The Crittenton Home in 1901, shortly after opening. Courtesy of MOHAI.
-- Eleanor Boba and Nancy Dulaney
In 1899 a group
of women in the Seattle area, inspired by the message of
millionaire-philanthropist Charles Crittenton, formed a Rescue Circle to help
“fallen women” in their community. The establishment quickly evolved from one
meant to rescue prostitutes to a home for pregnant teens and unwed mothers. The
home weathered changing economic times and social norms for nearly three
quarters of a century, all in the same spot at the south end of the Rainier
Valley.
Crittenton
Seattle was an institution run largely by women, for women. And while the focus
was on helping girls and young women “in trouble,” the charity also served as a
training ground for community volunteers, for staff, and for professional women
seeking a toehold in a man’s world.
Rainier Beach, circa 1895. Seattle
Municipal Archives. The building that would become the Crittenton Home can be
seen at extreme left, middle.
Detail of above
A HOME ON THE HILL
The Crittenton
Home had its origin in a visit to Seattle by millionaire-turned-evangelist
Charles N. Crittenton (1833-1909) early in 1899. The wealthy druggist had made
it his purpose in life to help the women of the streets, founding the Florence
Crittenton Mission (named for his daughter who had died at the age of four) in New
York City in 1883. During the 1890s he traveled the country in a special train
car he dubbed “Good News” speaking to gatherings and urging action at the local
level. His fiery rhetoric took hold in a nation rapidly adopting progressive
thinking. Crittenton homes and hospitals were founded all over this country and
in a few foreign ones.
In March 1899
he favored Seattle with a week’s worth of meetings. Fired up by a mission from
God, the women of the newly-created Crittenton Rescue Circle in Seattle were
able to turn their resolution into reality within eight months of Crittenton’s
visit – an astounding feat! Funds were quickly raised from businesses, churches,
and individuals. (The list of contributors published includes $50 from “colored
people.”) Mr. C., himself, donated the largest sum, $1,000, toward the goal of
purchasing and refurbishing a large property in the Rainier Beach neighborhood of
what was then unincorporated King County, one that came complete with a large Italianate
mansion.
The mission
of the Florence Crittenton Home in Seattle, as stated in the 1900 Articles of
Incorporation, was the “founding, maintenance and conducting of a home and
refuge for fallen women and the children thereof.” [i]
The founders also wrote up a constitution in which they pledged to “train and
rehabilitate worthy unwed prospective mothers, and to render to these mothers
such aftercare and assistance as will help keep mother and child together until
such time as they find their proper place in society.” [ii]
Early histories
refer to the large structure as the former home of the “Young Ladies Baptist
Seminary” or the Baptist “University of Seattle.” Whether that institution
actually built or ever occupied the building is a matter of some mystery. Land purchases
are recorded in the name of the start-up school in the area in 1891 and 1892;
however, beginning in 1892, all newspaper references to the college place it in
Kirkland. It is possible that the university board envisioned the home on the
hill as a segregated campus for female students. Instead, the house became home
to an entirely different category of girls.
In 1897 the university
sold the land to one “William Prosser of Renton.”[iii]
This was Colonel William F. Prosser who served in the Union Army during the
Civil War and afterwards made a fortune in timber in the Northwest. Prosser
bought land in a number of locations, including the town that now bears his
name, Prosser in Benton County. For reasons unknown, Prosser held on to the
Rainier Beach property for only two years before selling it to the women of the
Rescue Circle for $4100.
The original
Crittenton Home consisted of two stories and 27 rooms, with basement, attic,
and tower. Spaces were converted into classrooms, medical examining rooms, two
maternity wards, and a delivery room; hospital births were still decades away. The
more than 20 acres included an orchard and lawn; according to the 1933 history
of the Crittenton mission, “…one could look down a pretty canyon between the
hills and get a glimpse of Lake Washington, about half a mile away.” [iv]
The ladies of the home were able to raise chickens and at least one cow on the
property. It was definitely in the boonies; there were no paved roads, although
the Seattle to Renton streetcar ran along the foot of the hill.
The house
served the organization until 1926 at which time a brand-new brick structure
was built on the same property and the 19th century structure torn
down. The new, purpose-built home was considered the epitome of Crittenton
ideals. It included a delivery room and hospital ward, two isolation rooms,
presumably for those with communicable illnesses, a nursery and sun parlor for
the infants, office spaces, and bedrooms sufficient for 25 girls. The facility
underwent two subsequent expansions: in 1953 a new wing was added and in 1966
four dormitory cottages were built behind the main building. All of these were
designed to increase the capacity of the home, since demand for services
continued to grow. By 1967, the home was capable of housing 80 young women at a
time. Alas, the latest expansion came only six years before social and economic
factors brought about the end of Crittenton operations in Seattle.
