I've been wanting to research about this particular place for a long time. I wondered why the name "Rainbow House" is so special. Who was behind the name? What exactly was the "Rainbow House?"
Gwynedd Home for Convalescent Children
The charity home began renovations on the former Benjamin F. Lewis property. Benjamin Franklin Lewis (1842-1914) was a lifelong resident of Gwynedd who ran a poultry business and was one of the organizers of the Church of Messiah. Little was known about his family, but according to the 1850 census data, he was the oldest of four children to Andrew and Amanda Lewis.
In 1902, Benjamin sold his home the same year the Gwynedd Home for Convalescent Children began renovations. The people involved in the project were Francis E. Bond and his wife Margaret, Henry Pratt McKean and his wife Miriam, and Henry McKean Ingersoll.
NOTE: The definition of "convalescent," stated from Merriam-Webster, someone who is "recovering from sickness or debility; partially restored to health or strength."
After purchasing the former Lewis property, they began tearing down the entire rear of the old home along with other frame buildings. The first floor was where the large dining and reception rooms were while the second floor were used as the sleeping rooms for the children. They also provided outdoor space for the children to walk around as well as wholesome food cooked and nurses to aid the sickly children.
"While taking a girl of seven years from the station to her home one day last summer, I questioned her about what she had done while away. She had been to the Gwynedd Home for Convalescent Children, one of these model institutions that country is blessed with. She told me the good things she had to eat, of the flowers they picked and the games they played, and then, drawing her little figure up, in a proud way, she added, 'And they made us brush our teeth every morning and night,' and quick as a flash she drew from a newspaper package a bristling object, exclaiming, 'See, they gave me a toothbrush all of my own to take home.' The passengers on the car laughed, never dreaming of the untold good the little toothbrush was to do."
- Mabel Jacques, Visiting Nurse
Mabel Jacques visited the little girl's home one year later, and noticed the little girl still had the same toothbrush she was given. After realizing that all of her family members had toothbrushes, she realized whoever gave the little girl's family toothbrushes impacted the family's health, preventing them from having dirty mouths and teeth.
Maud Ballington Booth
Maud Ballington Booth was born in an Anglican family in Limpsfield, England. After moving to London, Maud met with the Salvation Army, founded by her future in-laws William and Catharine Booth. She recorded her experience meeting and seeing them in her writing, Beneath Two Flags. She was inspired by their crusade that she hoped some day she'll join the Army.
Fun Fact #1: The Salvation Army was primarily known as the Christian Mission. They were persecuted and prosecuted for converting people on the streets. Queen Victoria was not as friendly towards the Salvation Army as her eldest son Edward VII. He even invited William Booth to his coronation in 1902.
The Salvationists were successful in their mission to convert people into Christianity and help the poor.
"... the activities of the Salvation crusading have been and still are these: the rescue of unfortunate women who are housed and cared for in Army 'rescue homes'; the regular visitation, not to say invasion, of the worst haunts of vice and sin, of drinking places and crowded tenements; the furnishing of coal, clothing, food, shelter, and lodging to all who need them; the caring for children; the visiting of prisons and hospitals; the providing of Christmas and Thanksgiving dinners; and the finding of employment either inside of the Army out of it for those having none."
- R.V. Trevel, 226-227
After Maud's marriage to General William's second son Ballington, the two decided to join the effort, and sailed to the United States to take charge of the organization. In conflict with the Salvation Army leaders and his brother Bramwell, Ballington and Maud resigned from the organization, and became US citizens in 1895. The couple then co-founded the Volunteers of America. It was headquartered on 34 West 28th Street in New York.
Fun Fact #2: In 1919, Ballington was a guest speaker at the Mount Pleasant Baptist Church.
Before quitting the Salvation Army, Maud became interested in prison work from her trip to the San Quentin Penitentiary in California. After visiting the US Penitentiary in Leavenworth, Kansas, the warden commended her work for showing a spirit of loyalty, cheerfulness, and obedience that impacted the conditions of the prison. She has known that society, government, and law may be the cause of the prisoners' downfall, but thought that reformation was needed.
Fun Fact #3: She was nicknamed "Little Mother" by prisoners she visited.
Rainbow House: Home For Prisoners' Wives & Children
As the leader of the Volunteer Prison League, Maud created "Hope Halls" where prisoners were sent there after their release from prison to regain their old selves. She even allowed the men to join the Volunteer Prison League. The first "Hope Halls" was in New York, then it spread to Illinois, Ohio, and Iowa. But, she never tells anyone where those places were since it would be impolite to the "boys" as she called them.
