Jackson County (Mo.) Historical Society

Portals to the Past

by David W. Jackson

County provided care with ‘parental homes’

PART 1

As our economy appears to swiftly devolve and tougher times draw nearer, remember that Jackson Countians—in both good times and in bad—have a proud tradition of generosity towards their less fortunate neighbors.

The July 11, 2007, “Portals to the Past” column, County Has History of Caring for the Poor, overviewed the geriatric services of the Truman Medical Center and its predecessor, the “Jackson County Home” for the aged and infirm that originated as the “Poor Farm” in 1852. You might think of the “County Home” as an early-day nursing home, although the conditions at the “County Home” were generally far less than adequate or even desirable with regard to the standards of healthcare that is expected and delivered today.

Additional research has begun to shed light on five other institutions founded after the turn of the 20^th Century by Jackson County government to care for orphaned and delinquent youths and indigent elders.

In the days of their establishment, wards of these new institutions were segregated by age, gender and race. Long since integrated, the important services of these different County-operated institutions continue today, and some of the historic structures remain in use.

This first of a three part series discusses the “Jackson County Home for Aged and Infirm Negroes.” Readers with data and/or images are encouraged to contact the author so a more thorough history of these institutions may be assembled and preserved for future generations.

In December 1914, the Jackson County Court (akin to today’s County Legislature) authorized the leasing of the building at 1405-1407 Vine Street in Kansas City to be used as the “County Home for Negroes.” Up to that time—since 1852—indigent County wards of both genders and all races had been cared for—albeit in separate quarters—at the aforementioned “Jackson County Home.” I have not yet discovered the root or genesis of this deliberate step in 1914 to segregate the populations of the “Jackson County Home.” Perhaps it was as a result of a Missouri statute that mandated changes.

The Jackson County Court began in February 1918 to draw plans for the construction of a $50,000 home for aged and infirm African-Americans. The facility was to be situated along present-day Lee’s Summit Road, directly east of the “County Home,” on 155 acres of property Jackson County had acquired in 1881.

By September 1919, the new facility’s cornerstone was dedicated by “the negro Masons of Kansas City.” The keynote was presented by Nelson C. Crews, editor of The Sun, an African-American newspaper. Members of the Jackson County Court, representatives of 13 black fraternal organizations to Kansas City, and prominent black citizens from Independence, Liberty, Pleasant Hill and Parkville, participated in laying the corner stone. W. W. Fields of Cameron, Mo., grand master of the “negro Masonic Lodge,” was in charge of the cornerstone. Addresses were made by members of the County Court, R. T. Cole; J. R. E. Lee, Principal of Lincoln High School; J. E. Perry; W. H. Harrison, Principal of Attucks School, formerly of the Young School in Independence; and, J. J. Mattjoy.

On November 8, 1919, “the negro department of the Jackson County Hospital, at 1405 Vine Street six years, was moved today to the new building just completed on the county farm near Little Blue. To put this in context, the Great War would come to an end two days later.

The following year when U.S. Census enumerators traveled door-to-door to gather statistical information about Jackson Countians, the “Jackson County Home for Aged and Infirm Negroes” included four black employees and 38 black “inmates.”

The 1930 U.S. Census enumerated six black employees and 147 black “inmates.” As a result of the civil rights movement of the 1960s, residents eventually were integrated into the population at the Jackson County Hospital (today Truman Medical Center) on the west side of Lee’s Summit Road. The historic building of the “Home for Aged and Infirm Negroes” still stands today, and is the current home of “Hilltop,” another Jackson County institution discussed in the next installment.

PART 2

This is the second of a three-part column reviewing Jackson Countians long-standing pledge to care for its less fortunate. In the early 1920s, Jackson County government continued its quest to gain better control over and care for dependent and delinquent youths in a series of “parental homes.”

Hilltop School for Girls

The “Jackson County Girls’ Home” was established in 1912 as a county institution and temporary located under a lease in the H. L. McElroy farmhouse one mile north of Mount Washington on a bluff above the Missouri River. Two years later the Federation of Women’s Clubs of Kansas City selected a new site on 84 acres at the north end of Noland Road in Independence, which the County Court purchased from Kansas City resident Mrs. Marie E. Craven, for a little over $19,000. The Jackson County Girls’ Home moved into a new $50,000 two-story frame (plus attic and basement) dormitory. By 1952, “Hilltop School for Girls" at 2100 North Noland Road appeared in the Independence city directory.

The Regional Police Academy (later Regional Center for Criminal Justice) moved to this site in April 1970, and remained until January 1980 when it relocated to Penn Valley Community College. The original Hilltop site in June 1982 became the home of Sisters of Saint Francis of the Holy Eucharist, who remain there today.

Hilltop School for Girls appears to have moved south in 1970 to the former “Jackson County Home for Aged and Infirm Negroes,” (the subject of the last installment of this article) where it re-organized by 1971 as the DeLaSalle Hilltop School (or DeLaSalle Education Center) at the Hilltop Residential Center.

