1918: Babies’ Camps in Lafayette Park

 

In 1906, Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle. It exposed all sorts of misdeeds in Chicago’s meat packing business, and led in a straight line to passage of that year’s Pure Food And Drug Act. The work of reformers like Jacob Riis in New York City and Jane Addams in Chicago created awareness of the tenements and factories of booming and often squalid urban environments.

American women usher in a new era

This era also marked a strong beginning for the creation and empowerment of what could be called a middle class. Women in particular found their voice and more than enough work to do. They organized for the right to vote, culminating in passage of the 19th Amendment in 1920. Women were exceptionally active in forming clubs and working through religious institutions. They successfully pushed for a prohibition on alcohol, and better treatment of children. They also had fun, and women like movie stars Clara Bow began setting more relaxed fashion and living trends, beginning a looser era known as the “roaring 20’s”.  

Fannie was a great example of a progressive woman in St Louis – traditional while firmly engaged and active in social reform. Her focus was on the Christian treatment of indigent mothers and babies in the city. This would become a lifelong passion of hers, fortified by her non-sectarian religious views. 

Mrs. Ayars gets to work

In addition to a knack for organization, Fannie was a woman of some means and in 1900 dedicated the Mothers And Babies Home, at 3047 North Taylor. It was non-denominational and unsupported by an endowment. Not a worry, as Fannie could easily mobilize others to support her cause. She generated many schemes to raise funds for the Home.  In 1910, Fannie convinced Mayor Beall of Alton Illinois to chair a judging group for three benefit baby shows at a Mothers And Babies County Fair in University City. Among other diversions, the event featured a three-ring circus. Mayor Beall even brought three babies from Alton to compete with St Louis’s finest. 

In 1910, society girls volunteered to sell peanuts at the County Fair in support of the home. The volume of sales each girl generated was predicted to be proportional to her general loveliness, so a spirited competition must have followed.  

The St. Louis Star And Times took notice and in May 1911 posted a tribute to Fannie. It wrote, “No life is more inspiring in its manifold interests and usefulness than that of Mrs. F. R. Ayars.” It described in detail her “actual sacrifices made,” summarizing that she “in every way fosters and upholds the institution which stands for so much in the community.”

The Mothers and Babies Home became a popular local cause, drawing the sympathies and support of the community. Many wanted to play a role in helping the waifs and unfortunate mothers. Fannie was particularly gifted at tapping the charms of a pretty girl seeking generosity from businessmen downtown.

In U City, a powerful advocate for women

Magazine magnate Edward Gardner Lewis was a women’s advocate and the farsighted father of University City. He sponsored county fairs that provided yearly funds to the Mothers And Babies Home.

In the foreground of what was then the Ladies Magazine Building (now City Hall), society women sold items to raise money. The relationship between Lewis and Ayars was so successful that the Home took up permanent residence in the former Park Hotel on Washington Avenue in University City.

By May of 1914, the Home, over its fifteen year history, cared for over 3,500 children. In 1913 alone, it placed 41 children in foster homes. Fannie devised a thorough screening process to ensure that adopted children found appropriate homes. The organization now known as the Christian Women’s Natural Benevolent Association stipulated that potential foster parents must “satisfy the officers that they are responsible socially, morally and physically. They had to provide five references: from a minister, physician, banker, and two citizens of the city.”

A new idea brought on by the summer heat

Fannie realized several key things about St. Louis in the summer: it’s hot, humid and hard to escape without the means to do so. Her heart went out to the poor in the sweltering brick city, with the stress of climate added to their plate of daily misfortune. 

In June of 1914, Fannie Ayars learned of a program in New York City to provide milk and free ice to needy mothers during the summer. She began demanding a similar program for St. Louis. By the end of that month, distribution of pure milk and free ice began downtown.  

Dr. Saunders of Lafayette Square steps in

Eager to give something to charity in return for his own good fortune, Richard Scruggs, of the Scruggs, Vandervoort and Barney stores gave Saunders $100,000. This windfall funded“Bethesda General Hospital, and homes for children, for indigent mothers, for cure of the aged, and incurables.” Dr. Saunders was also Chairman of Child Hygiene for the City of St. Louis. When he made public pronouncements regarding health policy, the community usually followed. In 1914, he advocated for Fannie Ayar’s milk and ice program, but went further, stating that the city needed “space provided at every park as sleeping places for babies and mothers whose homes are death traps in the torrid spells.” The Post Dispatch rejoiced that St. Louis “may then claim that no city does more for its infant population.” The city and womens’ clubs immediately set to work.  

