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| My Home Away From Home As It Looks Today |
Monroe Harding was founded in 1893 as a home for orphans and continues today to provide vital services through a variety of programs to youth of all ages. Mrs. Fannie E. Harding opened her home in memory of her late husband Dr. James Monroe Harding to orphaned Presbyterian children. She began accepting children of all ages and religions just one year later. Monroe Harding moved to Glendale Lane in 1934 to serve children of all ages until the 1970's when it became primarily a residential facility for at-risk teens. Since its establishment, it has expanded to include children, youth and their families through residential care as well as off-campus programs in the community. It has always been the goal of Monroe Harding to help at-risk children and youth realize their full potential by providing them opportunities to learn key life lessons. Monroe Harding believes that all young people have the ability to succeed. The programs are geared toward introducing, teaching and modeling behaviors and skills that allow youth to be independent and successful. Monroe Harding seeks to create change and truly make a difference in lives of at-risk children and youth . . .
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The summer of 1965 I was at risk and someone thought that going to Monroe Harding was a good ideal. I am not too sure what I was at risk of but I know that I did need help. By this time in my life I could not go to school and learn I was too tied up with the heart ache of alcoholic parents and no one to help me to learn. I was going to learn, not just the A B C’s but how to live day to day life. I would fight every day at school and come home at night and referee my mom and dad. So off to Monroe Harding I went. My parents took me there and while they were being introduced to the staff, they took me to where there were kids swimming at the pool on the grounds. I was in my regular outfit, cowboy boots and blue jeans and a cowboy belt with a big huge buckle for some reason I left my cowboy hat at home. As soon as the grown ups left the kids persisted in picking me up and throwing me into the pool clothes, boots and that was my first taste of Monroe. I was thirteen and a hand full. I learned really quickly that it was a dog eats dog place where you had to mark your ground and make a stand or you would be on the bottom of every fight. I never thought that I was gonna have to fight my way to the top here. I found out real fast that I was not all that . . .
The grounds had a gym and a tennis court and I have already told you about the pool. I thought that wow this might not be too bad. There were two dorms, girl's and boy's. YES Boy's. They lived down about a block from the main house where the office's and the girl's lived. We all were separated by ages. Younger kids were in a unit and older kids were in what was called big unit. I was placed in the little girl’s unit. There were five rooms with two beds in each room. My first roommate was Betty Harding (no kin to Monroe Harding). She was athletic and enjoyed sports so that was a good pick for a roommate. My first house parent was Mrs. Shea, and she was a small soft spoke, Japanese lady. We put her through hell most of the time. She left shortly after I came. The next house parent was a drill sergeant like my second grade teacher. The exception was she liked kids and treated us as good as we would let her. Her name was Mrs. Bitty. But If you got out of line and pushed her, she would give you a whipping but not too hard. That is what it took for us. We were good kids we were just full of mischief . . .
There were two girl's in my unit that had sisters and brothers there too. My roommate Betty had a sister in the big girl's, unit and her name was Linda. Then there was Diana Eubank had a sister and some brothers there. There were Gayle and Johnny and I think the older brother was Bobby. He left shortly after I got there so I don't remember if that is his name. There were three Hill's there, Donna, Sharon, they were sisters and Debbie, was the cousin, Sharon and Debbie were in the big girls unit. I will never forget Gayle, she beat the crap out of me about a week or two after I got there. There was a rule that little girls do not go to the big girl's unit for good reason. I decided that the rule didn't pertain to me. I trotted my little self up to the unit and was looking for Carolyn Picket and I walk up to the lounge area where the TV was and she was not there so I propped my but down and was gonna wait for her. Gayle said to me,"what are you doing up here?" I spouted off to her said non-ya, I should have not done that because the race was on now. She jumped up and I took off down the long hall way and all the (there was a hall way with four rooms on one side and five on the other side) doors were half cracked and everybody was watching her chase me. She grabbed me by the back of the head by my hair and jerked me down and persisted in beating the crap out of me. I was not use to getting the crap beat out of me. I was the one doing the beating at Hartsville. Now the shoe was on the other foot. Someone finally broke it up and by that time I had learned my lesson.
NO LITTLE GIRLS, IN TH BIG GIRLS UNIT!
Now the employee's of Monroe, Mr. Raney was the administer when I got there. He was a very quite guy and had nothing to do with the kids. There was Mr. Farrell, and he was the director. We called him Teddy Bear. He was a great guy and we all felt loved by him. He would play ball and other sports with us. When Mr. Farrell and Mr. Raney left, Mr Salsberry took the administers job. He was a big round man and looked just like Santa Claus. He had white hair but no beard. He liked kids and would kid around with us. I do not remember if anyone took Mr. Farrells place when he left . . .
