The Ohio Soldiers' and Sailors' Home (Sandusky). support and protection of the institution, and as he often expressed it, not to make a military camp, but a home for his unfortunate comrades. His high character and intelligent zeal insured success from the first. "With him charity and kindness went hand in hand with judgment and discipline. He was ever ready to hear the most humble petition, and while keeping up a high moral standard for the Home he loved and encouraged the weak and unfortunate. "His resourseful mind gave to the Home steady improvement, and his spotless life protected it from scandal. His zeal and devotion were unbounded, and it was a merciful Providence that permitted him to live to see the full fruition of his hopes, and to be comforted by the assurance of the national inspector that the Home of which he was Commandant had found first place among the homes of the land. "We shall miss him at our Board meetings, and wait in vain for him in our councils, but we shall cherish his memory with love and gratitude. "To Mrs. Force and her son we extend our profound sympathy and assure them that wherever they may go they will bear with them the best wishes of every member of this Board." At the meeting of the Board on May 17, Capt. A. M. Anderson was appointed Commandant, and C. A. Reeser, of Springfield, was appointed Adjutant. The first of January, 1899, found the new hospital completed, which gives the Home the most complete structure of its kind of any institution in the country. Seven trained lady nurses were employed to look after and care for the sick and suffering old men. Two years' experience has shown that these ladies have added wonderfully to the comfort and The Ohio Soldiers' and Sailors' Home (Sandusky). The Home started in on the new century with an overcrowded house. Number present, January 15, 1,391; on the rolls, 1,621; average number present for the year ending November 15, 1900, 1,216; cost per capita for current expense, clothing, officers' salaries and trustees' expenses, $151.15; of which the general government pays $100.00, leaving a cost to the state of only $51.15 per annum to comfortably house, clothe, feed and give medical attention to these old soldiers. Since the Home was opened in November, 1888, forty-eight hundred and eighty-five (4885) men have been admitted and cared for. The Home is largely indebted to the Grand Army of the Republic and the Womans' Relief Corps for generous donations of books, magazines and papers for the library, and hospital supplies of jellies, fruits, cushions and other articles. The entire cost of building and permanent improvements amount to $657,863.72. THE OHIO SOLDIERS' AND SAILORS' ORPHANS' HOME. I' N the summer of 1869 the attention of the survivors of the civil war was called to the large number of fatherless children in Ohio, who were made so by the enormous gift of Ohio men to the Union Army. Every hamlet and township possessed its quota of soldiers' orphans, while in the larger cities the number of children rendered fatherless by the war was so great as to be particularly noticeable to the public spirited men and women who, having served in or in behalf of the Union Army when in the field, found themselves unwilling to rest from their labors until every possible step had been taken to heal the wounds of that notable conflict. The members of the Grand Army of the Republic in Ohio took up the matter of providing a home for these orphans, those ex-soldiers who were already prominent in the affairs of the state, taking the lead in the agitation of the subject which followed. The Hon. Lewis B. Gunkle, of the Soldiers' Home at Dayton, Chaplain G. W. Collier (now retired U. S. A.) of Delaware, General Wm. H. Gibson, of Tiffin, Lieutenant Governor Lee, of Toledo, and Mrs. Governor (afterward Mrs. President) Hayes, being prominently identified with the early days of the Home. In September, 1869, a two-story building in the city of Xenia was rented by the Grand Army officials, and converted by temporary wooden partitions, stairways and halls, into crowded accommodations for possibly 50 children. Funds were raised from public and private sources, by the men who can The Ohio Soldiers' and Sailors' Orphans' Home. vassed the state and addressed churches, Sunday schools, Grand Army meetings and private individuals, and children were admitted as fast as accommodations for them could be provided. The citizens of Xenia and of Greene county were genuinely interested in the movement, and spared no pains to make it a success. A room in the High School Building, of Xenia, was set apart for the children of the Home by the board of education, thus providing immediate school privileges, and the Court House Park was voted to their use by the city and county officers, thus providing a convenient and well kept playground. The citizens presented the Home with 150 acres of ground on which the present institution was afterward located by the state, and the county commissioners of Greene county, during that winter, voted six thousand dollars toward the current expenses of the Home to prevent the children from feeling the reduced condition to which the treasury of the Grand Army had been depleted by the expense of opening and operating an institution of such a character. The loyalty and public spirit of the men and women of Greene county during the war was repeated in their efforts in behalf of the orphans of the war. In the winter of 1870, with about 75 children in the Home, an appeal was made to the General Assembly to adopt the children as wards of the state, and to take over the property of the Home and make it a state institution. A committee from the General Assembly visited the children, who were assembled in the City Hall in Xenia, inspected the temporary quarters in town, and the property belonging to the Home just outside the city limits to the southeast, and returned to Columbus in favor of the proposition. The committee was addressed on behalf of the children by a Master Gilkey, who was then a boy twelve years old, having been admitted to the Home from Trumbull county in January of that year. In April of 1870 the Home passed under the control of the state, and its removal from Xenia to its present location on the old Pelham farm, was accomplished in September, the work of construction having been pushed sufficiently to accommodate the children then in attendance. The doors were thrown open to new pupils as soon as the transfer from the city to the farm was effected, and from September, 1870, to September, 1901, there has never been an hour when there were not more applicants for admission than could possibly be received. It is a matter of course that the requirements for admission should be changed with changing conditions. In 1870 no children were entitled to admission but those whose fathers were killed in action, or had since died from the wounds or the disabilities of war. The lapse of time soon rendered this class of children ineligible from age-limit, and the doors were then opened successively to those whose fathers being ex-soldiers |