A Secret Life_ The Lies and Scandals of President Grover Cleveland - Charles Lachman [42]
It took her just a few days to realize what an error in judgment she had made. Desperately lonely, she buckled under the weight of her guilt. She also probably realized that Cleveland and Burrows had manipulated her into surrendering her legal rights as Oscar’s mother. Maria returned to Buffalo and set about the task of recovering her son.
At age two and a half, Oscar Folsom Cleveland, the biological son of a future American president, found himself unwanted by his father, and, for the time being at least, dumped by his mother at the Buffalo Orphan Asylum. It stood at 403 Virginia Street, a two-story brick building with adjoining wings and an attic. It was lit by gas, heated by steam, and administered by a board of trustees of important Buffalo citizens like Roswell Burrows, who were drawn from the city’s leading Protestant churches, even though most of the orphans were Catholic.
On his first day at the asylum, Oscar was given a bath and thoroughly cleaned with soap and hot water. As a precaution against lice, his hair was almost certainly cut short, and his clothes were probably consigned to the flames, as was routine procedure. Oscar was in better physical condition than the other woebegotten orphans, many of whom arrived there in a state of such filth due to exposure and neglect that it was sometimes hard to tell what color their hair was. Oscar was issued a uniform, numbered and tagged with his name, which would be replaced only when it was deemed to be “past repair.”
Breakfast was oatmeal with cream and sugar, and bread and butter on the side. Dinner, on alternate days, was roast beef with brown gravy, potatoes, beet pickles, bread, syrup, and milk. The fruits offered—apples, pears, plums, and berries, almost always stewed—depended on the season and were grown on the asylum grounds. For a charitable institution, the diet at the Buffalo Orphan Asylum was generous and nutritious.
There were 139 orphans living at the asylum when Oscar arrived. The average age was about eight, and the oldest was twelve. As one of the youngest “tots,” Oscar was awakened at 6:30 a.m. Nap time was from 10:00 a.m. until noon. The older children pitched in with housekeeping, and everyone was expected to make his or her bed. The ceilings in the orphanage were low, and the beds were set close together, but at least the sheets were neat and snowy white. The older orphans were required to attend Public School No. 14 next door, but they were also taught a trade. The girls learned to sew and knit and make patchwork, darn stockings, and mend clothes. The boys were trained to sew buttons and weave rag carpets, for which they were paid a penny a pound.
Discipline was sometimes enforced with a spanking. “I seldom ever have to punish a child,” the superintendent of the asylum once informed a state inspector. “When I do, it is by spanking with the hand or by using a switch. I never put a child in a dark room. Some simple and not hurtful means of correction is usually resorted to, like making a child go to bed out of its regular hours.”
Towels in the bathroom were communal—there were not enough of them to supply every child with one. Hairbrushes also had to be shared, but each girl had her own comb. There were four tubs in the bathing room in open view, affording no privacy. Once a week, the older children had to take a bath and on that occasion were issued clean underwear and socks. The tots were bathed more frequently, when required by necessity.
At the first symptom of an infectious disease or an epidemic, aggressive steps were taken. The orphan in question was immediately isolated; special attention was paid to cases of conjunctivitis. The year Oscar was there was abnormally lethal. Five children who were confined to the sickroom lay at the “point of death,