Capturing History: St. Joseph’s Orphanage

This past May, I was fortunate enough to be able witness Dayton’s local history being captured first hand. I was at the Glen at St. Joseph’s a local non-profit organization that gives single mothers a place to stay and helps them get back on their feet to find a career. The Glen is located where the original St. Joseph’s Orphanage once was. The orphanage had its beginnings in 1840 when the Saint Joseph Aid Society was formed to help the poor of Dayton. In 1872 the society built the first orphanage building and it continued to grow until the 1950s. In 1981 the orphanage changed controllers and became the St. Joseph Children’s Treatment Center which helped all children not just orphans. It helped children in the Dayton community until 2004. After the closing of the Treatment Center a non-profit organization, called the Glen at Saint Joseph’s, purchased the property and tore down the buildings to replace them with an expansive campus.

            Today the Saint Joseph’s Orphanage lives on through an orphanage luncheon held every year. This luncheon invites all the orphans that lived at St. Joseph’s to come back and share their stories. Additionally, the Glen records the luncheons to preserve the stories that are being told. Here, I was lucky enough to be able to join the luncheon and hear all the wonderful stories that some of the people shared. Some stories were about what activities that they had fun doing or the sisters who worked there. One story about a sister really stuck out to me.

 It was about the fire escape on the side of the building. The fire escape was almost like a slide and was attached to one side of the building. Kids would occasionally climb up or down the escape. The escape was attached to the girls’ side of the building and they were sleeping in rooms near the escape. The boys thought it would be funny to climb up the slide and knock on the door to scare the girls. The boys did this several times until one time, a boy knocked on the door and it opened revealing a nun holding bucket of water which she threw on him.

St. Joseph’s is also special to me because my grandmother lived there for a few years when she was young and she once told me a story about losing her Easter basket on the very same fire escape.  By being at the luncheon it was really neat to be able to hear stories in which I knew she could relate. Stories like these truly indicate the local history that needs to be preserved. The Glen’s outreach to the community shows their dedication to preserving the past. 

MS-270, St. Joseph Orphan Society/ Children's Treatment Center Records, Special Collections and Archives, Wright State University Libraries