THE EARLY
YEARS
The
Crittenton movement nationally claimed 78 affiliated homes and maternity
hospitals at its peak in 1914.[v]
The homes were run independently, but generally strove to adhere to principals
laid down by the national body.
Girls
placed at the Seattle Crittenton Home came via referrals from physicians,
clergy, and the law. Many came on their own. A stay at the home might last for
several months, both pre- and post-partum. Operating funding came from occasional
modest allocations from the state and from donations. Girls whose families
could afford it paid for their stay, but, at least in theory, no girl was
turned away for lack of ability to pay. In 1921 the charity was accepted for
annual funding through the local Community Chest.
Lofty
goals notwithstanding, the early managers struggled to make ends meet. Some
early pledges of support had not been honored. In 1904 they made a public
appeal for assistance, reporting that their inmates were dining only on beans
and rice and broth.[vi] For
a number of years the home relied on the kindness of churches and community
groups such as the Rainier Beach Women’s Club, which often donated sacks of
flour, jars of fruit, cans of milk, boxes of tomatoes, and soap.[vii]
On more
than one occasion the board was forced to turn to the national mission for
financial assistance or administrative guidance. About 1930 the national
society sent out a representative to take charge of a disintegrating situation.
Documents hint at low morale, big debts, few residents, and in-fighting at the
board level. Mrs. J. Erle Collier was able to put things to rights in short
order, including instigating a complete reconstitution of the board and staff.[viii]
The Great
Depression no doubt had a hand in creating those dark days. Money was hard to
come by. Seattle Crittenton did manage to avoid the far worse calamity
experienced by its sister home in Spokane, where six infants died in a short
period of 1910; the suspected cause was tainted milk.[ix]
Charles
Crittenton was a proclaimer of Christianity and the movement he founded held
onto the rhetoric of that religion for decades. And while the Seattle home was
not aligned with any one faith, it was far from nondenominational. A Christian
ethos runs through the early days. The Annual Report for 1912 is heavy-handed
in its use of the term: “We have been able to rescue scores of girls. We have
put them in Christian homes. Many of them have been regenerated and have made
Christian homes of their own. Babies have been rescued, protected and given
into hands gentle and Christian.”[x]
Adoption
of infants was a course of last resort in the early decades; in this, the home
echoed the dictates of the national Crittenton movement. The 1912 Annual Report
states that “of necessity” three infants of the 37 born in the home that year
were adopted into good Christian homes. Far preferable, it seems, was undoing
the damage done by arranging hasty marriages with the young men in question.
This was considered the best possible outcome for all, even if, as the report
proudly proclaims, some of the girls were only fourteen or fifteen years of
age.[xi]
More common outcomes were returning the girl and baby to her parents’ home or
finding “work under proper conditions,” generally of a domestic nature.
THE
DISRUPTION OF WAR
World War
II brought an unexpected interruption to the life of the home. Requisitioned by
Uncle Sam, the Crittenton Home became a “Rapid Treatment Center” for women with
venereal disease. The women targeted were largely the “Victory Girls” who
populated Seattle’s downtown and waterfront, as well as other ports of
embarkation, during those years. Not exactly prostitutes, these young patriotic
women were willing to give their all for the war effort. Unfortunately, the
resulting outbreaks of syphilis and gonorrhea threatened to sap the fighting
power of the armed forces, so punitive measures were taken. Women and teens
were arrested and detained if suspected of being infected; if contagion was
proved, they could be quarantined, even when no laws had been broken.
So serious
was the problem that the federal government set up an agency, headed up by one
Eliot Ness, with funding from the 1941 Lanham Act to combat the problem. The
Seattle treatment center, run jointly by the city and the feds, was one of 47
nationwide under the aegis of the Division of Social Protection of the Federal
Works Agency. The Crittenton Home, already fitted up for the care of girls and
young women, and far removed from temptation, seemed the perfect location.
In some
ways, the program for the inmates was quite similar to that of the Crittenton
girls – school studies, occupational training, and fun and games interspersed
with medical exams and treatments. However, unlike their predecessors, the inmates
of the euphemistically-titled “Lake View Manor School for Girls “were all
court-mandated. Further, they were not (necessarily) pregnant.
