1. Excerpts from earliest board meetings…starting 1888
About admissions, dismissals, conduct, staffing, etc.
“Notes of rules and regulations to govern the Lutheran
Orphan Home:
Who are to be received, and the forms of application
Illegitimate children not to be received into the Home”

2. More notes concerning the first board meeting…
“Children not allowed to work out in the community
except in serving an apprenticeship…
Maximum age 10 years except in special cases…”

3. Superintendent’s report…
“On September 11, 1888, Ollie Lee Repass
and Effie Ophelia Repass, two little sisters
six and eight years old, from near
Wytheville, entered our Home. They have
had good health and are right promising
little girls.
Another youth came later, and remained a
few months, but was returned as not an
appropriate inmate of an orphan home. I
have received a number of applications
during the year, but all only half orphans.
Two are now seeking admittance from
Waynesboro.”

4. Selection of children
“I think I began fully to realize the responsibility resting upon me in
the selection of children. I have had several trials of this kind during
the year. Some I can give you verbally if you wish. If the Board will
be pleased to give me a little latitude in this particular, it may aid me.
Some other things of interest may be brought before you outside of
this report.” (Wm. McClanahan)

5. Cost per orphan…
“…That one hundred Dollars be deemed an appropriate amount
for the annual expenses of an orphan in the Home.”

6. Letter to be sent to all the churches…
“1st …That the officers of the Board be
instructed as soon as provision for
necessary support is guaranteed, to
issue a circular letter to all Lutheran
pastors in the state of Virginia and to
all ministers in Roanoke County.
Notifying them of our arrangement to
support twenty five orphans and
writing them to send all orphans
under their influence after
consultation with the Superintendent.”

7. First teacher…salary
“#4. That the Supt. be allowed One
hundred Dollars for the support of a
teacher in the Home.”

8. Request to purchase a home
“What we most need today is permanent property owned by the Board or
Church. You can readily see how embarrassing it is to me to ask aid for a
work in my home or inmate property. Please relieve me of my
embarrassment so that I may work to better advantage.

9. Problems with “half-orphans”
We learn in all business from experience, and so it is in this orphan work,
and my experience teaches me that half orphans give far more trouble
than full orphans, and here the trouble comes more by far, from
the living parent than from the child.

10. Reorganization - 1892
“4. That the management of the Home for the present be placed
in the hands of an Executive Committee of three members, of
which Mr. Terry shall be chairman.
5. That the immediate supervision of the Home be placed in the
hands of a matron with proper assistants.”

11. 1893 – McClanahan to keep
older children in his home…
“Of the above five children only one, Hugh Atkins, will be suitable on account
of age etc. to place here in the new Home. If therefore the Board will assign
these four older children to me, I will continue to care for them in the future
just as in the past without money or price. They have been with us now for
several years and we have studied from year to year their dispositions and are
deeply attached to them, and will try to do our duty by them.”

12. Resignation of Wm. S. McClanahan
“…to you with this report, may resignation. Thanking you for your
confidence, trust, and co-operation for the past four or laborious years, I now
step out of the way, that you may select a woman to preside over the little
fatherless ones, which may knock at our door for admission.”

13. Terms of admission - 1893
“In discussing the terms of admission it was…
Resolved…
That no child born out of wedlock be received into the Home.”

14. List of children admitted
1894
Hugh Atkins – Vinton, Va.
Arthur Walton – Roanoke, Va.
Harry Walton – Roanoke, Va.
William W. Bently – Pulaski, Va.
Randal K. Bently – Pulaski, Va.
Lorenzo Clarence Brown – Burke’s Garden, Va.
Harry Estes Waddle – Wytheville, Va.
Shelton Warner – Roanoke, Va.
Susie B. Repass – Wythe Co., Va.
Villa Repass – Wythe Co., Va.
Dora Lentz – Craven, N.C.
Lula Belle Brown – Burke’s Garden, Va.

15. 1894 – About arrangements for Susie Repass
• Since the last meeting three children have been received into the
Home. Negotiations are pending in regard to five others. There are
now eleven children in the Home. The oldest, Susie Repass, has
been placed at Mrs. Gilmore’s, in Roanoke, where she has excellent
school advantages. She pays for her board and schooling by her
work, the Home providing her only with clothing. She is preparing
herself to be a teacher.

16. About the depression… 1894
“The income of the Home for the past ten months has just been
sufficient to meet the current expenses. Considering the
extraordinary financial depression through which the country
has been passing, this is, perhaps, as well as could be
expected…”

17. 1895 – List of Girls
Girls
Susie Belle Repass 17 years
Villa Repass 8 years
Fannie B. Hagy 8 years
Annie Florence Hale 9 years
Lula Brown 9 years
Dora Lentz 11 years
Fannie Elizabeth Jones 12 years
Willie Fleetwood Watts 10 years
Beulah Saffell 10 years
Alice Saffell 12 years

18. 1895 - List of Boys
Boys
Harry Walton 10 years
Arthur Walton 8 years
Lorenzo C. Brown 11 years
William A. Hale 7 years
Leslie Zepp 11 years
Marvin Hagy 5 years
Henry Hagy 6 years
James M. Jones 9 years
Hugh Atkins 9 years

19. Exception to the rules for admission – children whose parents
are both “dissipated”
“…. are in the Home by special arrangement. Their father and mother are
both dissipated, and they were placed in the Home by their uncle and
grandfather who pay $10 ($110?) towards their support. The application for
their admission was made by the Rev. L. L. Smith of the Virginia Synod, and
the Executive Committee believed it consistent with the charitable principles
of the institution, under all the circumstances to receive them.”

20. Changing policies… to accept children with infirmities
“One of the conditions of admission at present requires that the children
should be healthy, sound in body and mind, and free from all physical
deformity. It seems to be the wish of the Church that this condition be
modified. It is therefore recommended that the Home be opened to infirm
children when their reception will not necessitate the employment of
additional help in the way of nurses.”

21. About the Lutheran Church
“In this country today the Lutheran Church is maintaining no
fewer than forty orphanages, in which hundreds of children are
cared for…”

22. Hiring Rev. Cronk - 1897
“The item referring to the call of the Rev. B. W. Cronk as resident
superintendent, and Mrs. Cronk as matron, was adopted. Mr.
Cronk was invited before the Board. His salary, including that of
matron, was fixed at $400 a year.”