{"id":511,"featured":0,"modified":"2026-04-17 19:48:36","latitude":38.281936000000001740772859193384647369384765625,"longitude":-85.7215379999999953497535898350179195404052734375,"title":"Better Tidings","subtitle":"","fullsize":"https://discoverindianahistory.org/files/fullsize/b619c52cb154ae43f07df155f71933b7.jpg","address":"299 E Park Pl, Jeffersonville, IN, 47130","all_locations":[],"zoom":13,"creator":["Jeffersonville Township Public Library"],"description":"The lives of local orphans were never all tragic. Happy memories and great achievements marked some of their lives, often because of the intervention of their extended families or the kindness of people in the community.<br />\r\n<br />\r\nFrom the beginnings of the orphanage, the generosity of Clark County’s ordinary citizens meant that parties, holiday festivities, and treats made up a regular part of orphanage life. In the private Holt Orphanage, set up for the orphans of Masons around the state of Indiana, children’s lives seemed to approximate the lives of their peers. Masonic orphans belonged to clubs and organizations. In addition, children placed in the local orphanages often married and raised families. Several local orphan’s grandchildren recall that their grandparents were loving, accomplished people who had fond memories of the people who showed them kindness as children.<br />\r\n<br />\r\nIn the twentieth century, increased government services and recognition of the needs of children improved the lot of orphans. Whether placed in an orphans’ home or with a family, by the end of the Depression Era, Clark County orphans could expect to attend school and defer work until they reached adulthood. <br />\r\n<br />\r\nA number of local orphans were adopted. Prior to the mid-twentieth century, child adoption was frequently a path to securing child laborers that might be pushed out on their own when they reached adulthood. However, the newspaper sometimes noted that couples sought to adopt children “as their own.” In addition, grandparents and other relatives played a large role in the upbringing of orphaned children, and often provided refuge for widowed daughters and their offspring. Then as now, familial care arrangements seem to have worked well for many families. In the early twentieth century, the law and public opinion increasingly viewed adopted children as part of the family, rather than small adults responsible for working off the cost of their upkeep. Children placed with people who intended to treat them as part of the family seem to have had better outcomes, with some obtaining the longevity, love and respect that eluded orphans like Belle and Frankie Moore.","sponsor":null,"accessinfo":"","lede":"","website":"","related_resources":[],"factoids":[],"files":{"https://discoverindianahistory.org/files/fullsize/b619c52cb154ae43f07df155f71933b7.jpg":{"id":2404,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Masonic Orphans","description":"On this site stood the Holt Masonic Orphanage. Beginning around 1920, the minor children of deceased Masons in Indiana could seek refuge in the facility, where they were raised with most of the privileges enjoyed by middle class children, thanks to a generous endowment from the estate of Mason James Holt. As early mortality became increasingly uncommon, the orphanage fell into disuse. Masons sold the building in 2006 to fund scholarships. | Jeffersonville Township Public Library | 2020","thumbnail":"https://discoverindianahistory.org/files/square_thumbnails/b619c52cb154ae43f07df155f71933b7.jpg"},"https://discoverindianahistory.org/files/fullsize/6c3915471a30892e6a2000bccd3c4aa7.jpg":{"id":2405,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Smiling School Child","description":"Sent to the Holt Orphanage sometime before 1939 with her brother Curtis, Frances Polley,  remained in the institution until she was 20, and attended school. In this photo from the 1936 Jeffersonville High School Yearbook, 16 year old Frances sits in the front row, to the far left, smiling. The Polley children appear to have come from Evansville, Indiana, based on Frances’ marriage certificate and birth certificate.  | Jeffersonville Township Public Library Yearbook Collection | 1936","thumbnail":"https://discoverindianahistory.org/files/square_thumbnails/6c3915471a30892e6a2000bccd3c4aa7.jpg"},"https://discoverindianahistory.org/files/fullsize/ca4e83c3c9fd18ca84f32bb5cfd50fd0.jpg":{"id":2398,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Celebration","description":"The city of Jeffersonville considered the construction of a city orphanage such an important advancement in city services that the mayor requested businesses to close for the ceremonial laying of the cornerstone. Victorian-era cities generally took great pride in the work they did to overcome social ills like untended children. | 1879 | The Daily Evening News","thumbnail":"https://discoverindianahistory.org/files/square_thumbnails/ca4e83c3c9fd18ca84f32bb5cfd50fd0.jpg"},"https://discoverindianahistory.org/files/fullsize/e9247b5b061f4e7684da9dc6172c5cd7.jpg":{"id":2399,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Christmas Party","description":"Reports on the Orphans’ Home’s holiday festivities composed a regular part of local Christmas Eve coverage for years. The daily routines of the orphanage are lost to time, but we know that the wards of the orphanage could expect a good Christmas dinner with presents and a tree, as this article demonstrates. | The Evening News | 1907","thumbnail":"https://discoverindianahistory.org/files/square_thumbnails/e9247b5b061f4e7684da9dc6172c5cd7.jpg"},"https://discoverindianahistory.org/files/fullsize/eec4db29f5eb718c91b9f8323cfdd8d6.jpg":{"id":2400,"mime-type":"image/jpeg","title":"Benjamin Franklin Taylor","description":"According to <em>Indiana Authors and their Books</em>, 1958, Benjamin Taylor’s happy childhood was cut short when his mother died and his father was forced to place him in the Jeffersonville Orphans Home at age 2. Two brothers, Obediah and William, went to the orphanage with Ben. William died after a year in the orphanage, in 1882. Despite his early tragedies, Taylor united with his father and went on to become a teacher, a minister for the Churches of Christ, and an editor of Christian Leader. He lived more than a century, dying in California in 1987. | Courtesy of the Taylor family","thumbnail":"https://discoverindianahistory.org/files/square_thumbnails/eec4db29f5eb718c91b9f8323cfdd8d6.jpg"}}}