Hello, History Habitués! Did you know that at one time, people actually didn’t like their children? Oh, I don’t mean the thirteen noisy pyromaniacs ranging in age from 2 to 17 living next to you who burned your wisteria arbor down. I mean people who didn’t like their own children! Can you imagine?? (Well I can, but that’s another story for another time!)
Back right after World War I, when the influenza epidemic had killed off millions of people including their children, youngsters were viewed more often as unpaid help, additional employees, and even appliances, farm tools, or kitchen utensils. If one broke (or died) you could always make or purchase another. Half of Shirley Temple’s and Jackie Coogan’s early films were about just such adventures (but with much happier endings… and usually a tap-dance number or two with a grumpy British man or a kindly “negro”.) A child at that time was considered a blessing, not at birth of course, but only as an investment in the future, and other families would shake your hand in the delivery room, on the kitchen floor, or behind the barn… (wherever!) and say things like “Well, Clem, he should grow up to pull a fine plow in 8 years….even without that foot!”… or “She’s okay looking if you ignore that dent in her forehead, but what does a pretty face have to with filling artillery shells?... especially with those perfect little fingers!”… You get the idea.
Of course, there was the alternative too. Later on, parents might not be particularly fond of their children after a few years. Perhaps the jobs their toddlers had learned were replaced by machines or by children in other countries. Or perhaps that missing leg or the loss of a couple of those dainty fingers proved to be a setback on the farm… or in the war department, and so, there came that sad day when it was time for a call to the Heckscher Haven For Waifs, Wastrels, Wantons, and Waiting-To-Be-Adopteds! Yes! That’s it in the photograph in the background there… a sturdy and pious building (except for those frivolous awnings!... well, the Warden’s wife DID want to try her hand at decorating). The building and its grounds were formerly known as the South Shore Asylum for the Inconveniently Useless, but liberals and so-called intellectuals from Eastern universities felt that bronze plaques like that only encouraged drooling, temper tantrums, yowling at the moon, and chewing with one’s mouth open. And THAT was not going to be tolerated! Eventually, all the adult inmates either were taken away to “friendly farms” or “aged out of the system”, and the juvenile wing became the model for the rest of the facility. The crayons, finger paints, construction paper, and round-tipped scissors were tossed in favor of drill presses, pedal-driven sewing machines, tiny convection ovens, pressure cookers, and giant turbines with surging pistons, toothed gears, whirling blades, and signs printed in block letters saying things like “BE CAREFUL!... OR DON’T CRY!” and “DON’T THINK THAT POKED OUT EYE GETS YOU MORE OATMEAL!”. Children seemed to understand and follow the directions (well, most of the time!). And getting a child to sleep was never a problem at Heckscher… not after a sixteen-hour day! The staff prided itself on the smooth running of the place, and even their pick-up service was a model for the industry.
On that special day when a child was to be “relocated”, the staff arranged for the ever-cheerful Kare-Free Kiddie Kar to come for them, driven by “Reverend” Jim-Bob Wrightsmann, accompanied by two specially selected “residents”, usually Edith Flank, one of the senior girls who served as mentors and advisers to the newcomers, and little Jeanine Comerhum who acted as a playmate for the newly acquired child but was actually a 44 year old midget from the Esterhozy Circus when it went bankrupt. There they are in the photo with friendly Mr. Jim-Bob. Not pictured in the photo due to a weekend-long headache is Koo-Koo the Kar Klown who was hired to distract possibly screaming and begging children if Edith and Jeanine weren’t able to restrain them. His poodle-balloons were always very effective, especially when filled with nitrous-oxide. And sometimes if they popped en route to the Heckscher Haven everyone on board would have a very merry time… provided there wasn’t a fiery bus crash along the Timber Point Road… but that’s a story for another time!
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