JR Home The Junior Homekid October 1997

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Volume 45, No. 5 - October, 1997
Jr. O.U.A.M. Alumni
Homekid Levi Olmstead (seated) visits while Jerri Seyfors (back, left) and Edna
Ehrhart hug while seeing each other for the first time this year, photo by Randy Roberts
By Michael Woodyard
Staff Writer
The Advertiser-Tribune
Tiffin, Ohio
When Gurstle Grubbs and about 10
of her friends went down to the river,
they knew they were breaking the
rules.
First of all, they had shorts on and
girls weren't allowed to wear that
kind of clothing during the 1930s at
the Junior Home. Second, they had
strayed from the school grounds on a
hot summer day to dip in the
Sandusky.
The trouble is that Dad caught them.
Dad Kernan, that is, the much loved
superintendent of the Junior Order of
United American Mechanics Home.
He shuffled the girls back to their
cabins, graciously skirting the lawn in
FOR HOMEKIDS,
A Reunion, It's
front of the administration building,
Grubbs said.
The river is a little lower and a bit
slower now, and the faces have a few
more wrinkles now, but the bonds that
Grubbs - now Gurstle Hartveld -
formed are strong yet today.
"Some of the kids I see more than my
brothers and my sister, unless they
come here," Hartveld, who graduated
from the home in 1943, said.
This weekend's homecoming, the
57th by some reckoning, attracted
alumni from the four corners of the
country. Hartveld made her way from
Ventura, California.
The Junior Home was a vital part of
life in Tiffin, providing a home and a
school to more that 6,000 kids over the
course of its existence. Founded by the
United American Mechanics, the
home - which operated between 1896
and 1944 - was a place where the
children of workers who died could
go and get an education, camaraderie
and a sense of place.
By the account of many who
attended the gathering, the Junior
Home was one of the first in Ohio, if
not the nation, to provide bona fide
vocational training. Boys were taught
printing, woodworking or mechanics,
It's Not Just
Coming Home!
fc^^fc^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^ ^fc ^ ■«
girls were taught nursing,
homemaking and secretarial skills.
In spite of the practicality of the
surroundings, Hartveld said, the kids
still found ways to cut up and have
fun.
"The boys snuck off to the woods
more than we did, but when we did,
we'd swing out over a creek like
Tarzan. It was a lot of fun. There was a
stone quarry that they said was
bottomless, it scared off the girls from
the woods," she said.
According to Jim Voight, one of the
older graduates at this year's reunion
- his was the class of 1932 - the boys
wanted to "skinny dip in the creek,
See Coming Home, page 2
This Issue,
OaobER, 1997 of
The Junior HoMtkid,
is dedicATEcl to
JohN  "RAbbir"
Starrett.
THE JUNIOR HOMEKID
Official publication of the National Association of the former Jr.
O.U.A.M. School, Tiffin, Ohio. Published six times a year at the subscription rate of $10.00 per year.
THE STAFF
EDITH M. KILGORE Business Manager
P. O. Box 286, 403 North Street, Republic, Ohio 44867
SUSIE RAWLS    Managing Editor & Publisher
Route 2, Box 290, Rocky Mount, North Carolina 27801
NORA LEE BARBEE    Subscriptions & Treasurer
4022 South Holden Road, Greensboro, North Carolina 27406
GURSTLE HARTVELD Western Editor
491 South Brent Street, Ventura California 93003
JERRI SEYFORS    Eastern Editor
207 Maynard Avenue, Crestline, Ohio 44827
LULA D. McGRATH    Southern Editor
10411 Takeridge Court, Charlotte, North Carolina 28277
JOE BUCKLEY  Tiffin Editor
9 Ash Street, Tiffin, Ohio 44883
JIM VOIGT Contributing Editor
2932 Ferguson Road, Cincinnati, Ohio 45242
IRBY TODD Contributing Editor
2045 East Bay Drive #608, Largo, Florida 34641
REYNOLD ELKINS Contributing Editor
902 Cottonwood Road, Kettering, Ohio 45419
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