Lake View
Manor did aspire to something more than medical cures; the authorities hoped
fervently for moral rehabilitation as well. A memo to Ness written by his local
representative invites him to come and see “what can be done with promiscuous
girls.” The writer adds that the inmates are “worthwhile human material.”
The
regional rep enclosed copies of the Tattler, a
typewritten newsletter written by the inmates, as an example of their creative
spirit. True to its name, the Tattler offered up gossipy tidbits about both
residents and staff, using full names. For example,
“Where on earth did Alice Flowers get those bedroom slippers? For
a while we thought someone had dyed their French poodles red and turned them
loose in the house.” [xii]
Treatments
consisted of sulfonamides for those
with gonorrhea and a combination of drip and injection therapy with drugs
containing arsenic for those infected with syphilis. “Rapid treatment”
typically meant six to ten weeks of confinement. The use of penicillin, which
could effect a cure in a far shorter period of time, was just around the corner.
The use of
the Crittenton Home for the treatment center lasted from late fall 1943 until
spring of 1945, scarcely a year and a half. Because the Crittenton board had only
leased the property to the city, they were able to re-open the home by August
of 1946.
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Cartoon from The Tattler, newsletter of the Rapid Treatment Center.
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MISSION
CHANGE
World War
II was a watershed moment for the Crittenton Home and not only because of the
disruption of service. In the Crittenton movement nationally, a dramatic,
almost seismic, shift occurred in the philosophy of infant placement following
World War II. The new, college trained social workers rejected the blanket
policy of keeping mothers and babies together, in favor of case-by-case
analysis. In 1947, the national Crittenton organization officially abandoned
the decades-long dictum.[xiii]
The pendulum may have swung a bit far in favor of adoption; In The Girls who
Went Away, Anne Fessler catalogs heart-wrenching stories of Crittenton
girls across the country who felt constrained to give away their infants – to
do “what is best for baby.”[xiv]
In the 1963 annual report of Seattle Crittenton, Executive Director Aileen
Overton complains that some nurses at Swedish Hospital were surreptitiously
encouraging girls to keep their babies – “one of these actually offering the
girl and the baby shelter in her home.”[xv]
As the
professionalization of social work became the norm, no longer could the homes
rely on just a handful of paid staff and earnest volunteers. Funders, which in
the Seattle case were primarily the state welfare department and the Seattle community
chest, were increasingly demanding professional level case work and
accountability. Reflecting this new reality, costs in 1958 were $109,473,
twelve times those of 1940, while capacity had increased by only 32 percent.[xvi]
Ten years later, expenses topped $324,000.[xvii]
During
this same period hospital births became the rule. Girls in labor were sent to
Renton’s brand-new “wagon-wheel” hospital and later to Swedish Hospital in
Seattle. As before, the new mothers were brought back to the home for
recuperation; however, with over 90% of the infants going to adoption by this
time, the stays were shorter.
Staff and volunteers strove to create a home-like atmosphere at Seattle Crittenton. In addition to necessary medical services, residents were offered a range of occupational training experiences. In the early days, the focus was on learning good parenting skills, as well as some form of domestic labor. Gradually, additional options were added to the curriculum, including office skills. The 1946 Annual Report lists sewing, cooking, bedside nursing, and child care as classes, with typing and weaving awaiting the acquisition of the necessary equipment. It also reports that the “spiritual program is evolving satisfactorily.” [xviii] By the 1960s the home was offering full academic instruction at the middle and high school levels, including graduation ceremonies, with the cooperation of the Seattle Public School District.
The Crittenton girls had household chores to perform daily; however, carefully selected amusements were also part of home life, including birthday parties, game nights, and talent shows. Some board members offered special outings; others provided improving lectures at the home. In 1950 a board member arranged for in-home classes by the local charm school.[xix]
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Typing class, circa 1970, Courtesy of MOHAI.
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BACKS TO
THE CAMERA: THE GIRLS OF THE CRITTENTON HOME
Patient
confidentiality rules were not nearly as codified in the first part of the 20th
century as they are today. Nonetheless, the girls who stayed at Crittenton were
protected by an iron shield of privacy dictated by the national organization
and based on the core tenet that pregnancy outside of marriage was shameful –
shameful for the girl, shameful for her family. In the 1912 Annual Report, the
writers state “we do attempt to rescue these young misguided girls who, through
lack of discipline or a mother’s watchful care have gone astray.”[xx]
Decades later, the same sentiment prevailed. As late as the 1950s, only girls
from out of state, of which there were many, were allowed to guide visitors and
help at events. In all house literature and newspaper coverage, girls are
pictured only from the back.
