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Archiver > NJHUNTER > 2001-05 > 0991334384


From: "Jacqueline Lubinski" <>
Subject: RE: [NJHUNTER] Misc. Information
Date: Thu, 31 May 2001 14:42:49 -0400
In-Reply-To: <5.0.0.25.2.20010531044804.04b88bd0@uclink4.berkeley.edu>


In regards to the articles in the White House Review, two references were
interesting:

>Wm. C. Fort, of Trenton, a representative of the New Jersey Children's Home
Society, has been a guest of Mr. and Mrs. Lewis Lance, of New
Germantown. He spoke in the Lutheran church on the objects of the
organization and also in Barnet Hall.<

>Those who have donations of fruits or jellies for the Children's Home
Society of Trenton are requested to take them to the home of Miss Caroline
Melick, where they will be packed for the Home.<


My father James Harry Wells of South Bound Brook, NJ was sent to the
Children's Home Society, a Presbyterian Orphanage in Trenton, NJ at the age
of 7 with his older sister and brother after the death of his parents Harry
James Wells and Anna Coral Durling. Anna died in 1914 and Harry in 1916 and
the three siblings were taken care of by their grandfather William Henry
Durling until December 1917 at which time he relinquished all custody of
them to the Society. My father lived on and off at the orphanage for two
years until finally getting a permanent home with Eli and Carrie Dow and
their daughter Alice and her husband Roy Bleasdale in Bridgewater. He was
never adopted, just fostered out, so in 1999 I was able to obtain his
records from the Society which is still operating in Trenton. They moved in
late 1999 from the original location, however I was able to take pictures of
the orphanage building before the move to have a visual record of where my
father was sent. If anyone has a parent who was orphaned and sent there as
a child, their records can be obtained as long as they were not adopted. You
have to show proof that you are their child and that they have deceased, or
if they are still alive they can request the records themselves. The records
that I obtained filled in many questions that I had on my father's early
life and gave me new insight on what he experienced. They ceased operating
as an actual orphanage in the 20's to concentrate on foster care which is
what they still do.

Jacqueline Wells Lubinski





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