The summer of 1965 I was at risk and someone thought that going to Monroe Harding was a good ideal. I am not too sure what I was at risk of but I know that I did need help. By this time in my life I could not go to school and learn I was too tied up with the heart ache of alcoholic parents and no one to help me to learn. I was going to learn, not just the A B C’s but how to live day to day life. I would fight every day at school and come home at night and referee my mom and dad. So off to Monroe Harding I went. My parents took me there and while they were being introduced to the staff, they took me to where there were kids swimming at the pool on the grounds. I was in my regular outfit, cowboy boots and blue jeans and a cowboy belt with a big huge buckle for some reason I left my cowboy hat at home. As soon as the grown ups left the kids persisted in picking me up and throwing me into the pool clothes, boots and that was my first taste of Monroe. I was thirteen and a hand full. I learned really quickly that it was a dog eats dog place where you had to mark your ground and make a stand or you would be on the bottom of every fight. I never thought that I was gonna have to fight my way to the top here. I found out real fast that I was not all that . . .
The grounds had a gym and a tennis court and I have already told you about the pool. I thought that wow this might not be too bad. There were two dorms, girl's and boy's. YES Boy's. They lived down about a block from the main house where the office's and the girl's lived. We all were separated by ages. Younger kids were in a unit and older kids were in what was called big unit. I was placed in the little girl’s unit. There were five rooms with two beds in each room. My first roommate was Betty Harding (no kin to Monroe Harding). She was athletic and enjoyed sports so that was a good pick for a roommate. My first house parent was Mrs. Shea, and she was a small soft spoke, Japanese lady. We put her through hell most of the time. She left shortly after I came. The next house parent was a drill sergeant like my second grade teacher. The exception was she liked kids and treated us as good as we would let her. Her name was Mrs. Bitty. But If you got out of line and pushed her, she would give you a whipping but not too hard. That is what it took for us. We were good kids we were just full of mischief . . .
There were two girl's in my unit that had sisters and brothers there too. My roommate Betty had a sister in the big girl's, unit and her name was Linda. Then there was Diana Eubank had a sister and some brothers there. There were Gayle and Johnny and I think the older brother was Bobby. He left shortly after I got there so I don't remember if that is his name. There were three Hill's there, Donna, Sharon, they were sisters and Debbie, was the cousin, Sharon and Debbie were in the big girls unit. I will never forget Gayle, she beat the crap out of me about a week or two after I got there. There was a rule that little girls do not go to the big girl's unit for good reason. I decided that the rule didn't pertain to me. I trotted my little self up to the unit and was looking for Carolyn Picket and I walk up to the lounge area where the TV was and she was not there so I propped my but down and was gonna wait for her. Gayle said to me,"what are you doing up here?" I spouted off to her said non-ya, I should have not done that because the race was on now. She jumped up and I took off down the long hall way and all the (there was a hall way with four rooms on one side and five on the other side) doors were half cracked and everybody was watching her chase me. She grabbed me by the back of the head by my hair and jerked me down and persisted in beating the crap out of me. I was not use to getting the crap beat out of me. I was the one doing the beating at Hartsville. Now the shoe was on the other foot. Someone finally broke it up and by that time I had learned my lesson.
NO LITTLE GIRLS, IN TH BIG GIRLS UNIT!
Now the employee's of Monroe, Mr. Raney was the administer when I got there. He was a very quite guy and had nothing to do with the kids. There was Mr. Farrell, and he was the director. We called him Teddy Bear. He was a great guy and we all felt loved by him. He would play ball and other sports with us. When Mr. Farrell and Mr. Raney left, Mr Salsberry took the administers job. He was a big round man and looked just like Santa Claus. He had white hair but no beard. He liked kids and would kid around with us. I do not remember if anyone took Mr. Farrells place when he left . . .
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| Homework Time At Monroe I am Not In This Photo |
There were two sets of house parents, the week and then the week end crews. There were two young couples that were the week end parents. Mr. and Mrs. John Nelson were assigned to my little girl’s unit. We called him J.C and his wife was Mrs. Birdie. There was the Ferrells, no kin to Mr. Farrell, they were the little boy’s unit house parents on week ends. Both couples were in college and had a small apartment on campus. That was a good way for them to avoid the cost of an apartment. Mrs. Birdie doubled as a study hall tutor in the evenings. They were both fun couples and played a lot with us. J.C. was a basket ball player and we played all the time with him. He also had diabetes and when he would play basket ball he would sweat and sometimes he would get wired and we knew that he needed sugar so we would always take candy to give him. One time we had to call an ambulance for him he was in a diabetes shock. He would play with the smaller kids and pretend he was a sea monster and he would chase them around the room on his hands and knees and catch then and he would fall down and roll around the floor and well he was great with kids . . .
There were rules that we were expected to go by. The rules were not too hard but you know me, I did not like rules. The number one rule was no boy at the girl’s unit and no girls at the boy’s unit. My first planed breaking of the rules, was myself and Betty and Dianne and Debby Hill were gonna sneak to the boy’s unit after everyone else had gone to bed. My room had a window that opened up to a roof of a small storage unit. We climbed out my window and slid down the drain gutter and we ran down the pathway and we got there all right and on the way back was cool too. But we had a hard time climbing back up the drain gutter. We did not ever do anything wrong, we just like getting away with it getting down there and not getting caught. One night there was a new girl who was rooming with me Janice Farmer, and she was the youngest person to ever be at Monroe. She was only about ten or so and she woke up and said she would scream if we did not let her go with us and so we did and that night we got caught. There was never a hard punishment, maybe extra work or no allowance. . .
