Plans have been completed for the construction of a new plant upon the J.W. Sluder farm at Swanannoa of a $65,000 structure that shall be the future home of the Mountain Orphanage, popularly known for years as the Balfour Orphanage by reason if its present location at the station of that name two miles North of Hendersonville.
Bids for the new building, which will be modern in every way and semi-fireproof, will be called for at once and it is contemplated that construction work upon the orphanage will be under way in 30 days if suitable bids are received.
With the completion of this new building upon the 135 acre tract purchased by the orphanage recently, it will be possible to enlarge the enrollment of the home from present enrollment of 1 to approximately 65. It is the hope of the officials that the move from the old home at Balfour into the new building just opposite the State Test Farm at Swannanoa may be made by January 1, 1923.
Brick will be used in the construction of the plant, which will consist of basement and two upper stories, with two wings projecting diagonally from a horizontal central structure, these wings serving as dormitories to segregate boys and girls.
The basement in addition to heating plant, will contain ample storage space, laundry, and room for industrial activities of other types. The upper stories are to contain living rooms, school rooms, offices and some industrial rooms, together with kitchen and dining rooms. The dormitory space will be found in the two wings. The roof will be of fireproof composition.
Smith and Carrier, of this city, are the architects.
Later plans outlined by Rev. R.P. Smith, D.D., who has charge of the work and who was the founder of the orphanage in 1904, contemplate a model home of waterwashed river rock for the superintendent. Other industrial buildings are to be added as funds permit.
Removal from Balfour to the new location was considered wise when it was found that additional space was urgently needed in the home as well as additional land, the Balfour tract containing but 48 acres. The sale of the present orphanage site was made to the Home Ice and Coal Company of Hendersonville, who also own the Balfour Quarry adjacent to the tract.
The service of C.D. Beadles, landscape architecture of the Biltmore Estate, are to be secured in the arrangement of the new orphanage building at Swannanoa. It is hoped that the present farm building, which is a six-room cottage, will not interfere with the placing of the new structure, in which event the cottage will serve as the Superintendent’s home for the time being.
Having in mind the original purpose of the orphanage to provide a real home rather than become an institution, the directors have decided not to provide accommodations for a greater number than 65, so that individual attention may be given the children.
Non-Denominational Home for Mountain Children
The orphanage is non-denominational and provides a home for mountain children who, it may be said in a very literal sense, have no other possible home to which they may be sent.
The applicants must be first, of sound body and mind, and secondly not eligible for entrance into the denominational homes maintained in the State by various Church organizations; or eligible for acceptance in Fraternal Homes in North Carolina.
The only term that exactly applies, perhaps, is one which has long been used in the work, designating the children as “left-overs.” Convinced that such children, if given an industrial education, can become self-supporting citizens, the home has been conducted upon lines tending to supply just that type of Christian industrial training.
When the boys reach an advanced age, they are sent to the Maxwell Farm School in Macon County, where their industrial training is continued upon broader lines, and the girls in like manner, are now sent to Montreat Normal. At one time they went from the orphanage to the Morrison Industrial School.
Increased facilities and additional land at Swannanoa will enable the orphanage, says the Rev. Dr. Smith, go give far better training along industrial lines. The proximity to the State Test Farm was considered particularly of advantage when the purchase of the new site was made, for the home farm will e able to operate along improved lines actually worked out under their very eyes upon the lands adjoining.
For the girls there will be, in addition to the household arts, course work along commercial lines with bookkeeping and typewriting for those who show aptitude.
Founded by a group of conscientious citizens who saw the problem of the “left-overs” in the Lad of the Sky, the Mountain Orphanage traces back to 1904 when a small house was fitted up at Crabtree, in Haywood County, where six children were first taken care of who had been refused admittance to existing orphanages. Needy applicants soon had to be turned away.
Seeing the conditions and realizing their responsibility in such a cause, the Home Mission committee of the Asheville Presbytery entered upon the work three years after its inception, taking this as one of its Missionary enterprises. The Rev. Dr. Smith is Superintendent of Home Missions in the Asheville Presbytery. In his supervision of the new Mountain Orphanage building, he is able to bring into play the knowledge gained by many years’ experience in the construction of schools, missions, Churches and orphanages within the Presbytery. The orphanage at Balfour was built four years after the cottage at Crabtree was started. Much aid comes from without the Churches of the Presbytery and mainly through the instrumentality of the little publication called “Our Mountain Work,” published in this City by the Home Mission Superintendent. Help has been received from points even as far distant as California.
Too few really secure a glimpse behind the scenes to become filled with the consciousness that results achieved by the early training of these “left-over” boys and girls far exceed the investment.
One instance—one of upward of 300 that have been handled since the orphanage started in 1904—is typical in illustrating the good that results. An orphan boy was able, upon the completion of training at the home, to secure a college education in the North by working his way. Following honorable discharge from the Army in which he served with the A.E.F. and the Army of Occupation, the young man moved into the wheat district of Alberta. Recently he wrote his elderly friend that he had just completed fencing in his 150 acres of wheat land which he had managed to purchase with money he had earned as an expert mechanician.
From the front page of The Asheville Citizens, Sunday, July 16, 1922. The illustration, Our Mountain Home, is from 1910, so it is not an image of the new orphanage.
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