The good
intentions of the board and staff are not in question. Board and public
relations materials evince a broad sympathy for the plight of the
“unfortunates.” Nonetheless, there are attitudes and practices that, from
today’s vantage point, feel highly paternalistic and even damaging. Frequent references
to the need to keep the girls’ weight down pepper the later annual reports. A
gain of more than half a pound in a week meant the loss of privileges in the
1960s. Strict controls were placed on visitors, outings, and mail.
Due to
privacy concerns, both past and present, actual case studies are difficult to
come by. Some may be gleaned from the few reports to the board still in
existence; these cases all use fictitious names. In addition, some stories,
generally the most tragic or salacious, were freely reported in the newspapers
of a century ago.
One of the more unusual stories involving the
Crittenton Home was that of Kaoru Yamataya (1886? -?), a pregnant
15-year old Japanese girl brought to this country by an adult male in 1901. [In
the photo of the Crittenton Home at the top of this story, Kaoru, in kimono,
can be seen standing on the front steps of the house.]
 |
From Seattle Daily Times, October 16, 1906.
|
Shortly after disembarking at the Port of Seattle,
Kaoru and the man who called himself her uncle were detained by immigration
inspectors who suspected that the girl was bound for work in a brothel. Such
things were not uncommon. A short hearing called a Board of Special Inquiry was
held in which the feds decided that the girl met the criteria for deportation
outlined in the Immigration Act of 1891: She was a pauper and likely to become
a public charge. Her companion, Masataro Yamataya, was arrested on suspicion of
what today would be called human trafficking. Since Kaoru was quite young and
in a “delicate condition,” she was spared jailtime and delivered to The Home of
the Good Shepherd in Seattle, a Catholic institution for girls, by a U.S.
Marshall. As her pregnancy neared term, she was moved to the Crittenton Home
where she gave birth to a boy on September 24, 1901. Sadly, the child died a
few weeks later of pneumonia.
Kaoru’s
story does not end there. In fact, her case wound up at the Supreme Court of
the United States. She had become something of a cause célèbre in the Japanese community of
Seattle, which hired attorneys to appeal her case. Two years after her arrival
on our shores, the Supreme Court ruled that while she did have a right to due
process, the board of inquiry had satisfied that requirement; she was deported.
Whatever
the feds may have thought, public sentiment in the case, as reflected in the
papers of the day, was decidedly on Kaoru’s side, inventing all sorts of
romantic back stories involving a secret lover, a cruel uncle, and elopement.
“The
managers of the Crittenden [sic] home were much attached to the little Japanese
girl who was as different from the Japanese women one sees on the streets of
Seattle as a sparrow is from a bird of paradise.”[xxi]
The
case Yamataya v. Fisher became part of case law and, as such, has had a
life of its own. The ruling that would-be immigrants facing deportation are
entitled to legal due process became a part of Supreme Court precedent. To date
the “Japanese Immigrant Case” has been cited in nearly 300 opinions, including
challenges to President Donald Trump’s Muslim bans.[xxii]
Not
all the residents of the Crittenton Home were pregnant. In the early days, the
home became a convenient dumping ground for certain women who were draining the
resources of the public hospitals and jails. One of these was Jessie Newman (1871-1903). Jessie
was born
to a farming family in Ontario, Canada; from the early 1890s until at least
1900 she worked as a domestic servant for a dry goods salesman in Detroit. The
King County rolls record her death at Crittenton in May 1903, with Bright’s
Disease as the cause, a failing of the kidneys. She was 31 years old. We do not
know how long Jessie stayed at the home or if she had been offered the
indicated treatments of the day for her condition -- warm baths, herbal
infusions, heart tonics, dietary restrictions, digitalis and opioids.
Jessie had not been without means at some points in her life, but it appears that a generous nature may have left her bereft just when she needed help most. Probate records list her personal belongings as one ladies gold watch and chain, one gold ladies brooch and bracelet, a trunk and its contents, and a $300 mortgage and note to a brother, William, in Port Angeles. She had also made loans to her sister’s husband in Ontario and an associate of his. Her estate was ultimately valued at $670, the amount of the promissory notes. She was buried at Lake View Cemetery in Seattle, with the funeral expenses of $69 paid by her estate.[xxiii]
Jessie Newman, courtesy of Norm Fox.
