No single account can adequately capture the reality of the Minnesota State Public School for Dependent and Neglected Children, housing more than 10,000 children over a period of 60 years.
Where some suffered, others flourished. Even those that emerged relatively unscathed carried the effects of their institutionalization for years to come.
The Steele County Historical Society's (SCHS) latest community event examined the story of the institution, from its lofty ambitions to its tragic errors, and the evolution of the child welfare system to the present day. The discussion took place Thursday night at the Owatonna Arts Center.
Anne Peterson, manager of the Minnesota State Public School Orphanage Museum, explored the legacy of the orphanage with clinical psychologist Heidi Halla-Bauer and Professor Debra Gohagan.
Halla-Bauer owns Healthy Balance Psychology in Faribault, and Gohagan is the department chair of social work at Minnesota State University, Mankato.
Peterson described the orphanage, which operated from 1886 to 1945, as Minnesota's response to the child saving movement that swept America in the 19th century.
"It sounds really wonderful," she said, more than a hint of suspicion in her voice. In the ensuing discussion, a portrait emerged of a well-intentioned but deeply flawed effort to improve the welfare of children.
Many of the children at the orphanage were not actually orphans. They were often taken from homes wracked by alcoholism or poverty. Contrary to the state's expectations, only 16% of them were adopted, with the rest remaining institutionalized until adulthood or indentured as farm labor to families in the area.
In digging into the children's files with Tim Shea, a volunteer who's become increasingly involved with the museum over the past year, Peterson has found prejudiced comments on the birth parents they were taken from. Shea, in the audience, shared a snippet from a file that simply stated, "both parents are of Irish extraction and bad."
"The people who wrote these had the tact of rattlesnakes," said Shea.
Gohagan touched on the concept of historical trauma, with particular reference to the forced cultural assimilation of Native American children. She said one of the historical failings of the child welfare system has been imposing the same expectations on all people regardless of their cultural background. Peterson noted the late Peter Razor, who was of Finnish and indigenous descent, was sent to the orphanage despite his Native American grandmother volunteering to care for him.
Gohagan called trauma a "trans-generational ghost," noting that someone's adverse childhood experiences can impact their descendants for years to come, almost like a haunting.
Halla-Bauer described how trauma can derail brain development, explaining why many adults fall into harmful patterns that were imposed on them in childhood.
"Our brain develops back to front. Back is everything that’s automatic, front is everything that’s not," she said. "When you develop that sense of attachment, relationship, love, family, that’s the back of your brain. So then by the time the front of your brain develops and you go off to seek a partner, who are you physically attracted to? Someone who repeats the patterns of your childhood despite the very good intentions to not."
Peterson stressed that the orphanage's failings were borne of ignorance rather than malice. The modern field of psychology was still in its infancy while the orphanage was in operation, and child development hadn't been properly studied yet. The staff knew the importance of caring for the children's physical health, but were ill-equipped to provide the nurturing they needed.
While the discussion offered a fairly bleak assessment of the history of the child welfare system, they did note some encouraging developments.
Contrary to the practice at the orphanage, Halla-Bauer said siblings often stay together when adopted or placed in a home today. Gohagan recalled fighting for custody of her niece when she was placed in the foster system in the '90s, but said case managers are better about placing kids with family members today. She also pointed to collaborative safety, a model which mobilizes community members to support a struggling family rather than removing children from the home.
"I am proud to be a child welfare worker, social worker, in today’s current environment. It is shifting significantly, what we call a paradigm shift in the academic world," said Gohagan.
Audience member Jamie Vanoosbree shared the extensive requirements she had to meet in order to serve as a foster parent in recent years.
"I think that it’s changed quite a bit, because I also used to work parallel to social services," she said.
Asked if the system has finally addressed its flaws, Halla-Bauer expressed doubt.
"I think it’s going to be a journey forever. It’s just going to be a constant evolving system," she said.
She and Gohagan noted the lack of diversity in the field. While praising Minnesota for providing mental health resources for children, they noted many states, particularly in the Deep South, do not.
SCHS Executive Director Jennifer Thiele had a number of questions for the experts during the Q and A session. She told the People's Press she's especially passionate about the topic as she wrote her thesis on the Orphan Train Movement and she's the descendent of some of those orphan train riders.
"I was really enthusiastic to get two experts into this institution and be able to actually provide their own professional evaluations, because they have those modern backgrounds, they have that education. As they mentioned tonight, the people then did not have that. They were doing what they felt was the right thing at that time," said Thiele.
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