Home for unwed mothers Kansas City, MO 1954

August 31, 2020

HelloSheila,

Since I was in Crit in 62-63, I will have to speak for that time period from my own experience. I have talked to so many girls in Crittentons all across the country and the experiences are strikingly similar. Staff said the same things in nearly all places, 'give up your baby & get on with your life; go on and forget; you will have more children', also ' you don't have to tell anyone you ever had a baby' and 'no nice boy will want to marry you if you tell about the baby'.

Some homes were a bit more restrictive than KC, for instance, Charleston (SC), I believe, was one who took girls out in groups, almost like a tour bus thing. That seems really dumb, if annonymity was an issue. And in the 60's, we were told that keeping our stay and baby a secret was very important. So going out in groups just seems stupid to me. I mean, where would a bunch of young, pregnant girls come from anyway?

KC was not a big Home - less than 25 girls capacity, I'm certain,but by early 63 they were converting an old lounge to more rooms. When you first came, they always put a girl in the Big Dorm which had 10 or 12 beds lined up in 2 rows on each side of long narrow room. I had about 2 feet between my bed and the girl on either side of me. Our clothing was kept in built in wooden closets not much larger than school lockers. I suppose they put us newcomers all together as a way to keep us from being so alone. Didn't work for me. I'll never forget after my mother left - that was the only time they allowed any girl's family past the front lobby - how I just sat on my bed feeling so abandoned and alone and wanting to cry. But I didn't, just sucked it up and dealt with it. That is how I have gotten through life ever since. Of course, the other girls were friendly enough but I knew I was going to be there for a long time (6 months) and it felt like entering prison.

After a girl got adjusted to being there, and as others delivered and left, we were moved to a 2 or 3 person room. You didn't get to choose roommates, they were assigned. My first roommate was a 17 year old Oklahoma City girl whom I really liked. When she had her baby in mid October, I ended up with a 20 year old bleached blonde who wore a black 'wig hat' (didn't really look like hair to me, but she wore it) when she went out so she wouldn't be recognized. She was nice but we saw little of each other.

My first job was laundry, mostly washing sheets and towels from all the beds. It wasn't bad but I wanted to work the nursery with the babies and I got that job by October and took care of lots of babies in 3 or 4 months. By the new year, I was tired of babies and asked to be put on kitchen duty which was helping make meals.

We had a routine that varied little. Weigh in once a week on Wednesday for which I learned (from my mother) to starve myself for a day or so before weigh in and then went to eat somewhere outside the Home. My mother told me that I couldn't come back home if I gained too much weight!! Exams were also on Wednesday in a room in the lower level. You put a robe on and waited on a metal folding chair until you were called. We went once a month up until the last month, then it was every week. I believe there were vitamins available on tables but I never took them. Meals were not particularly interesting because the director always sat at some table and I hated it if I happened to be at that table she chose. She loved the limelight and talked alot. I just wasn't interested in what she had to say.

There was a regular once a week craft type of class put on by some women's group. I guess we were their charity work. I never went because I had no interest in being a Crittenton poster girl. At Christmas that group made green flannel bags with red ties that had stuff in it, makeup, that sort of thing. My mother would not let me keep the bag because she didn't want me to keep anything connected with the Crittenton Home after I left. I did take one thing, however, which I still have: a hymnbook that we used at chapel. I played piano for singing and I wanted that book. I hid it from my mother.

Speaking of Christmas, on Christmas Eve after we had our little celebration at the Crittenton lounge, my mother came to get me about 9 or 10 pm and took me to the house to let me have my Christmas presents there. The younger children were already asleep although I remember my brother getting up to go to the bathroom and seeing me in the living room. My mother took pictures of me in my carefully arranged robe in front of the tree. She said that if I looked pregnant in the pictures, they would be destroyed. I have those pictures and, no I don't look pregnant. It was very important to me that I keep those pictures.

The 2 day nurses were nice. Not long after I got there, one of them did a program on childbirth for us girls. It certainly set my mind at ease about giving birth and I eventually breezed through in record time. The nurses took care of babies, us in labor and delivery and were busy. We were pretty much on our own around there. There was no live in staff, just 3 or 4 office staff during the day, nurses and a cook who stayed for breakfast and lunch. The kitchen worker girls got dinner for everyone on their own.

There was NO COUNSELING at all in KC. A month or 2 before delivery we did have one session with one of the 2 social workers to give our 'history'. I was never told anything about the potential family being considered for my son and I was afraid to ask questions. I didn't think I had the right to ask. We were told constantly by the director in chapel 'sermons' that they babies were 'going to doctors and lawyers' and would have wonderful lives. We were not supposed to use the front door of the Home when coming or leaving because that was the door that prospective adoptive parents came through. The idea was that to protect our identities, adoptive parents were not supposed to see us. I distinctly remember standing on my roommates bed one day watching out a window as a couple left the building on their way to court with one of our babies from the nursery.

We had some sort of organization set up with president, vice president, etc. I ended up being vice president for a time and my main duty was to make sure all exterior doors were locked at 6 pm. (Seems strange now to think that doors weren't locked all the time, but they weren't.) The 3-11 nurse remarked to me one day that I might be late locking up, but I never forgot. That pleased me. We also had 'inspection' of our rooms weekly. Hardly a big deal but we had to keep the rooms clean. There had a been a janitor, an older black man named David. For whatever reason, he got dumped and some of the girls circulated a petition to the director asking to have him back. The director was most displeased with that little display of civil disobedience. Instead we got a much younger guy, John. He didn't last long either when early one morning he and some friends were caught carrying our only tv out of the building.

A couple of older girls who came to Crit ended up working out of the building as nannies for some families with children. I imagine it was girls who were paying their own expenses and in this way, they could actually earn a bit of money. They were brought to the Home for their monthly exams and then delivery. One girl who came to Crit was only there for a short time. She was 'slow', they told us, but she was worse than that. When someone saw her smelling her underwear and complained, she disappeared. The age range was about 14 -22, with one woman who was married was 26. Supposedly, the baby was not her husband's and he made her stay at the Home. He came every weekend to get her and take her out overnight. I remember hearing that he was abusive to her.

I have done alot of research on Crittenton over the last 20 years. The director had told us the story of little Florence Crittenton who died of (I think) scarlet fever in the 1880's and how her father then founded the Florence Night Mission in NYC. Crittenton offered salvation through religion to the early client. Crittenton horrifies and fascinates me. I am also an adoptee (Salvation Army, Des Moines, Iowa, 1946) so I believe my experiences have affected me more intensely than other girls.

I have described my time at Crittenton as 'isolation', 'parallel universe', 'time warp', 'as if in a coma'. Not everyone feels as I do, but I have a sense of unreality about the whole experience. Talking about it in detail after all these years seems to be somewhat theraputic for me.

Lynn