XENIA, Ohio — From 1869 to the mid-1990s, a unique home gave a lifeline to nearly 14,000 Ohio children who had a parent serving our country.
In the early years after the Civil War, the Ohio Soldiers and Sailors’ Orphans’ Home was established in Xenia, Ohio.
It was a home for children who had lost their father.
Eventually, the state opened it up to all children of Ohio veterans who were either orphaned or whose family could no longer take care of them.
Over time, the campus grew to hundreds of acres and the name changed to the Ohio Veterans’ Children’s Home. Children could live on campus until they graduated at 18.
The sprawling community had dorms, sports fields, schools, an armory, farms, and a chapel. Anything they needed, they could find it at the facility.
By the late 90s, it was sold to Legacy Ministries.
Now all that is left is one building, over a century of memories, and a group of ex-pupils who are working to keep their history alive.
“This is the representation of our home and all that it entails,” said Bob Gilbert with the Association of Ex-Pupils.
The building might be small, but for Gilbert, it holds a big piece of his heart.
“This was a sanctuary for me because of the situation that I was in and I consider it more than anything else, my home,” he said.
Gilbert came to the Ohio Veterans’ Children’s Home when he was 18.
“My father was a Navy veteran. My mother unfortunately had passed, so with a short period of time we tried to live with him, it didn’t work,” he said.
Gilbert now lives in Orlando, Florida but tries to fly up to Xenia, Ohio once a month to visit with other members of the Association of Ex-Pupils who also called the facility “The Home”.
They’re proud of their museum and in every corner, you’ll find memories and artifacts.
“Everybody had the green bedspreads, each child had their own toy box to keep their toys in,” said ex-pupil Janice Daulbaugh Gouch.
The museum paints a picture of what life was like. Their stories of why they came also sometimes paint a picture of a time and place in our country for children of veterans.
“My mom had a bunch of mental problems. She left home, and she left my dad with five kids. He couldn’t do that and work and everything. He was a veteran, and he applied for the home and we got to come to the home,” said ex-pupil Dave Clark.
“My mom, there were four of us. She had postpartum depression and was put in a mental hospital and my dad took off,” said Daulbaugh Gouch.
“There were six of us. Three girls and three boys who came to the home. At that time, my mom passed away and my dad passed away,” said ex-pupil Jim Baas.
Being a child of an Ohio veteran united everyone.
They had a chance to succeed and to grow.
“I had visions at the time of being an electrical engineer, I ended up being a civil engineer, but what the heck. It was still a skill that you could use,” said Gilbert.
“We did these as students at the home and then my first job out of the home was running a switchboard,” said Daulbaugh Gouch.
The Home gave each student a skill, a purpose, and a future after graduation.
Many even ended up dating and marrying.
“I’ve known her since she was 4 years old. There’s not too many things she can do that I don’t know about,” said Clark while talking about his wife.
The group says there are about 700 ex-pupils alive today and 150 still active in their organization.
“Eventually we’re going to be able to search by name,” Clark said.
They’ve started an online database to help preserve their history.
Through the database, books and yearly events, the group hopes their legacy can live on.
“It’s all my memories until the day I graduated in 1969, so it covers 13 years,” said Daulbaugh Gouch as she turned pages in her book.
“The legacy of this place cannot be left behind and people need to understand it, appreciate it, and celebrate it,” Gilbert said.
The Association of Ex-Pupils hosts three major events each year to raise funds and preserve their legacy.
Each year, they look forward to a Christmas dinner, a special service for Memorial Day, and a Summer Reunion.
