Palisadian., 1925-04-24
Life Stories With a Happy End

becomes of the many children of our
public institutions, when they grow
up, and how many of the successful
men and women surrounding you may
have been just such children, with
dramatic histories, who would have
been derelicts or criminals but for
help at the psychological moment
from an institution?
In some of our nearby towns in
New Jersey live some of these grad
uates."
IN Edgewater resides successful
| foreman, happily married, with three
! children, who was one of the four chill
dren received into the Christian Or
phan Home, when it was only two
years old, twenty-three years ago.
In Greenville, Jersey City, live three
sisters, married and in their own nice
homes, who were of the original four
half orphans taken into that aban-
doned Jersey City hospital building
twenty-five years ago, when it was
two devoted pioneers, Mr.. Manning
and Mr.. Nelson. This is the home
since removed to the Palisades section
of Fort Lee, and it has hundreds of
similar cases.
A mother of four children was dying
of consumption Her drunkard hus-
band fell overheard from a ship and
tryac lnd hA ,oth taI
soon after she placed her little ones
in the home. The two boys grew up
there and have become good mechan-
les, with families of their own, living
in Jersey City, and the two sisters
are married and have their own COM
Portable homes.
Two other girls, with no father and
tubercular mother, who soon died,
were cared for in the home, one with
her mothers disease soon dying (and
there have been only six other deaths
in all these years in the home), the
other girl growing up healthy, bright
young woman, who at the age of
fifteen became stenographer. When
we entered the war she became a pri-
vate secretary for the government at
Washington, and at the conclusion of
the war she married and has a very
happy home.
Not all the stories are of the lower
walks of life, as, for instance, the poor
Methodist minister, who, at his DEATH
left widow who, soon after, lost her
mind through grief, leaving three lit
tie orphans, who grew up in the or
phan home and made good, for the
boy became salesman and then mar
ried and is now partner in his
father-in-law's firm, and the two girls,
both in offices in New York, have
since married happily.
Sometimes this Christian Orphan
Home has played the part of kindly
grandmother, for the needy children
of a mother temporarily unable to
care for them, one among many in
stances being that of an abandoned
wife with two little boys whom Father
and Mother Nelson took in and cared
for during the six years that the poor
we're illness, to gain little home for
her children who were then returned
to her. Both proved very studious
children. One is now finishing his law
studies preparatory to admittance to
the bar in Rochester, N. Y, and the
other won scholarship in the REM
sellaer Technical College and is now
an electrical engineer.
And so the story goes among the
six hundred who have known Father
and Mother Nelson as their foster
parents, and it is remarkable fact
that none of these graduates have
failed or turned out badly. Most of
them are making valuable citizens
here in our own country, and the
others are making good across the
ocean in various business enterprises.
1t is for such as these and their pos
sibilities eighty-seven little ones at
present, and for many more to come,
that the Nelson Drive for the Chris
tian Orphan Home is being instituted
for the week from May 4 to May 10,
inclusive, in the nine towns of Edge
water, Englewood Cliffs, Cliffside
Park, Leonia, Palisades Park, Ridge
field Park and Ridgefeld to raise a
heavy Indebtedness for additions and
assessments, and these towns have, in
many instances, some children under
the care of this non-sectarian home,
which never refuses shelter or loving
care as long as there is bed for a
needy child.
A Heart Appeal is the slogan of
the drive, called Nelson Drive, in men,
ory of its father superintendent, who
was removed in February by sudden
fatal illness.
Father and Mother Nelson, nurses,
and cook, all worked in that home
for the Christian service which they
feel is the highest service they can
render anywhere, and they labor for
much lower salaries than they could
receive elsewhere just because of that
love and consecrated Christian char
acter which prompted the beginning
of the home, and which has carried it
on ever since, overcoming all obsta-
cles and relying on God and the vol
untary contributions of people who
love little children, and who want to
see them given the chance for a good
life, which is the birthright of every
one of them.