The story of the orphanage was relegated to a mention on page eight of the Morning Advocate's Aug. 12, 1926, edition, downpage from a fiery story about gangster outfits battling it out in Chicago.
"Protestant Orphans Will Get New Home," the Baton Rouge headline announced. "Plans are now being made by the board of the Protestant Orphans Home for the erection of a new home on the site of the North Street orphanage property in the near future."
A new home for orphaned girls was news in the capitol city, but not the kind that warranted front page headlines. A year later, next to the silent movie listings for the downtown Columbia, Louisiana and People's theaters, the newspaper announced the building's completion on page 12 in its Sept. 15, 1927, edition.
This is a copy of an old print that was probably taken about the time the girls in the orphanage moved from the old home on Main Street to the new home on North Street. Beverly Lively's aunts, Alma and Helen, nicknamed Snookie, moved from the orphanage's Main Street location to the house on North Street at this time.
FILE PHOTO
"The new home is of red brick with white pillars in front giving a colonial effect," the article states. "Modern comforts have been provided within the building, which include a hot water heating system, a small infirmary and other equipment."
Total construction cost was $42,000.
Which answers Dee Jeffers' question about the grand red brick building standing atop a hill at 1328 North St.
What's the story?
"I grew up in Branch, Louisiana, so I wasn't familiar with the house's history," she said. "A friend told me it was once an orphanage, but from the street, it just looks like a big house. What's its story?"
The house is actually the conclusion of the orphanage's story, which was said to have been established in 1847 as the Female Orphan Asylum.
One of the bedrooms as it appeared when the two-story, red brick house at 1328 North St. was the Protestant Orphanage. Volunteers from the community redid the room for the oldest girls in the Protestant Orphanage with bright paint and new draperies and spreads in 1963.
FILE PHOTO
But reporter Orene Muse's Nov. 19, 1939, front page feature for the Morning Advocate offered up a comprehensive history that uncovered orphanage records from as early as 1845.
"The 'asylum' was formed here at least 95 years ago," she wrote. "For in the files of the orphanage are musty, old documents, brittle with age and slightly yellow now, which tell of the days of 1845. There is no mention made of the founding of the institution, so it is presumed that its inception must have ante-dated 1845."
Late author Mark T. Carlton, best known as the Louisiana history professor at Ĵý, wrote in his 1981 book, "River Capital, An Illustrated History of Baton Rouge," that the first buildings of the asylum were built before 1854 with contributions from Baton Rouge ladies who supported the home with dues, money and donated items. Yet he provided no definitive location.
A page in Mark T. Carleton's 1981 book, 'River Capital: An Illustrated History of Baton Rouge,' shows a photo of an 1858 music program at First Presbyterian Church benefitting the Female Orphan Asylum, which later was renamed the Protestant Orphanage.
PROVIDED PHOTO
Orphanage's third home
Muse's story points out that the red brick house was the third home for the orphanage, its first being the "Bird Building," which stood on the 500 block of Main Street in downtown Baton Rouge. It was rented out in 1870 to the Louisiana School for the Blind, now known as the Louisiana School for the Visually Impaired, and the orphans moved to a "conveniently located" cottage on Main Street.
Where on Main Street? Again, no definitive address is provided, but what is known is that the orphans were living in this cottage when their North Street home was completed.
According to The Morning Advocate's Sept. 15, 1927, article, once the orphans moved out, the "old home facing Main Street will be offered for sale and will be torn down by the successful bidder."
So began the story of the North Street house. These days, the house is obscured by trees on an otherwise pristine lawn. It stands about a block from U.S. Interstate 110, where North Street flows into Spanish Town, the city's oldest neighborhood.
The Protestant Orphanage at 1328 North St. Baton Rouge as it appeared in 1969, the year it closed.
PROVIDED PHOTO BY EAST BATON ROUGE PARISH LIBRARY/ADVOCATE HISTORICAL ARCHIVES
The concrete steps the girls climbed each day stretch from the street level sidewalk to the entrance's French doors.
Accommodated 25 girls
According to the Genealogy Trails History Group's website, , the house accommodated 25 girls, and the staff consisted of a superintendent, two matrons, a cook and laundress.
"According to journals and letters, the home also provided and paid for weddings, camps extended education to business schools and Ĵý," the genealogy site continues. "Records provide a powerful insight as maintenance of this orphanage and its orphans ... was not your ordinary 'orphanage.' Great lengths were taken to provide a natural home environment for the children, one that was kind and understanding with always the welfare of the child its priority. It is noteworthy that the home was always a private institution, and at one time was paid by the Department of Welfare $60 per month per child to house their children until they were found foster homes. The children were accepted on a case by case basis subject to the approval of the association's board and were expected to live by the rules set up by the association."
The concrete steps climbed by orphans from the sidewalk to the French door entrance of the red brick building that once was the Protestant Orphanage at 1328 North St. in Baton Rouge.
STAFF PHOTO BY ROBIN MILLER
The genealogy site is correct — the Protestant Orphanage was a happy environment for its occupants. Advocate reporter Carol Anne Blitzer found proof of this in Anna Bryant Hingst's memoir, "Memories of a Louisiana Girlhood," in the Lousiana State Archives' permanent collection.
Blitzer included excerpts from Hingst's memoir in her April 24, 2000, feature for Ĵý.
A happy place
Though Hingst lived in the orphanage when it was in the Main Street cottage, her manuscript describes the orphanage as a happy place.
"Born in Lottie in 1901, Hingst and her two sisters were moved to the home on June 12, 1912, after their father, a railroad worker, fell from a railroad bridge and drowned in the Atchafalaya River," Blitzer writes. "There was no assistance at that time from the government for widows and orphans, and the railroad company provided no compensation."
The Protestant Orphanage as it appeared in 2000. This Georgian-style brick building at 1328 North St., Baton Rouge, was at least the third home of the Protestant Female Orphanage, originally the Female Orphan Asylum, and was a fixture from 1927 until it closed in 1969.
FILE PHOTO BY JOHN H. WILLIAMS
Hingst wrote that each of the older girls were given a smaller child to care for, and each of the orphans attended Sunday School in the downtown church of her original denomination, followed by services at one of the four downtown Protestant churches.
Blitzer also shared Hingst's recollection of how she and a group of girls broke into "hard-to-control laughter" when they realized they could see the minister's undershorts through his white linen suit.
"I had to hide on the floor and found it hard to keep from laughing out loud!" Hingst wrote.
By 1969, only two orphans lived in the house, and the orphanage's board couldn't maintain its "home atmosphere" while meeting all of the state and federal governments' rules and regulations.
The orphanage's assets were liquidated with part of the money divided among the Cancer Radiation and Research Foundation, Capital Area United Givers Fund and the Methodist Children's Home in Ruston. The remainder of the funds were placed in a trust with the annual income going to the Baton Rouge Area Foundation.
"In 1970, attorneys Bill Beck and Joe Thompson purchased the home," Blitzer writes. "In 1983, Beck bought out Thompson's interest in the building. Beck had his law office in the matron's suite on the first floor from 1983 until 1996. After renting the remainder of the building to several organizations, Beck decided to convert it to nine apartments."
A side view of the red bick building that once was home to the Protestant Orphanage at 1328 North St. in Baton Rouge.
STAFF PHOTO BY ROBIN MILLER
Today, a "Private Property" sign is posted on one of the entrance's French doors.