The first choice was Forest Park, then ruled out as the (still uncovered at the time) River DesPeres had “an ill odor in the early morning hours.”

Lafayette Park – a haven from the heat

In July of 1914, 24 tents went up in the park, and a program began.

The St Louis Council of Mothers’ Clubs of the Mothers Congress initiated this camp. The facility provided mosquito netting, milk, cots and blankets. Mayor Kiel and other local luminaries spoke at the dedication. 

Nineteen mothers and babies stayed the first night. A nurse and physician were on duty, examining each infant on arrival for communicable disease and general health. The camp had a stove, an icebox and police protection all night. St Louis had done it right. 

On July 18th, the Mothers Camp withstood its first inclement weather. “Wind howled, rain poured, and tent flaps were let down on all sides.” Two police patrolmen worked through the night holding the tents down in the storm.

By the end of August, the camp in Lafayette Square had played host to 885 mothers and small children from the “tenement districts.”

The camp enters its second season

In 1915, Mothers and Babies Button Day raised $3,800 for the Home on North Taylor. This enabled it to start another camp on the Home grounds. Meanwhile, all night camp was again set up in Lafayette Park, by the Congress of Mothers and Parent Teachers Association of St. Louis. Appropriately, it was under the direction of one Mrs. Charles Comfort. There were fundraisers for this effort as well. In April, the Top Notch Minstrels gave two performances at the Odeon theater for the benefit of the free sleeping camp.

1915 featured a scorching late summer. The Polar Wave Ice and Fuel Company stepped up to provide free ice for homes of poor mothers with babies. H.C. Burmeister, sales manager, said Polar Wave supplied, through churches, charities and visiting nurses, fifteen pounds of ice to each of 250 families daily during July.

At Lafayette Park a large tent was erected on the Park Avenue side near Mississippi Avenue. It held 80 cots for mothers and their babies of less than three years of age. Another site appeared that summer in Jackson Park, at 11th and Market Street. 

A good idea takes root and spreads

That same year, a new group, The Women’s  Auxiliary Of The Provident Association opened a summer health camp for sick mothers and babies. It promised good food and fresh air for two weeks at a house near Boyd, Missouri. This camp provided services rent-free, and could accommodate 30 mothers and their children. Transportation, cots, mattresses, and dishes were provided, and a trained nurse was on duty. The National Congress Of Mothers again arranged for use of Lafayette Park and Jackson Park. Invitations went out to mothers to “spend periods during hot weather and relieve the strain of sultry weather in congested areas.”

Having girls and young ladies sell things in offices and on the streets was an early example of a successful concept going viral. Others quickly followed the same approach, and direct fundraising grew to become an unregulated nuisance. There is some inescapable appeal to this – the Girl Scouts today sell 200 million boxes of cookies per year with a door to door smile. On June 5th 1917, a grumpy city council ruled against the selling of buttons on Button Day in St. Louis, after six years of allowing it. Fannie Ayars complained to the Star and Times that her organization cleared between $2,000-$5,000 on Button Day, which provided its principal means of support. Moreover, the ruling stuck them with an inventory of 45,000 unsold buttons.

By early 1918, the Mothers and Babies Home was comfortably lodged in University City at 6600 Washington Avenue, the former Park Hotel. It had cared for more than 7,000 homeless mothers and babies over the preceding 19 years. In April of that year, Fannie Ayars opened 100 thrift gardens on the  property, given to orphan children at the home. Each 25 by 10 foot plot was assigned to a child in the home who was old enough to tend it. Another group, the St. Louis Provident Association began a children’s camp in Kimmswick, Missouri. The Mothers and Babies Camp in Lafayette Park reopened in August and ran through September. 

A history of poor sanitation and epidemics

Awareness of the importance of public health came around slowly in the U.S., generally as a response to infectious catastrophes. St. Louis was no stranger to septic crises, dealing with periodic summer waves of cholera from its poor sanitation. The city had no sewers in the 1840s, and the build up of sewage led city engineer Henry Kayser to divert wastewater into limestone caves beneath St. Louis. It leaked into ground water and wells, and by 1849, a full blown cholera epidemic resulted, costing the city one life out of every eleven.

Similar waves of smallpox, yellow fever and cholera killed people and spread fear and even panic through urban America during the 19th century. Congress eventually (1902) voted funds for a Public Health And Marine Hospital Service (as the main means of international transmission was via the sea). This later (1912) became today’s Public Health Service. The Pure Food And Drug Act passed in 1906 and eventually became part of the New Deal era Federal Security Agency. 

