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THE FIRST CHILDREN'S HOME
By Mrs. Mary E. Buyer
CHAPTER XXVII
NOTABLE ORGANIZATIONS
To the residents of our beautiful city the memories of 1849 have ever
been those of a time of terrible sorrow, desolation and death, when
hundreds of our citizens Avere swept from the earth almost without Avarning
by that dread disease cholera, Avhen many fled to save themselves,
almost without a thought of those left behind, when ties of blood and
friendship Avere broken in the mad race for life, and many who thought
themselves a necessity to the happiness of others realized their mistake
when stranger hands, guided by charitable hearts, cared for their stricken
bodies, Avrapped their dead in Avinding sheets and gave them Christian
burial.
Noble Sandusky men and Avomen of 1849, one-half of whose charity
has never been told and which God alone can ever repay.
The one great charity of which the Avriter of this sketch has never
heard mention in later years, and in which all ought to feel an interest,
was the home provided for hundreds of children bereft of their natural
protectors, Avithout the necessaries of life or means to prepare them;
families of little ones Avaiting in vain for mothers to attend to their
daily Avants, Avatching for fathers who returned no more.
Their cry for help pierced the hearts and rousedfrom their apathy
our stricken people, and noble men and women responded with hearts
filled with love and sympathy for God's little ones. Father Machebeuf,
first pastor of Holy Angels' Church, afterwards bishop of Denver, Colorado,
lost no time Avaiting for someone else to move in the matter, asked
for and secured the use of a large, roomy, old homestead, still in a state
of good preservation, lying southwest of Holy Angels' Church, then occupied
by Doctor Akin, who opened wide its doors, reserving the use of
only one room in Avhich to store his books and personal effects. Soon
beds and bedding, children's clotiiing of every kind and size were provided,
food sent from our neighboring cities, Cleveland, Buffalo, and
through the agency of Father Machebeuf a motherly French lady named
Catherine Bissonette, from La Prairie, Sandusky County, gladly answered
the summons to become matron of our first children's home, a home
indeed for the little ones sadly in need of a mother's care.
It is needless to say there was no distinction of creed or color, and
well did this noble matron, assisted by many generous-hearted Sandusky
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