll have noticed that new concrete lions are showing up all over town.
-
Waggener Pool opening Saturday and Sunday
In an update to this story, the City announced plans today to open Waggener Community Pool earlier than originally planned due to expected high temperatures over Memorial Weekend. Mayor Mike Pavey has asked that the pool be open this coming Saturday and Sunday. Hours will be noon to 6 p.m. Saturday and 1 to 6 p.m. Sunday. The pool will be closed on Monday for Memorial Day and Tuesday, and open again Wednesday, May 30, as was originally scheduled.
-
Why do young white women risk cancer to be tan?
A CDC report out this month found that nearly one in three white women aged 18 to 25 had used a tanning booth in the previous year. White women aged 18 to 21 went the most often, averaging 27.6 sessions per year—that’s over two sessions per month—while nearly 70 percent said they had gone at least 10 times in the last year.
-
Collision lands driver in Indy trauma center
A Milroy woman sustained serious injuries in a single vehicle accident on SR 244 west of Milroy that was reported shortly after 1 p.m. Monday.
-
Todd resigns
Bill Todd (center) is pictured during a recent meeting of the Rush County Commissioners at which he formally announced that he had turned in his resignation as the Rush County Area Plan Director. Todd has served in the capacity of APC director since 1998.
- More News Headlines
-
RCCF Education Fund Grants awarded
Jimmy Carter Endorses Egypt's Election Results
Biden Addresses West Point Graduating Class
Dozens of Children Killed in New Syria Attack
Raw Video: Activists Allege Massacre in Syria
NJ Man Charged With Murder in Death of Patz
Support, Fun for Kids of Fallen Soldiers at Camp
Fugitive Penguin Caught, Returned to Aquarium
50 Years Later, Underground Fire Still Burning
Light Show Transforms Sydney Opera House
Raw Video: Unruly Passenger Restrained in Miami
Raw Video: Robber Uses Drive-thru Window
Raw Video: Dragon Arrives at Space Station
Calif.'s Coronado Named Nation's Best Beach
CEO Salaries Become Sore Issue in Labor Disputes
Raw Video: Fight Erupts in Ukrainian Parliament
Texan Ranchers Remain Wary of Drought
Raw Video: Soldiers Plant Flags at Arlington
Police: Man Arrested in Etan Patz Disappearance
NYC Protests: the Revolution Will Be Scripted
Chicago U.S. Attorney Fitzgerald Resigns