"They are large houses in the country, with farm land around them, and in them the late prisoners live pleasantly and in comfort, working lightly but with ample time for reading and letter writing and companionship... But the Hope Halls are not all, either. Many prisoners have families they leave in want, and the V.P.L. workers look after numbers of these where they live; but some of them, wives, mothers, children, and old fathers, have nowhere to live, and so Mrs. Booth has built another hall for them. She will not whisper where it is to ordinary sinners, but its name is 'Rainbow House,' and it must have the brightest rooms, for it has many windows."
- R.V. Trevel, 255
The Rainbow House in Gwynedd was established in 1911 after succeeding the Gwynedd Home for Convalescent Children. It housed 75 boys and girls and 50 mothers.
At the Rainbow Home in Gwynedd, when the children are grown up, they were sent to the Sabbath School at the Church of the Messiah. Surrounding the home there was a garden, fruit, poultry yard and a playground with seesaws and swings to play on. While the children played and learned, the mothers assisted in the domestic operations.
There was a separate building for mothers used as a club house where they sew and converse to forget the troubles they faced.
Impact
Maud had helped over 85,000 men who served in prison with the impact of her Hope Halls, and the Rainbow Homes for the wives and children of the former prisoners.
When a fire broke out at a prison chapel in Joliet, Illinois, two brave prisoners broke through the burning chapel to save a portrait of Maud Ballington Booth.
38 states petitioned President Woodrow Wilson to appoint her the American delegate to the world's prison congress. The governors of Michigan and Mississippi talked greatly of Mrs. Booth through testimonials:
"To my mind Mrs. Ballington Booth is one of the most remarkable women in the world. I am weighing my words when I say this. If there is any other woman in the world who has done more for sane prison reform, I should like very much to know who she is. If any man has done greater work along these lines, I should like to know his name."
- Woodbridge N. Ferris, Governor of Michigan
"It is unnecessary for me to call attention to the work done by this noble woman in the prisons and reformatories and among the fallen of our land. I think she is eminently qualified to represent our great country."
- Earl Brewer, Governor of Mississippi
Bibliography
"A Deserving Charity." Ambler Gazette. May 25, 1905. Page 1. http://digitalcollections.powerlibrary.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/wivp-gazett/id/1694/rec/1.
American Medicine 5, no. 1 (1903): 603.
Foster, Warren Dunham. Heroines of Modern Religion. (New York: Sturgis & Walton Company, 1913): 222-257.
"Gwynedd Home Is Commenced." Ambler Gazette. September 25, 1902. Page 1. http://digitalcollections.powerlibrary.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/wivp-gazett/id/3045/rec/1.
"Home for Convicts' Children." Ambler Gazette. October 19, 1911. Page 6. http://digitalcollections.powerlibrary.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/wivp-gazett/id/6969/rec/61.
"Maud Ballington Booth (1865-1948)." fineartamerica. Last modified August 23, 2016. https://fineartamerica.com/featured/1-maud-ballington-booth-1865-1948-granger.html.
Maud Ballington Booth: the "Little Mother" of the prisons, 1920/1929. Redpath Chautauqua Collection, The University of Iowa Archives and Special Collections, The University of Iowa. https://digital.lib.uiowa.edu/islandora/object/ui%3Atc_14826_14820.
Mueller, A. H. Atlas of the North Penn Section of Montgomery County, Pa., Plate 29, 1916.
New York Charities Directory. (New York: Charity Organization Society, 1912): 293.
"Obituary. Benjamin F. Lewis." Ambler Gazette. July 2, 1914. Page 1. http://digitalcollections.powerlibrary.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/wivp-gazett/id/6533/rec/1.
Philadelphia Real Estate Record and Builders' Guide, v. 17 , n. 1 (1902): 329, 599, 805.
"The 1907 Volunteers of America Bldg -- No. 34 West 28th Street." Daytonian in Manhattan (blog). February 15, 2014. http://daytoninmanhattan.blogspot.com/2014/02/the-1907-volunteers-of-america-bldg-no.html.
The American Journal of Nursing, Volume 10. (Philadelphia: J.B. Lippincott Company, 1910): 194-195.
The Journal of Prison Discipline and Philanthropy. (Philadelphia: Pennsylvania Prison Society, 1914): 6.
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