I learned all the skills I would need to make my way through life. If it was your turn to stoke the furnace and the cottage became cold, everyone would be mad at you. I learned to cook, bake, run the boiler, and stoke the coal furnace. All the kids, depending on their age and abilities, were assigned chores, supervised by the housemother. The older kids looked after the younger ones, helped maintain the house, and kept things running smoothly. Four girls’ cottages overlooked the Hudson River and the Palisades, and eight boys’ cottages were inland, where there was a farm with horses, chicken coops, and greenhouses.Įach cottage was like a family. In the center was a playground and the administration building, surrounded by a circular road leading to twelve cottages. Situated on the crest of a hill overlooking the river, the Graham School resembled a college campus, with stately Federal-style brick buildings bordered by fields and farmland. Most people imagine orphanages as cold, harsh, Dickensian institutions. On May 3, 1937, at the determination of a judge, I was committed to the Edwin Gould Foundation for Children “by reason of the insanity of the mother.” Three months later, I was sent to the Graham School, an orphanage in Hastings-on-Hudson, New York. Living on welfare and left alone with a toddler in a Greenwich Village apartment, my mother suffered a nervous breakdown. Two years earlier, my father had abandoned my mother. It was August 1937, and I’d just turned four years old. I’m reaching up, holding somebody’s hand. In my earliest memory, I’m standing in front of the orphanage facing across the Hudson River to the Palisades, looking at a gorgeous sunset. My Turn: Happy Birthday, Eliza Hamilton by Thomas Henry Haines
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