The Children of Saint Joe's

Adults Remember Days Spent at Orphanage
Created by Bishop Meerschaert and Run
by Various Orders of Catholic Sisters
St. Joseph Orphanage in 1944.

By Eileen Dugan
The Sooner Catholic

OKLAHOMA CITY — Dedicated Oct. 6, 1912, Saint Joseph’s Orphanage (SJO) was the first charitable institution in Oklahoma sponsored by the diocese and the favorite project of Bishop Theophile Meerschaert.

Throughout the years, many orders of Sisters staffed Saint Joseph’s. The nuns also operated the accredited K-8 school at the orphanage.  In 1930, the Sisters of Mercy, who had run the orphanage since 1912, gave this duty over to the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, an order of nuns from Mexico who had fled the persecutions there. The Hispanic Sisters ran SJO for one year. In 1931, the Carmelite Sisters took charge, followed, in 1933, by the Benedictine Sisters, who staffed the institution until 1945. In that year, the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity took over operation of Saint Joseph’s Orphanage. By 1955, nearly 5,000 children had been cared for at Saint Joseph’s. The orphanage closed in 1963.

As a youngster, Ross Williams spent three years at Saint Joseph’s. The current president of the downtown Oklahoma City chapter of the Saint Vincent de Paul Society, Williams lived at Saint Joseph’s from the time he was four, until just after he turned six. It was the 1940s and he was there with his two older brothers and a sister.

If Williams remembers correctly, there were between 150-200 children at Saint Joseph’s when he was there.

Father Charles R. Murphy, pastor of Saint Philip Neri Church in Midwest City, also grew up at SJO. He lived there from 1943 until 1956 and was there with his sister Patricia, who was 18 months older.

“When I arrived at SJO, I was still in diapers,” Father Murphy said. “I’m not sure how many children were there then, but later, there were about 150 kids.”

Williams’ earliest memory of Saint Joseph’s “is of my uncle driving me there. I was bawling my head off that I had to go there. I didn’t understand that we were there because my parents had separated, and my mother couldn’t care for us,” he said.

Although Williams did not want to go to SJO, he has some good memories of the place. Sunday afternoons were his favorite. “People from different parishes would take some of us aside. I remember orange and vanilla ice cream in a little cup. It was also on Sundays that my mother would visit,” he said.

Williams also remembers that he enjoyed picking potatoes. He was not required to pick them; he wanted to. “I have good memories of picking potatoes for Sister Fabian; it was the first time I had ever been in a field,” he said.

Father Murphy’s oldest memory of SJO is “being in kindergarten with Sister Mary Immaculate, M.S.B.T. I remember little chairs, doing activities, working at the blackboard,” he said.

“During the first two years I was at SJO (1943-1945), the Benedictine Sisters were in charge. The last 11 years, the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity were there. We called them the Hat Sisters because they wore hats instead of veils. They were a Philadelphia order. They were strict, but you knew what to expect. You had chores, and you were expected to do them. They had high expectations for us,” Father said.

Father Murphy also remembers Christmas celebrations and picnics. “Some of my best memories include the annual Christmas play and the huge Christmas parties in the gymnasium. We also had annual picnics with the Knights of Columbus and the Coronado Club, a young singles group,” he said.

Ross Williams liked Saint Joseph’s because he did not have to do any chores. “We little guys just played. I was really young, 4-6 years old, when I was there. The older children had chores to do. We all lived in a big dormitory: little boys on the first floor, big boys on the second. We had Mass every morning, and we played ball. We had a baseball field and a nice little church,” he said.

Father Murphy, who was older than Williams when he was at SJO, had lots of chores to do. He remembers chores as a significant part of growing up at SJO, even in the summer time.  “We alternated chores every month,” he said. Some of the things we did were to “sweep the downstairs, the second floor, or the top floor hallways. In the kitchen, we might serve the meals for a month for a particular row of tables in the dining room.

“We also worked in the laundry room, sorting and sending the cleaning off to a commercial laundry. We would sweep the classrooms and hallways and clean the bathrooms in the school and gym,” he said. “In summer, we helped with the yard work: raking, pulling weeds, and mowing.”

For Williams, who was too young to go to school, a typical day at SJO was “getting up, getting a shower, going to church, eating breakfast, and playing the whole day.”

                                                         Christmas at Saint Joseph's. The Christmas tree was courtesy of the Knights  The older Father Murphy had           of Columbus.
 to go to school. “The sisters taught school, K-8, on the premises,” he said. “On a typical school day, we got up, cleaned up, put on our clothes, and straightened up our desk, chair, bed, and locker. Then, we would go down to breakfast. After breakfast, we did our clean-up chores before school: cleaning the floors, drying dishes, sweeping under the beds etc. Then, we went to school until lunch-time, ate lunch, went to school until the end of the school day, and had playtime.