A terrible reminder of what happens to people in close quarters with poor sanitation followed on the heels of World War I. Soldiers and refugees returning home quickly and globally spread what became known as the Spanish Flu. It ended up killing somewhere between 20 to 50 million people, and afflicted an estimated 33% of the world’s population. 675,000 Americans died from effects of the flu, more than five times the fatalities America had suffered during the  war. 

This generated a profound sensitivity to outbreaks, and informs what happened next with Fannie Ayars and her Mothers and Babies Home in University City.

Public opinion turns against Mrs. Ayars

From August to November of 1918, a wave of diphtheria swept through the Home, killing 27 of its 127 children residents. The home was placed under quarantine, but there were reports of the facility ignoring its isolation. A review by St. Louis Childrens Hospital determined that many of the children at the home were undernourished. Fannie Ayars claimed that keeping a suitable medical staff was impossible due to the war having depleting nurses and doctors. She admitted that the children had little meat and no eggs (claiming that at $0.92 per dozen, they were out of the question), but asserted that they had abundant homegrown vegetables. 

Local sentiment quickly turned against the home, quarantined in October, and cited with violations of University City health regulations. Complying with the city’s stipulations for reopening was complicated. They demanded the repainting of all exterior and interior walls, and that all furniture and bedding be replaced withnew arrangements made for isolation cases. Mrs. Ayars estimated the cost to be upwards of $50,000.

Deserting a sinking ship, the Central Council For Social Agencies withdrew the home’s certification, which doomed charitable contributions. Without Button Day revenues, there was neither funding to comply, nor to move. A citizens committee recommended closure of the facility. Fannie bitterly complained that escalating land values were causing city leaders to force the home out, in order to free up more land for development. She also claimed that upscale neighbors objected to their children playing and attending schools with those from the home. 

Adapting until the end

In late November, 1919, the Mothers and Babies Home transferred its children to a new institution across the river in Albion, Illinois. It had capacity to house 100 children. Ayars kept 6600 Washington Avenue and turned it into a home for care of the aged. By September, Fannie also began a small home for mothers and babies in Ferguson Missouri. 

Although Fannie had no biological children, she adopted four daughters, and was survived by her physician husband. Treston Reed Ayars lived and worked until 1961, seeing her legacy through with the development of Christian Hospital of St. Louis. It grew to become a 134 bed hospital with a yearly budget of $600,000 by 1953. It was still overseen by Ayar’s Christian Women’s Benevolent Association, led by Fannie until her death. The hospital eventually merged into the BJC Health system, and still operates today. 

Epilogue

All in all, a pretty good legacy to go out on, and it certainly took in a sweep of early 20th century history. Fannie is worthy of admiration in a number of ways; maybe most so because she never made a penny doing what she did. Like Lafayette Square’s Dr. Saunders, she poured all she had into her work. Like Saunders, she never did much in terms of recreation, not because she wasn’t into fun, but simply because there was so much to be done.  

The outdoor summer tent camps continued until at least the summer of 1921. Eventually, care of the indigent and heat-stricken was institutionalized by the government, and folded into much larger programs during the Great Depression. It’s interesting to consider the lives a city park leads, and the potentials it holds under a cool leafy cover. Next time you stroll through Lafayette Park, try imagining a row of tents, with their inhabitants getting a cooking demonstration, like this article from 1917 highlights:

Thanks To Research Sources, including:

US National Library Of Medicine; https://www.nlm.nih.gov/exhibition/phs_history/intro.html for short history of the US Public Health Service

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-I/1918-flu-pandemic for history of the post war global flu

Tim O’Neil July 18 2010 Post Dispatch article; https://www.stltoday.com/news/local/metro/a-look-back-cholera-epidemic-hit-a-peak-here-in/article_f50b669f-a4c8-595b-bc6a-d3d9833ffc14.html for some local epidemiology

Various St Louis Post Dispatch and St Louis Star Times Articles

A nice history of Children’s Hospital on its 50th anniversary appeared in the June 8 1953 issue of Everyday Magazine by the St Louis Post Dispatch

Drawing of Forest Park tent camp in 1920 by Marguerite Martyn

A couple of works, now in the public domain actually affected the course of the Progressive Era. They are:

How The Other Half Lives; Jacob Riis; 1890

The Jungle; Upton Sinclair; 1904