Blundon Orphanage

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THE BLUNDON HOME

The Advocate

March 2, 1969

By Mildred Feldman

The Blundon Home's founder was Mrs. Ada Polluck Blundon and was started in 1889 when a student of Mrs. Blundon's, Helen Taylor, urged them to come to Baton Rouge to establish a home for "impoverished colored children." At the time Mrs. Blundon was teaching at Gilbert Academy, then located in Baldwin, La. Miss Taylor wrote to the mayor of Baton Rouge, her minister and her father about the Blundon's establishing such a home. All apparently agreed, and the Bludon's met each of the three individuals and established permanent quarters here.

An early history of the home says the the school was first in the basement of the Wesleyan Methodist Church where children were taught during the day and adults were taught at night. When the enrollment outgrew the available space, a building on North Boulevard was used. Since tuition money was not available, tuition was paid, when paid at all, by sweet potatoes, cornmeal, flour and chickens.

Later, the Blundons obtained two lots on South Boulevard where a small building was erected for a home and office. Blundon used the later as a printing office which was an important source of revenue for operating the North Boulevard school known as the Live Oak School. Northern money in 1893 financed another building on the South Boulevard property. More buildings were erected with the help of Northern friends who also contributed many barrels of used clothing and other supplies.

The buildings became school rooms and dormitories. A five room school on South Boulevard had 200 students in the early 1900's An industrial section of the school and the boys living quarters were on Louisa (now called Louise Street.

In the days of yore, the contributors were mainly upstate New Yorkers who have because of periodic financial solicitation drives by the early leaders of the Blundon Home The first director and founder was Mrs. Ada Pollock-Blundon. Previous director's were Mrs. Gertrude Snell Brown and Miss Eunice Knowles who came from Germantown, N. Y. Miss Marion Wells, the present and fourth director of the home, is from a village near Albany, New York.

Tin dishes were used for eating purposes and all clothes were washed by hand on corrugated scrub boards as late as the early 1940's. Stoves stoked only with wood were the only stoves the home had. Water was heated this way, cooking was done on them and the irons for pressing clothes were heated on the wood-burning stoves.

Those connected with Blundon Home not only had to be truly dedicated to doing the Lord's work be serving these children, but they also needed a great deal of physical stamina! Much of the food was grown on the homes acreage, some was donated and some "scrounged." Nowadays the home gets federal surplus commodities and prepares better-balanced meals.

Blundon Home established its first non-residential school for Negro children in January 1920, in a Baptist Church at Colonial Hill. There was an enrollment of 376 pupils who came on foot, horseback and in wagons. This was really more than could be accommodated by the church building.

The following summer, a school was built there by the Blundon director. Finally a total of nine schools was established. There was an enrollment of 1,115 pupils in Alsen, Arlington and other Negro areas. Most of the schools were one-teach schools. Tuition was 25 cents weekly for those who could pay but very, very few could pay even that.