So sad was the story of Mary Hall (1888-1903) that the newspapers of the day followed the sensational case closely. As with the case of Kaoru Yamataya, reporters felt justified in embellishing the facts.
Mary was the daughter of Abraham Howard Hall, an African-American porter at a dry goods store in downtown Seattle. In August 1902, Hall filed criminal charges against the pastor of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Mack Scott. Mary had revealed to her father that she was with child by the Reverend Scott, her Sunday school teacher, and that she had refused to “undergo a criminal operation” to end the pregnancy.[xxiv] Mary was just 14 years old. Since her mother had died, Mary had taken care of her five siblings while her father worked. Sometime after her disclosure, “in order to hide her downfall from her younger sisters” she was placed at the Crittenton Home.”[xxv]
In March 1903, Mary died of convulsions shortly after giving birth. According to the Seattle Star, she had earlier protested when her father told her she would have to give up the baby since it would be too much of a burden for her to raise and also because her siblings would then have to know “her whole sad story.”[xxvi] Reverend Scott was convicted of rape and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla. He began serving his time in August of 1903; his wife moved nearby so she could “supply him with all the delicacies of each season.”[xxvii] With less than two years’ time served, Mack Scott was paroled by Washington Governor Albert Mead. A request for pardon was later denied.[xxviii] Mary’s baby, a girl, was adopted by a Christian family of a local church.
For a period
of 18 months during 1902-1903, frequent interactions between “habitual
drunkard” Kitty Bird and local law enforcement were serialized in the Seattle Daily Times. The paper described her as both “a
pretty little thing not much over 21 years of age” and “a notorious character
of the underworld.” The
Seattle Star labeled
her “A Barrell of Trouble.”[xxix]
Her fair hair was more than once noted, as well as the fact that she had
suffered desertion by her husband. Seattle’s Anti-Saloon League was intent on
driving out undesirable aspects of the recent population and economic boom --
waterfront saloons, gambling and dance halls, brothels and opium dens, and
those who frequented them. Kitty had caught the attention of the authorities as
early as 1893.
In June of
1902, Bird was very briefly an inmate at the Crittenton Home. Facing a
five-month sentence at the “comfortless” jail, she had been offered an
alternative: “nothing to do but sit in the shade of the trees and watch the
gentle waves of Lake Washington come and go in response to the sighing wind.”[xxx]
But some situations are short-lived; some habits hard to break. Just the next
morning, Kitty was spotted hiking north along the streetcar tracks back toward
the city, having escaped the home. Within weeks she was returned to the custody
of the jail on new charges of being “beastly drunk before morning.”[xxxi]
The type
of reporting typified in Kitty Bird’s case went out of fashion as the century
progressed. Certainly, by mid-century, the plight of unfortunate young women was
no longer a source of public amusement. At the same time, privacy became the
prevailing currency for the Crittenton girls, particularly as many came from
the respectable classes. Girls admitted
to the Crittenton Home in the post-war years trended middle class. Private pay
patients now accounted for half or more of house receipts. There is a hint or
two of cherry-picking the better girls in the reports, a far cry from the early
days when the home felt constrained to take all comers.
In a snapshot from 1966 we find that only 31%
of the girls came from the city of Seattle and 13% came from out of state. They
ranged in age from 13 to 23, with a median age of 17. The average stay was
three and a half months.[xxxii]
While
perhaps coming with more resources than others, the girls of the 1950s and 60s
had plenty of problems. Long-time Executive Director Overton, in her annual
reports to the board, provides case studies involving broken homes, sexual
assault, severe emotional and behavioral problems, and many pregnancy
complications. Fortunately, by this time, the caseworkers were trained to deal
with all such situations and to connect girls with community resources, such as
specialized medical and psychiatric treatment, when needed.
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| Weekly weigh-ins. A gain of more than half a pound in a week meant the loss of privileges in the 1960s. Crittenton Home Annual Report. |
INTREPID
WOMEN
The 20th
century saw remarkable progress in women’s rights, from suffrage to the right
to practice as professionals, to serve on juries, and to make decisions about
their own health care. During these times of struggle, many smart and capable
women looked to charitable organizations as an outlet for their talents. In the
venerable tradition of clubwomen, both society and middle-class women stepped
up to organize and run service organizations, especially those working with
women and children. The Crittenton Home in Seattle, like its sister homes
throughout the country, was founded by women. And while men were represented on
the board of directors in the early days, over time the directors and committee
members were virtually all women.
