Historic Houston Orphanages And Care Homes

[J W]

In the late 50s , I remember a large orphanage on the way to Galveston . I was eight or nine and my Cub Scout group would go there sometime to bring gifts to the kids etc. . Of course I remember it as a big , gloomy place . Where exactly was this building? Old Galveston rd. or Gulf Freeway ? When did it stop being an orphanage ?

[FilioScotia]

In the late 50s , I remember a large orphanage on the way to Galveston . I was eight or nine and my Cub Scout group would go there sometime to bring gifts to the kids etc. . Of course I remember it as a big , gloomy place . Where exactly was this building? Old Galveston rd. or Gulf Freeway ? When did it stop being an orphanage ?

I've lived here a long time but I don't remember an orphanage on Old Galveston Rd or the Gulf Freeway, but I do remember two other possible answers to your query. There was the Harris County Home for Boys on old FM 528 -- now NASA Parkway -- on Clear Lake near the Jim West Mansion. It was a big and gloomy looking old building that looked like something out of a Charles Dickens novel. It was torn down in the sixties and replaced by a modern juvenile detention center that looked like a school with dormitories. I don't think the county owns it anymore.

Another possibility is the old Moody Hall Orphanage on Avenue Q in Galveston. It was the first building occupied by Galveston College when it opened in the late 60s. The building is still there on the college campus, and it's still called Moody Hall. Here's something I cut and pasted off the Galveston College website.

http://www.gc.edu/gc/GC_History.asp?SnID=61237

"For the opening of the College in September 1967, through the spring of 1970, the College occupied Moody Hall, a refurbished orphanage, as its only campus facility. The initial academic offerings were fairly broad in scope, while the occupational program was minimal but with strong offerings in vocational nursing, office occupations, engineering/drafting and law enforcement."

[WestUNative]

With high hopes the Board Nazi's don't come gunning for me, I am responding not to topic, but what Filio added above. With a big thank you, you have finally filled in my jigsaw puzzle.

In 1947-48, I attended a GSA camp, Camp Tejas, just off Clear Lake on Taylor Lake I believe. We walked just south of the cabins and explored a eerie mansion with swimming pool decorated with wonderful colorful tiles. Memory had slipped on the name of the Estate and Filio just hit it right on the head. I give you the Jim West Mansion:

The really cool thing is the surviving family took off leaving sheets on beds, utensils in kitchen, drapes up, etc. To us little girls it was ghostly, peeking through the windows it seems all the people had just disappeared into thin air mysteriously.

Possibly last chance to view it, Haakim bought it and it may soon be high rise condos.

[FilioScotia]

With high hopes the Board Nazi's don't come gunning for me, I am responding not to topic, but what Filio added above. With a big thank you, you have finally filled in my jigsaw puzzle. In 1947-48, I attended a GSA camp, Camp Tejas, just off Clear Lake on Taylor Lake I believe. We walked just south of the cabins and explored a eerie mansion with swimming pool decorated with wonderful colorful tiles. Memory had slipped on the name of the Estate and Filio just hit it right on the head. I give you the Jim West Mansion:

Thanks WestU. I do what I can, and I live to serve others.

[dbigtex56]

In 1947-48, I attended a GSA camp, Camp Tejas, just off Clear Lake on Taylor Lake I believe.

I'll also risk the wrath of the thread Nazis...

Did this GSA camp have a large old house (mansion) constructed of concrete? I recall a controversy a few years ago about the GSA's decision to raze it, to the dismay of preservationists. Or was that structure located elsewhere?

[WestUNative]

Not in my day. It was the usual woodsy camp set up with wooden cabins with vast areas of screening instead of windows sprinkled about and a large one story lodge type hall, also log cabin type for meals, activities, etc. Then the only other building I remember was the communal bathroom with shower facilities. One night I had to venture out to the bathroom and mostly asleep didn't put on shoes, but woke up quite suddenly when I stepped on a snake along the way.

This was very long ago, while the Scouts had it they may have built a building such as you describe down the line. In the late 1960's, while boating on Clear Lake, I spotted some of the old cabins at water's edge still standing, but obviously abandoned.

[sak]

I'll also risk the wrath of the thread Nazis...

Did this GSA camp have a large old house (mansion) constructed of concrete? I recall a controversy a few years ago about the GSA's decision to raze it, to the dismay of preservationists. Or was that structure located elsewhere?

That is Camp Casa Mare on Galveston Bay in Seabrook. The mansion, called the "Big House" by the Girl Scouts, was built around 1912 and demolished in the early 90's. Otherwise it is still an active Girl Scout Camp. The old mansion had an interesting and varied history and at least one ghost associated with it.

[FilioScotia]

And by the way..........we ARE in the next century.....why haven't WE, (As The People) given this type of hopeful place a more respectable name? ~global

What's wrong with "orphanage"? I've never regarded the words "orphan" and "orphanage" as derogatory terms, and until the age of Political Correctness, nobody else did either.

"Orphan" is not a slang term or a slur. It's a perfectly respectable word that comes from Greek, and it means "someone who has lost one or both parents through death.

"Orphan" is not a slang term or a slur and it's not pejorative. You seem to think it's disrespectful to call parentless children orphans, and a group home that cares for them as an "orphanage". Why?

