DUBUQUE, Iowa — Little hands once played with the rusted metal toys on a desk at Mount Pleasant Home. The faded red roadster, tiny battleship and vintage car likely belonged to orphans who lived at the former orphanage long ago.
The precious artifacts were unearthed in the front yard of the complex, where records indicate the children's playground once was. The home's board of directors is putting together historical displays for a public open house in September. Doug Cheever is combing through old record books, amassing fascinating details from the home's 138-year history.
When Cheever learned about the long-forgotten playground, he asked a friend to use his metal detector and scan the area to see what he could find. The cars, boat and pieces of other metal toys were unearthed in various locations.
Over the two decades he has guided the home, Keith Kettler has discovered other interesting artifacts, including a Western-themed, silver metal toy pistol he found under a loose floorboard in the attic. All the items will be on display at the open house.
Outside the original Mount Pleasant Home building, which has had five major additions, Kettler pointed to scores of initials carved into the soft brick walls — C.W. and John L. and G.D.B.
"Since they are at the level of children's eyes, we assume they were carved by the orphans," Kettler said. "All of them, at least the boys, had pocket-knives."
The board is trying to put a face on the hundreds of orphans who lived at what was called the Iowa Home for the Friendless from its founding in 1874 until 1911. Before it was a children's home, the complex housed poor women, with or without children, and orphans. The residents were listed coldly as "inmates" in the 1910 census, Kettler said. Cheever has found records indicating the home is the oldest, non-denominational charitable institution in Iowa.
The children at the home were not all without parents. Admission rolls list "Lizzie," an 18-month-old toddler whose mother "stole her away" in 1882, and many other instances of formerly missing parents showing up and laying claim to their children. One baby left in a basket on the doorstep died in a few days. Seven-year-old Ben Brooks, a true orphan, was indentured out in 1879 to an Oceola, Iowa, farm family who promised to give him two changes of clothes and $100.
"We're struggling with what to do with the private, personal information in some of these records," Cheever said, pointing to a record book entry about a girl who was sent to the home in 1934 by a judge after her mother "deserted" her and her father "abandoned" her.
In 1960, Mount Pleasant Home ceased being an orphanage and began housing low-income or otherwise vulnerable "senior women."
Men were first admitted in 1987.
A board of 25 members runs the complex, which provides simple but cozy rooms, daily meals, social activities, laundry and housekeeping services for up to 40 residents in a Victorian-era mansion on five scenic, tree-lined acres west of Loras College.
"We are affordable and a real home for people with few living options," Cheever said, adding that the home provides friendship and safety for folks who are independent yet fragile in some way.
Board President Robin O'Connor feels a strong connection at Mount Pleasant Home between the orphans of yore and the seniors of now.
"I do think about those children and how this place provided them with the same safety net that we offer now," she said. "They were protected, well fed and had a place to call home."