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| My Window & The Drain We Climbed Photo Date A Rainy Day In 2011 |
There were offices on the side of the kitchen that had all the social worker's offices. We were all assigned a counselor and were expected to see them once a week. There was a man named Mr. Sullivan, he was a short small man and had a bur hair cut. He always wore a suit and I was his problem child. As I told you in one of the earlier chapters, I liked to climb trees. There were lots of trees at Monroe. There was one that if I climbed to the very top at night, I could see about twenty-five miles to the L&C tower in downtown Nashville. I did not trust many adults by this time, and I really did not trust social workers. I felt that was the reason I was at Monroe, because some social worker had the opinion that I would do better if I was taken away from my parents. Every time I had an appointment with him I would go climb that tree and hide from him. He found out that I was in the tree and he got a chair and came out and sit at the base of the tree and he would talk to me. It finally worked and down I came, I though if this guy is so loyal to me that he comes outside to talk to me he must be O.K. Now as I look back on it, they were right. Too bad I did not take the help when it was offered. I went many years before I found out that if I had chosen to I could have stayed there and gone to college, but no I was smarter than the educated people who do this sort of thing for a living and gone to school to learn how to help a person like me . . .
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| Sweet! Sweet! What A Treat! |
There were three high schools and two middle schools. Hillsboro High, Howard High, Central High and Waverly Belmont and Burton was the middle school. We all rode in a van from Monroe to the schools so there were no bus problems. I was sent to Waverly Belmount and I had to do the seventh grade again. To my disbelief there were blacks going to school with whites in Nashville. I was so surprised of that. Lula May and I had always wanted to go to school with each other. These kids were different, they had nice clothes and were not like Lula May. I got along well with a couple of girls that were black. Sandra Davis was one she became a good friend and I think of her often. If I every had my back against the wall she’d come and help. Three or four other girls from Monroe went to Waverly. Betty Harding and a girl named Polly and Carolyn Picket. We had a blast every day at school. I had friends for the first time since I left Jamestown. We all were friends and the kids from Monroe stuck up for each other. There were kids who called us the children’s home kids, but that did not bother me it was a nice thing compared to what I had been called before in my other schools. I tried out for basketball and got on the team. I was a guard and Betty was a forward. I also tried out for track and was chosen to do the broad jump and I did very well at that. That helped me get friends at the new school. We had a study hall each day and we were expected to be there every day. That was a big change for me for I had no help with my school work at home. I hated school but when I moved there it was no too bad. I had flunked the seventh grade so they keep me in the seventh grade at this school. I am glad cause all my kids from the school were in the seventh grade too so that helped me a lot . . .
Now to the boys, remember I had become interested in boys back at Hartsville and had a hard time because I was such a tomboy. I had friends and a fresh start to here it was OK. They showed me the ropes of how to be more-lady like. They showed me how to set my hair and put makeup on and then they taught me about clothes and how to match things and well just all the girl stuff no ( which I hated ) one had ever taken the time to teach me on how to be a girl. I still had a tomboy attitude and never ever got over that till this day I am more tomboy than a lady like. The craze of 1965 was, empire waist dresses. I liked them. We had nice clothes and we shared clothes quit a bit. The other craze was bleeding color’s shirts. They were a plaid type material and were almost always blues and white and when you washed they would bleed into the white and that was cool. The loop in the back of oxford shirts were also in. When your boyfriend wore a shirt with a loop on it, you were to pull it off and make chains we had a lot of shirts torn doing that . . .
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| I had A Couple of Blouses Not Dresses Made From Madras Cloth The Bleeding Material |
My second summer was great. We swam every day and we would go to Hillsboro Rd.to the shopping mall there. One time Linda Harding and Carolyn Picket decided that they were gonna steal a couple of swim suits. The dummies both got the same bright yellow suit. Of course the people who were their house parents knew that they didn't get the suits from the unit so they got caught. They were made to go to the store that they stole them from and tell the store manager that they stole them. The Monroe house parents paid for them and their allowances were to pay the house parents back. Wow they didn't even get to ware the suits even after they paid the price of the suit. They were high dollar suits too . . .
I had gotten comfortable with the home so I started slacking off some. There were boys to think about. That was the summer of 1966. That metro parks started something called the S.P.Y. dances at the local park and they would bring in local high school kids that had bands to play the music and we loved that. I didn't really dance very well, and I am glad all you had to do to dance was to stand in one place and do side to side moves and shimmy around. The Jerk the Monkey the Twist, you know what I mean. There was a boy in our class named Randy that had Muscular Dystrophy so bad he had crutches to hold him up and he had really slurred speech and he would drool. He would come and he always ask me to dance with him and I did. Lots of kids made fun of me but that was OK with me. He was a nice guy and loved the music and he had the courage to get on the floor to dance so I figured that I could go out there I was use to people making fun of me so it didn't matter if they made fun . . .
Next chapter is about growing up a little while I was at Monroe and all the hood winks that we got into . . .