Given the
sensitive nature of the work, it is understandable that the board and primarily-female
staff would look to female professionals to help the girls with medical and
legal matters. Female doctors and lawyers were few and far between in the early
decades of the century, but several offered their services pro-bono to the
home. These pioneers deserve to have their stories told.
 | Dr. Harriet J. Clark at the Ahmednegar missionary hospital in India. Pamphlet: The Ahmednegar Hospital for Women and Children, 1925, via Internet Archive.
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Harriet J. Clark (1879 - ?) was one of the very first
physicians who attended girls at the Crittenton Home. It was she who signed the
death certificate for Kaoru’s child, Thomas, in 1901, and for Mary Hall in
1903. In 1906, Dr. Clark was one of the founding members of the Medical Women’s
Club in Seattle. Two decades later Dr. Clark was in India, associate director
of the Ahmednegar missionary hospital for women and children.
Historian
Clarence Bagley included a biographical entry for Mabel Seagrave, M.D.,
in his History of King County, published in 1929, noting among her many
accomplishments that she was on the staff of the Florence Crittenton Home. In
November 1935, Dr. Seagrave suffered a fatal stroke and died at age 53. One
year later, the first tree planted in the Florence Crittenton Home memorial
garden was dedicated to Dr. Seagrave in recognition of her outstanding service
to womanhood and children. Her girlhood friend Florence Denny Heliker, of the pioneering
Denny family, was in attendance, at the time a trustee of the Home. [xxxiii]
Mabel and
Florence graduated from Seattle High School, in 1901 and 1898, respectively. The
two became the first Seattle women to attend Wellesley College in
Boston. After receiving a medical degree from Johns Hopkins University in
1911, Seagrave opened her medical practice in the downtown Cobb Building as one
of 24 women physicians in Seattle, specializing in obstetrics and gynecology.
She also began her work with the Florence Crittenton Home about this time.
Decades later,
in 1959, Heliker told an interviewer that Mabel had decided to go to war and
she had followed. Sent to France by a national suffrage association, the women
worked together, first at a battlefield hospital and then at a hospital for
influenza-stricken refugees, during and just after World War I. Heliker
recalled that, while she had volunteered as an x-ray technician, her ultimate
role was “sort of an aide, carrying the heavy end of the stretcher and Mabel’s
bag.” Seagrave was awarded the Medal of Valor by the government of France in
recognition of her service in 1919.[xxxiv]
Upon her return to Seattle with the silver decoration, Seagrave described
carrying out the duties of the woman-run hospital unit with “Not a man in the
outfit.” [xxxv]
Dr. Minnie
Burdon (1878-1972) grew up in Anacortes. A family story relates that at a
young age she took it upon herself to perform tracheostomies with a kitchen knife on some chickens that
were choking on bacon rinds.[xxxvi] It seems some of the
chickens survived the procedure and the rest was history – Burdon went on to
take a medical degree from the University of Oregon in 1909, served as a
surgeon/anesthetist in World War I, completed a residency in gynecology at the
Mayo Clinic, and practiced at Seattle General Hospital until her retirement in
1949 at the age of 70. She volunteered at the Crittenton Home during the 1930s
and ‘40s, serving both on the board and in a medical capacity. The volunteer
guild that bore her name was dedicated to raising funds for medical supplies
and equipment for the home.
 |
| Minnie Burdon, right, with her sister-in law, Courtesy of the Anacortes Museum |
Lady
Willie Forbus (1892-1993) was an attorney who offered services to the
Crittenton Home. The southerner with the unique given name arrived in Seattle
in 1918 with a law degree from the University of Michigan, where she had been
the only female in a class of 50. During a long life (she lived to be 100),
Forbus practiced law, lost elections for judgeships, won an election to the
state senate, stumped for President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s re-election, and
advocated tirelessly for the rights of women and children. As president of the
Crittenton board in 1938, she presided over the ceremonial burning of the mortgage,
accomplished in a witch’s cauldron. Forbus also provided free legal services to
the home where needed. This often took the form of tracking down fathers of the
infants born in the home with a view to arranging marriages.
