At the turn of the 20th century, Halloween had mostly shed its 2,000-year-old Celtic roots in favor of community parades and dress-up parties with candy for the kiddos.
The affinity for adults participating in the hallowed eve has risen and fallen in culture over the past 100 years, but kids have always loved its notions and traditions. Because pumpkins are so repugnant — their flavor only passable doused with butter and sugar, or cream and sugar, in anodyne pies or vile torches of whipped-topping-covered $6 lattes — one of the only sensible things to do with them is let kids hollow them out and carve fun figures and faces in the husks.
For some kids, the fun comes with a greater sense of belonging. On Oct. 26, 1972, at the Miami Children’s Home in Maumee, The Blade’s Herral Long captured one of our favorite pumpkin-carving moments.
Three unnamed boys, each with the ingenuity of a naval engineer and the gleam of an apple orchard, were carving a battalion of jack-o’-lanterns.
For nearly a century, thousands of children — sometimes hundreds at a time — saw the 98-acre orphanage as a welcome change from their previous lives. In the photo here, it certainly seems our three jack-o-’lanternists were enjoying their afternoon.
But The Blade reported that after a governmental shift to remove children from institutional care and into private care in the late '70s and early '80s, the home closed in 1986.
It had first opened in 1867 as the Protestant Orphan's Home, and moved to its more recognized location in 1887. It later came under the control of Lucas County Children's Services. The Blade wrote that the facility operated with two goals, “to place orphans in permanent homes and to be as self-sufficient from the county as possible by producing its own food and clothing.” Residents of the well-kept estate were responsible for all groundskeeping and housecleaning.
The home was demolished July 14, 2004. There is an Ohio historical marker at Maumee's Fort Miami Elementary School that commemorates the children’s home. The school is actually built on the site of the former orphanage's gymnasium, while the Riverside Commons development crowns the rest.
Go to thebladevault.com/memories to purchase more historical photos taken by our award-winning staff of photographers, past and present, or to purchase combinations of stories and photos.
First Published October 21, 2019, 10:00 a.m.