Now, if just have to weed out the derogatory old words, why don't you go after the word "daughter". It comes from an old English Saxon term for the female member of the family responsible for milking the cows. Clearly it's a word for a subservient family member.

Edited November 6, 2006 by FilioScotia

[roym]

What's wrong with "orphanage"? I've never regarded the words "orphan" and "orphanage" as derogatory terms, and until the age of Political Correctness, nobody else did either.

"Orphan" is not a slang term or a slur. It's a perfectly respectable word that comes from Greek, and it means "someone who has lost one or both parents through death.

"Orphan" is not a slang term or a slur and it's not pejorative. You seem to think it's disrespectful to call parentless children orphans, and a group home that cares for them as an "orphanage". Why?

Now, if just have to weed out the derogatory old words, why don't you go after the word "daughter". It comes from an old English Saxon term for the female member of the family responsible for milking the cows. Clearly it's a word for a subservient family member.

Well 'orphanage' may not be a derogatory word, but to live in a place called by a word that means, "a place for a bunch of kids who's parents have died", isn't very hopeful at all...

Now, concerning the word 'daughter', I wonder if that was what Pearl Jam was writing about? I never did understand that song...

[FilioScotia]

Well 'orphanage' may not be a derogatory word, but to live in a place called by a word that means, "a place for a bunch of kids who's parents have died", isn't very hopeful at all...

Is it any worse than "nursing home"? Or Mental Hospital? How would you like to live in a place called by words that mean you can't take care of yourself anymore? Come on people. Get a grip.

[roym]

Is it any worse than "nursing home"? Or Mental Hospital? How would you like to live in a place called by words that mean you can't take care of yourself anymore? Come on people. Get a grip.

Nursing home? I know, I know, terrible!! Mental Hospital? Who would want to live in a place that means you are sick in the head? Oh, the shame! Who made up those terms? Those are just awful and downright mean.

You're absolutely right. I wouldn't want to live at either of those places. Do you live in one of those?

[enviromain]

Is it any worse than "nursing home"? Or Mental Hospital?

The other term for orphanage is orphan asylum. You just don't get it, do you Filio?

My orphaned friends did not like the name of their housing units; coming from the source, I think that's a "given."

ROYM is right to say that orphanage symbolizes "a place for a bunch of kids who's parents have died" - or - have been abandoned.

Why do OUR living units get nice names ????

[FilioScotia]

Nursing home? I know, I know, terrible!! Mental Hospital? Who would want to live in a place that means you are sick in the head? Oh, the shame! Who made up those terms? Those are just awful and downright mean.

You're absolutely right. I wouldn't want to live at either of those places. Do you live in one of those?

LOLLL....With four children, there are times when I think I'm living in a nuthouse, and find myself wishing I could live in a nursing home. I'm ready for the home now.

[Gilder]

How about O-Villa, O-Partments, or O-Joy? Some other possible names are Planet-O, O-Diddley, O-Factor, O-Henry, O-Men, and O-Kay!

Edited November 8, 2006 by Gilder

[J W]

I remember an orphanage on the Gulf Freeway also. It was called "Dyer Home" and was on the east side of the freeway near the Old Choate Rd. overpass, now Scarsdale (I think). It went away in the mid 60's. It was

pretty stark looking architecturally, nothing like Bayland on Chimney Rock or the Harris County Boys Home

on NASA Rd. 1.

Thanks plumber 2 . I had accepted Filio's earlier theory that what I had remembered was actually the HC Home for Boys in Clear Lake . But , even though I was just a kid , my memory was of one on the Gulf Freeway . We lived in the Edgebrook / Freeway Manor area . So the Scarsdale location would be about right .

[Michelle C]

I was stationed at Ellington in the late sixties and at that time the building for the Dyer Home for Children was still there along with the sign, but the orphanage was closed.

 

[Kindall]

My mother grew up in Galveston and was  put in the orphanage from the time she was 13, until she graduated Ball High at 18. (1956/57 until 1960/61) I would love to get more information regarding this orphanage during that time or talk to someone that was there the same time she was. My mother’s experience was not bad, but her younger sister, not so great. They separated my mom and my aunt on different floors due to their age. (My mother was 13 and my aunt only 9 years old) Should have never been done. My aunt should have been allowed to stay with my mom, but I suppose they didn’t want the older girls with the younger...not sure. Would love to speak to someone that knows a lot about the orphanage during that time..

[Twinsanity02]

1 hour ago, Kindall said:

My mother grew up in Galveston and was  put in the orphanage from the time she was 13, until she graduated Ball High at 18. (1956/57 until 1960/61) I would love to get more information regarding this orphanage during that time or talk to someone that was there the same time she was. My mother’s experience was not bad, but her younger sister, not so great. They separated my mom and my aunt on different floors due to their age. (My mother was 13 and my aunt only 9 years old) Should have never been done. My aunt should have been allowed to stay with my mom, but I suppose they didn’t want the older girls with the younger...not sure. Would love to speak to someone that knows a lot about the orphanage during that time..

All my children were in orphanages in Siberia. Our twin daughters were in a pre-WW I building. It was nasty and has been replaced with a new one. Our son from a newer orphange. I don't know what life is like for Americans after they leave the orphanage, but it isn't too bright in Russia. It's a tough country to grow up in. Their GDP is smaller than Texas.

[Rae91]

Was anyone in any home in 1970 that remembers new baby’s been brought in maybe leaving around the age of two?