A Fifty Year Reunion

Note: this story mentions the abuse that occurred in a State institution called Junior Village and could be upsetting to some readers.

Years ago our family fostered a brother and sister team in Junior Village. Junior Village was intended to be a good place where disenfranchised children could be housed until their parents could get their act together, or a relative would step up, or some family would take them in.

Between 1958 and 1973, thousands of children crossed through its threshold to end up being assigned to a “cottage” and consigned to lives no child should have to experience, not even for a few days, let alone, a few years or nearly a lifetime.

Jackie Kennedy and Martin Luther King once visited the facility, heralding it as a model of decency in the care of at-risk children. Despite positive media coverage (and, perhaps, politically motivated observances), truths came trickling out about the place. This is going to be very difficult reading, and it’s very long. So please bear with me on this because the ending will surprise you.

Beginning in 1965 activists with a concern for the children began working towards either the cleaning up or total closure- if need be of the facility. Two area ministers began collecting statements and visiting the facility regularly to garner the information necessary to make positive changes.

Former residents reported incidents in media accounts years later. One of those who once lived in JV was Nick Robinson who was admitted there at 9, back in 1965. On one occasion he saw a crowd of boys gathered around the dormitory bathroom watching as an older boy forced a younger one to perform a sex act.

“It was horrifying,” Robinson said. He is now an English professor and has become successful, despite his rough childhood.

“I started sleeping with a pair of scissors under my pillow and did everything I could to avoid being sexually abused”.

Others, including former workers, reported that children who were considered to be disobedient- on any level- were given large doses of Thorazine to keep them in line. Sometimes so-called counselors would drug a child and then sexually assault them as well.

Once counselors spent years documenting such abuse and shared their information with one of the Ministers and subsequently were a major contributor to the Washington Post’s four-part expose in 1971.

I was a teenager at the time two little rascals came into our lives. Charles and Claire (nicknamed Chipper and Chickie), were among the few white children at Junior Village. No, that’s not a racist comment, it was a fact. The problem wasn’t race. The problem involved the conditions of the place, the overcrowding, the lack of sanitation, and course, the abuse.

A few days before we took them in, my Dad drove Mom and me to see what Junior Village was like. I had seen it before but never realized who it was that was housed in its expansive collection of dormitories. The thought that two little kids were being warehoused in that place never occurred to me. I remember that I had to wait in the car. I was a minor and not allowed inside.

My folks were gone for around a half hour. Mom came out crying, wiping her face with one of her many lovely hankies. Dad had his arm around her in a fashion uncharacteristic of them. He was visibly distraught as well and they were both strangely quiet when they got into the car.

“We have to get them out,” Mom said. “It’s going to cost us money but we can do it,” Dad replied.

A few days later Mom and Dad walked through the door with the two little waifs. “This is your big sister,” Dad introduced us. “Everyone calls her Bugs”. They looked up at me. I looked down at them.

“This is Chickie,” my Dad said, patting her tousled hair. “And this is Chipper”, he said, patting his shoulder. They both just stood there, staring at me. I remember crouching down to their size saying hi and holding out my hand. They both pulled instinctively away at first. Then the little girl leaned forward and sniffed at me.

“You smell good,” Chipper said.

“It’s Chantilly,” I said, I didn’t even know if they knew what it was but somehow I sensed that they needed an explanation of some kind.

I think back on those times and realize that our home was probably a strange place to them. After all, how many families owned a monkey? At first, it was difficult for them to adjust. We had to teach them that it was okay to get into the fridge and that they didn’t have to hide food for later. We had to show them that their clothing would, indeed, come back to them, clean, fresh, and all their own. And they had to learn that the toys they had were theirs, one hundred percent.

Mostly they had to learn that nobody was going to hit them, beat them, or molest them and that it was perfectly okay for them to be held, loved, and treated gently.

They had good times. As a big sister, I wanted that for them just as my big sister wanted it for me. We would sit out on the front porch and I would play my flute or sing to them. And Chip even let me draw his picture. I tried to draw Chickies' portrait. It turned out so-so because she didn’t want to sit still for very long.

To be honest I cannot recall how long they were with us. Several months, maybe eight, as I recall. But the day that the social worker came to get them was my first experience with feeling “empty arms”. I had gotten used to reading to them and telling them stories and holding each on my lap as I did so. I had gotten used to having little snorers in my bedroom, sharing my space.

I had gotten used to having some little ones to cook for and walk to the dime store with, holding hands, and introducing to friends as my “little brother and sister”. We were a team, the three of us. And when the day came for the team to be broken up, it felt as though my heart had been torn away.

Life tends to go on whether we feel like it or not and it did go on for all of us, too. But I could never shake the two little kids who came into my life for such a brief time. I thought I had heard the social worker say they were being given back to their mother, a thought that had me scared for them because of her sordid life, including drug abuse.

That was back in 1969. Some fifty years have passed since that day and I never stopped trying to find them. Unfortunately, I didn’t have much to go on until the internet came out. Junior Village was finally closed down in 1973, but even with that, I wasn’t able to get anyone to tell me anything.

Sitting in the booth at the Olive Garden I couldn’t stop tapping my foot nervously. As Chickie entered the room with her best friend, I couldn’t help but get up from the booth and give her a big hug. I didn’t want to let go. I just wanted to keep hugging her, as if making up for the many years when I couldn’t.

Through prior phone conversations, I learned from Claire about her life and how she fought through her struggles and came out on top of it. I also learned, sadly, that her older brother Charles, aka Chipper, didn’t quite make it. The horrors of his early life hung over him like a dark cloud and, as much as she wanted to take care of him, she had to stop doing so for the sake of her own family. Charles passed away in 2023 and Claire, of course, took it hard.

In their childhood days, he was her protector, as well as a little guy could be one. He even packed bread in his pocket to hold on to for later just in case they weren’t able to get into the food line at Junior Village in time. A behavior he brought with him to our home and which he learned, I hope, that he didn’t have to keep doing.

Claire told me that her grandmother was where they were taken after leaving our home but that she always remembered us.

“There were holes in my memory,” she told me. “I wanted those gaps filled in.”

I can only hope that I filled the gaps in enough for her to know that both she and her brother were greatly loved by us, even if only for a short time.

I never thought that our family had much impact on Claire and Charles. These two sweeties were with us for only a short time. And truth be told, I felt as if I gained much more than I gave. It was nice to have someone reliant on me for help and hugs. And even though there were times when I missed having privacy, I wouldn’t have exchanged all the privacy in the world for being their big sister.

I guess that in the end, we both benefitted. One thing I do know is that the small “sacrifice” I made as a teenager came back a millionfold when I saw Chickie, all grown up, a Mom herself, and a happy, healthy lady.

As we hugged and waved goodbye that day, I waited to see Chickie and her friend drive off. I finally got in my car, satisfied in knowing that I had some part of making a better life for a little girl who only wanted to be loved.

“Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God”(Hebrews 13: 16)