The
burning of the mortgage came about due to the munificence of one Talluah
Alice Wright (1863-1936). Talluah married Hamlet Wright, a Canadian
resident and thus a British citizen, in Dawson City, in the Yukon Territory in
1889. She must have given up her American citizenship at this time, because in
1923 she petitioned the courts for naturalization despite having been born in
Georgia. Hamlet Wright is listed as a gold miner in the 1910 census. He and
Talluah must have done fairly well in the Klondike Gold Rush, since by 1910
they owned a large home free and clear in the desirable Mount Baker
neighborhood of Seattle and had a live-in servant. At her death in 1936 the Widow
Wright left a substantial bequest of $32,000 to the Crittenton Home, enough to
pay off the mortgage and then some! Her personal connection to the home is not
clear, but it may be that she was acquainted with the women who ran the home.
After her death, one of the volunteer circles that supported the home was named
the Alice Wright Guild.
 |
| Blanche Narodick, circa 1994. Courtesy of Joan Roth, photographer.
|
Blanche Narodick (1909-95) was an energetic committee woman in mid-century Seattle, as well as a public relations professional. She was active on the board of the Crittenton Home from the time it re-opened after the war until the mid-1950s, serving as board president, treasurer, and head of the public relations committee. At the same time, she chaired the Washington State Committee on Unwed Parenthood. One achievement had long-lasting effects: in 1949 Narodick worked with reporters from the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to expose the practices of some private maternity homes. While the term “baby market” was a bit sensational, the stories did lead to scrutiny of these unregulated businesses, ultimately leading to state legislation requiring the licensing of such establishments. [xxxvii]
Narodick
was something of an anomaly, because she was Jewish. In an oral history, she
recalls being encouraged to work on behalf of the Christian home by a friend
who said “You have to go out there and show them that you don’t have any
horns!” Narodick goes on to give an insider’s view of the home and the girls
served in those days: “We had [some] girls from very wealthy and very socially
elite homes. In fact, when members of the community came out to visit [the
home], we had to hide [those] girls.” Why? “In those days, it was a horrible
disgrace. I would say 95% of the girls gave their babies up for adoption.”[xxxviii]
Asked
about diversity, Narodick reports that there was an occasional Jewish girl –
apparently there was quite a demand for Jewish babies – and even “black girls,
but not predominantly.” It seems that the conventional wisdom at the time was that
“blacks would take care of blacks.” Narodick continued her long career of
community service long after she left the Crittenton Home, working primarily
with the Red Cross. In 1989, she received that organization’s highest honor for
volunteerism, the Harriman Award, for her efforts to bring volunteers and
medical equipment to Shanghai, China.
AN ABRUPT
END
The shame
of unwed motherhood was a constant through at least the 1950s. In the 1960s,
views began to change as more professional woman began to choose single
motherhood and the availability of birth control, perversely, meant less
sympathy for those who “chose” to become pregnant outside of marriage.
Certainly there was no dip in the number of unwed mothers, but the perception
of need had changed.
When the
end came for the Seattle Crittenton Home it came fairly rapidly. In 1968 the
home reported a total of 299 girls sheltered and 208 babies born, seeming proof
of the continued need. Yet in 1972 the home was notified that they would no
longer be a recipient of United Way of King County funding, a quarter share of
their budget. The Boeing Bust recession, beginning in 1970, likely was a major
cause of the contraction of funding region-wide, but there were other factors.
New management at United Way, taking a cost benefit stance, declared that the
home “was more than the community could afford.”[xxxix]
Further, they suggested that the home was only at half capacity.
Faced with
mounting debts and the loss of a major funding source, the home made the difficult
decision to close. The last girl was admitted in November 1972 and the house
shuttered its doors completely on March 15, 1973. There were seven girls living
at the home at the time; some of these were transferred to the Ruth School for
Girls in Burien (later Ruth Dykeman Children’s Center), a facility for
emotionally troubled girls.
A few
months later, another venerable institution, the Home of the Good Shepherd, shut down, as well. The age of residential treatment was giving way to
that of outpatient and community support services.
The
Seattle home was not the only Crittenton to close. In her 1983 history of the
movement, Nancy Fifield McConnell lists 69 homes by name, of which only 24 were
still active; some of those had merged with other service organizations to
insure viability.[xl] Today
National Crittenton operates as a resource for a number of social service agencies,
focusing on advocacy and research to better the lives of young people.