Jackson County Parental Homes for Negro Girls and Boys

In 1909, County Court (akin to today’s County Legislature) Judge Porterfield advanced a measure to provide for “a home for incorrigible Negro girls.” He maintained that “the absence of such an institution hampers me fearfully in the juvenile court. There is nothing in the world I can do with them—no place to send them. I can’t send them to jail under 16 years of age and consequently I have to turn them loose to continue, as they usually do, criminal lives….” I could not find that any action was taken on this measure.

According to an Abstract of Title in the Jackson County Historical Society’s collections, “Colored citizens of Kansas City interested in the welfare of our youth,” approached the County Court in December 1926 to purchase a site for a parental home for “colored girls.” The committee consisted of: J. W. Holbert and James A. Lee, and John L. Love, President, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People; Frank C. Niles, founder of Niles Orphan Home for Colored Children; H. R. Farnum, President, and Myrtle Foster Cook, Secretary, Colored Children’s Improvement Association; O. J. Hill, President, Nat Spencer, Treasurer, Federation of Colored Charities; Ida M. B[ales?]; Mrs. R. P. Jackson, Chairman, Young Women’s Christian Association; Edward R. Toss, Secretary, and R. P. Jackson, Young Men’s Christian Association; Mrs. W. H. Harrison, Secretary, and Mrs. Maggie Clay, Women’s Inter-racial Council; and, H. D. Cook and W. H. Harrison, Council of Negro Teachers.

By 1934 the “Jackson County Home for Negro Girls” was constructed near the “Jackson County Home for Aged and Infirm Negroes,” and the “Jackson County Home for Negro Boys,” which had been discussed since 1916, erected by 1922, but not furnished for occupancy until opening in June 1925. One Kansas City Star article boasted that the “Negro Boys Home,” “has industrial equipment that is on a par with that of any state institution. Earl W. Beck, superintendent of the home, puts the boys through a course of training that embodies the academic, industrial and military. An R.O.T.C. drill is among the items on the daily program.” Though long integrated, the services rendered at both of these early institutions continue at the Hilltop Residential Center, located near the intersection of Lee’s Summit Road and Gregory Boulevard. The older structures are set back on the parcel, and are accessed less than ¼ mile east.

PART 3

This is the third and final in a series of articles exploring the long-standing tradition that Jackson Countians may proudly claim in uplifting their less fortunate neighbors.

The most well known institution that evolved into the Truman Medical Center was discussed last year in a separate column (See the July 11, 2007, “Portals to the Past” column, County Has History of Caring for the Poor.). Four other “parental homes” have been overviewed in recent weeks. The sixth and final County institution of this kind, McCune Home for Boys, served as a detention home for boys—white boys— in the care of the juvenile court. As seen previously, the Jackson County Court (forerunner to today’s Jackson County Legislature), segregated these populations into separate facilities by race, gender, and age in the era before civil rights brought integration.

In September 1905, representatives of the owners of the Vaile Mansion in Independence offered for sale the vacant property to the Jackson County Court as a County home of detention for boys. The mansion, built in 1881 by local entrepreneur and U.S. mail contractor Harvey Merrick Vaile (1831-1894), was eventually overlooked in favor of a more rural, pastoral site.

Judge McCune, who had charge of the juvenile court in Kansas City, first proposed in 1906 a farm site for boys, “where they can be taught calculable lessons in practical work with a manual training department.” By February 1908, the Jackson County Court had purchased a 100-acre tract east of Independence where it was intended by the Court “to have the boys reared on the farm just as they would be were they sons of fairly well-to-do farmers; have good schooling, proper religious instruction and constant attention to their habits, so that when they grow to be men they will make excellent self-supporting, honorable citizens.”

A copper box was placed in the cornerstone at McCune Home containing a varied assortment of articles including historical data concerning the development of the McCune Farm and the juvenile court compiled by Judge E. E. Porterfield and ex-Judge H. L. McCune of the juvenile court, copies of the daily papers and the annual report of the juvenile court. Also included were the locks of hair clipped from the heads of the 33 boys at the home, a roster of their names, a list of the visitors present, a Bible, a copper cent, and the names of the judges of the County Court and of the officers of the Home.

The Cleveland Home in Cleveland, Ohio, served as the original model for McCune Home. The Bellefontaine Farm in St. Louis was also recommended as a modern institution worth modeling after. “The spirit and purpose of the Home,” according to McCune Home superintendent J. M. Taylor in 1914, “is to save boys, to make useful men out of those who are neglected.”

By 1921, there were a reported 135 boys at McCune Home. Additional buildings were eventually constructed at the site at 2101 N Twyman Road in Independence. Today there are 72 students from grades 7-12 under the tutelage of 10 teachers.

No matter how you calculate it, Jackson County citizens have a strong, long-standing tradition of providing for those in need. In these increasingly questionable economic times, this is a reminder that there have always been…and always will be…neighbors in need. You or I may be the next.

Official, historical records of these institutions are not known to have survived. Readers with data and/or images about this lost chapter in local history are encouraged to contact the author, so a more thorough history of these institutions may be assembled and preserved for future generations.

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