“After school, we’d play marbles or ‘Shoot-em-up’. Or we’d make scooters out of roller skates. We’d sit on the scooters and steer them with a rope. We also rode bicycles and had a basketball team,” Father said. In the summer time, we’d go to the YMCA, Will Rogers Park, the State Fair, and the Branding Iron Club in Warr Acres, which had a nice swimming pool. The Sisters would go into the water with us and serve as lifeguards. They wore huge, baggy, one-piece, black swimsuits that reached to their knees, and black hose,” Father Murphy said.

Of the many people Williams met at SJO, two stand out. “I remember Monsignor James Garvey, the director of SJO. He was a remarkable and very holy man. He would be there for you. He lived in a house behind the orphanage.

“He even had concern for me when I was having some problems after I left the orphanage. I’d get into trouble, and my mother would send me to see him, and he was very helpful to me,” Williams said.

Williams also has fond memories of a Benedictine nun who passed away last year, Sister Fabian. “She did the kitchen as Chief Cook,” he said. “How kind she was. As a child, you notice those things. She was caring and compassionate. I remember one Sunday for lunch she made us peanut-and-syrup sandwiches. It was the only time I ever had a peanut-butter sandwich,” Williams said.

Father Murphy also has fond memories of people from that era. “I remember Sister Laetitia. She taught me in the 3rd, 4th, 7th, and 8th grades. She was a good teacher, a good sister, and a good person. She was also a delightful person, Italian, and she had a sparkle in her voice. She had a kindness about her, “ Father Murphy said.

 “But when I think back, I particularly remember my good friend, Tommy Boykin,” Father said. “He came from a large family. All of his siblings had been at SJO. He was one of the younger members of his family. Some of his siblings had left by the time I knew him. He was blond, toe-headed.

“He always said he was older than I was because his birthday was earlier in the year than mine, which was in October. I never could convince him that I actually was older because I was born the year before he was,” Father said.

Tom Boykin, is a retired federal auditor, is living in Warm Springs, Georgia. “I was at the orphanage from 1946-1957. As best I can recall, we spent most Thanksgivings with different Catholic families in Oklahoma City. Those were always special occasions which I looked forward to each year.

“The kids owed much to the Knights of Columbus. I believe they were responsible for the giant (over 20-foot tall) Christmas trees set up in the gym every Christmas. Every Christmas afternoon, all the kids would sit around the tree while the Knights would call out the names of the kids and distribute gifts,” Boykin said.

SJO had a profound effect on the lives of many who spent time there. Ross Williams is no exception. “Saint Joseph’s Orphanage gave me a concern for the poor and for social-justice issues,” Williams said. “As an adult, I became involved with the Young Christian Workers movement in Okla-homa. I learned about social-justice issues and identified with them. This led me to become president of the AFL-CIO. It’s a labor movement here in Oklahoma. I was president until I retired.”

Father Murphy said children raised in an orphanage can often have a different outlook on the world. “If you’re raised in an orphanage, it gives you a different perspective,” he said. “You have empathy for kids facing difficulties, for kids that don’t have parents, or are foster kids. You have a sense of reaching out to them, because you have been there.

“You want to give back because so many people have helped you. You want to be in a helping profession. I didn’t become a priest until 14 years ago. Before that, I was a public-school teacher and a school counselor for 19 years. I used my skills and abilities the best I could, to help people. I was a sixth-grade teacher in Edmond for five years and a school counselor in an elementary school for 14 years,” Father Murphy said.

 “No one wants to be in an orphanage,” Williams said. “There wasn’t any place I wanted to get away from faster than SJO. You want your family, and you want to be with them. But it was necessary that I was there. It was the Depression, and, probably, it was the best place for me, at the time. They were able to take care of kids, and I needed that. That is the role the Benedictine nuns played.”

Father Murphy said his experience at SJO “was a mostly positive one. I had good times and difficult times there. But the people loved us; they did things with us and for us.

“The people of Oklahoma made it possible for us to have a chance. They supported SJO generously. Without the diocese, what chance would we have had? I still keep in touch with the nuns, the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity, in Pennsylvania,” Father Murphy said.

Tom Boykin said looking back he sees how his time at SJO helped shape his life and gave him the skills to deal with the good and the bad that life can provide.

“My parents worked the migrant camps from Texas to Washington state. It was not a pleasant life,” Boykin said. “One of my sisters died in the fields. Living at SJO was a Godsend for us. We got a good education (it enabled me to go on to high school and college), and we learned good work habits and self-value,” he said.

Left: Father Charles Murphy, left, and longtime friend Tom Boykin look at a photo taken of them and other boys during their stay at Saint Joseph's Orphanage. AboveThis is the actual photo held by Father Murphy and Boykin. Father is sixth from the left and Boykin is fifth from the left.