The
property that was the Seattle Crittenton Home was purchased by the Seattle
Indian Health Board, which since 1997 operated the Thunderbird Treatment
Center for inpatient substance abuse rehab at the location. After operations at the home ceased, it stood shuttered and fenced for several years until being torn down in 2025. A petition for landmark status, filed in April 2020, was denied by the city landmarks board. The current owner of the land is Mt. Baker Housing Association.
The former Crittenton Home/Thunderbird Treatment Center, 2020. Photo, Eleanor Boba.
- For a more in-depth
discussion of unwed motherhood and maternity homes, see Fallen Women,
Problem Girls: Unmarried Mothers and the Professionalization of Social Work,
1890-1945 by Regina G. Kunzel, Yale University Press, 1993.
- For personal
accounts of the residents at homes for unwed mothers, see The Girls Who Went
Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the
Decades Before Roe v. Wade by Ann Fessler, Penguin Books, 2006. Both
include extensive descriptions of Florence Crittenton homes.
- For more on
the Kaoru Yamataya case, see https://historylink.org/File/20597
.
- For more on the Rapid Treatment Center, see https://www.historylink.org/File/21066.
[i] June
Peterson, “The Florence Crittenton Home: A History of its Scope and Services,”
unpublished manuscript, 1964, p. 21, University of Washington Special
Collections.
[iii]
Property quit-claim deed, King County Archives.
[iv]
Wilson, 1933, p. 437
[vi]
“Women Lack Food at Rescue Home,” Seattle Daily Times, May 30, 1904,
p.1.
[vii]
“History of Rainier Beach Women’s Club,” Rainier Valley Historical Society.
[ix]
“Offered Money for a Statement ‘Purifying’ The Broadview Milk,” The Press,
June 6, 1910, p.1.
[x] The Annual
Report of the Florence Crittenton Home in Seattle, 1911-1912
[xii] Tattler
from the National Archives, Baltimore, MD.
[xiii]
Regina Kunzel, Fallen Women, Problem Girls, Yale University Press, 1993,
169.
[xiv]
Fessler, Anne, The Girls Who Went Away, Penguin Books, 2006.
[xv] Crittenton
Home Annual Report, 1963, p. 13.
[xvii]
Crittenton Home Annual Report, 1968
[xviii]
Crittenton Home Annual Report, 1946
[xix]
Crittenton Home Annual Report, 1950
[xx]
Crittenton Home Annual Report 1911-1912
[xxi] “Pretty Japanese Girl with Romantic Past is Not to be Found,” Seattle Star, April 11, 1903, p.3.
[xxii] Eleanor
Boba, “Supreme Court rules in the
Japanese Immigrant Case, Yamataya v. Fisher,
on April 6, 1903,” HistoryLink.org essay #20597, July 3, 2018.
[xxiii]
Probate record, King County Archives.
[xxiv] Seattle Daily Times, August
13, 1902.
[xxv] Seattle Republican, March 13, 1903.
[xxvi]
Seattle Star, March 9, 1903.
[xxvii]Seattle Star, August 1, 1903.
[xxviii]
“Pardons, Commutations, Reprieves, Remissions of Fines, etc., Granted by Albert
E. Mead, Governor of the State of Washington”, April 14, 1905.
[xxix]
Kitty Bird’s Great Fault,” Seattle Star, April 28, 1902.
[xxx] “Kitty Will Not Stay Reformed,” Seattle Daily News, June
22, 1902.
[xxxi]
“Kitty’s
Liberty Was Short,” Seattle Daily News, August 8, 1902.
[xxxii]
Crittenton Home Annual Report 1966.
[xxxiii]
“Friends Bidden to Crittenton Home,” Seattle Daily Times, June 8, 1936,
p.15.
[xxxiv]
Dorothy Brant Brazier, “A Denny Girl Rolls Back Years,” Seattle Times,
October 25, 1959, p.4.
[xxxv]
John C. Hughes, “Dr. Mabel A. Seagrave: Living the Wellesley Motto, Pacific
NW, August 11, 2019, pp. 8-11.
[xxxvi]
Dr. Minnie Bell Burdon, Anacortes Museum online research database
[xxxvii]
Crittenton Home Annual Report, 10 Years After, 1963
[xxxviii]
Blanche Narodick, oral history, University of Washington Special Collections.
[xxxix]
Seattle Times, January 30, 1973, B4.
[xl]
Nancy Fifield McConnell, Crittenton Services, the First Century, 1883-1983,
National Florence Crittenton Mission, 1983.
