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Don Boyd | all galleries >> Memories of Old Hialeah, Old Miami and Old South Florida Photo Galleries - largest non-Facebook collection on the internet >> Miami Area SCHOOLS, Classes, Teams, Bands, and Clubs Historical Photos Gallery - All Years - click on image to view > 1935 - the boys dormitory under construction at the Kendall Home for Children (aka Dade County Children's Home)
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1935 Florida State Archives

1935 - the boys dormitory under construction at the Kendall Home for Children (aka Dade County Children's Home)

Kendall, Florida


From the state archives description: "Corporate subject: United States. Federal Emergency Relief Administration. Corporate subject: Dade County Children's Home. Subject term: Federal aid to community development--Florida--Miami. Subject term: Group homes for children. Geographic term: Kendall (Fla.)--Buildings, structures, etc."

NOTE to victims of child abuse: I'm very sorry to read the comments from people regarding the horrible child abuse that occurred at this facility for many years. Who knows how many are out there who didn't want to post anything on this site? According to a source who sent me an e-mail, prior to 1964 the Kendall Children's Home was run by an order of Catholic Brothers. Dade County operated it from some point in 1964 onward and unfortunately they enjoy a sovereign immunity cap that limits or totally restricts lawsuits for child abuse. For child abuse cases prior to 1964 the state of Florida has repealed the statute of limitations on Catholic Church abuses. If you were abused at the Kendall Children's Home prior to 1964 you can seek legal counsel of your choice or this lawyer at a law practice that handles such cases:

Jennifer Arbour
Herman, Mermelstein & Horowitz
"Sex Abuse & Clergy Abuse Lawyers in Miami, Florida - Representing Victims Nationwide"
North Miami, Florida
305-932-8734

My source says: "By Florida law, this firm can not contact the people who have posted on this website, but I can pass their contact info along. I thought if you could pass it along to those men who posted after me...this might help them AND could get them some kind of restitution and/or no cost therapy (that's what the Church has offered to other victims). If things happened post-1964, then they're out of luck like me. But at least pre-1964, SOMEBODY could be held accountable for what went on there!"


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Frank 01-Mar-2019 05:14
Remembering more names:

Houseparents: Mr. and Mrs. Hess, Mr. and Mrs. Glover. Mrs. Hess was much younger than her husband and I think Filipina. I always wondered if she was a mail-order bride. Mr. Glover was missing fingers from one hand from an industrial accident when he was younger.

I remember a lot more of the boys names, too, but I'm having second thoughts about naming them. They might not want to be remembered for being in Kendall, you know?
Frank 01-Mar-2019 03:10
There was a very long part 4, but I tried to post this whole remembrance as one post and lost it because it was "too long" and I hadn't saved it. I might try to recreate it at a later time, but I'm exhausted. I do want to say, though, that our new black houseparents, Mr. and Mrs. Bryant, were two of the finest people I have ever met and treated all us white boys just as well as they treated all my new black brothers.
Frank 01-Mar-2019 03:01
Part 3
The Grangers were the main alternate houseparents when Mom and Pop had their days off. Frank Granger was a fat old guy but pretty solid. He once challenged me to hit him in the stomach. I did, but not really all that hard, but it didn't seem to bother him. Lorraine Granger was a tall, sweet lady, and was always nice to us. The St. Germaines were something else. Mrs. St. Germaine was a skinny, paranoid old bat who was always looking for something you did behind her back. Mr. St. Germaine was okay. There were the Dudleys -- she was a nurse and he was a nutjob who once made my pal Charlie wear boxing gloves to breakfast because he "caught" him jerking off in bed after lights out the night before. There were other houseparents, but these were our main ones.

I made a lot of friends there, but you know how it goes -- people come and go in a place like that and when they're gone you never see or hear from them again. I sure would like to know what happened to some of them, though. Ronnie Gadd was like a brother to me, Same with Tommy Griner, though we had a falling out that we never did quite get over. Ronnie and John King, The Johnson brothers -- Leon, Lonnie, and Johnny, Oscar Cagle, Andy Ward -- Otis, Woody, Sonny, Marshall, Ringo, Joe -- the names and faces come flooding back. I hope they all have had good lives.

For the first couple of years, we boys and girls in 4A and 4B had our own dining room, kitchen and cooks. The boys ate at one long table in our dining room and the girls were marched downstairs to eat at the other long table. In the kitchen, our black cooks worked under Mr. Dubois, who was always flirting with Mrs. Fletcher. She was the sweetest woman, and I called her "Beautiful" because I liked her so much. Later, probably less than a year before Mr. Taro integrated the whole place, they built a central dining hall where everybody had to march to to eat cafeteria style.

The bad part of integration (1964?) was that Mom and Pop Stone were moved to head up another cottage. along with half of the younger white boys The only person who was more upset than me was Ernesto Solis, who really considered Mom and Pop to be MOM and POP. Those were dark days. The good part of it was that I met some nice new people.

I'm baffled by the claims of so much violence at Kendall. That wasn't my experience. The few fights that I know about ended with a bloody nose at worst.

As far as I knew, Dade County Children's Home was operated solely by Dade County. This is the first I've ever heard of the Catholic Church having any involvement, but maybe that was before my time.
Frank 01-Mar-2019 03:00
Part 2

Mel Cooperman, I'm sorry I don't remember you, but there were 19 other kids in the cottage, and chances are you don't remember me, either.

The Grangers were the main alternate houseparents when Mom and Pop had their days off. Frank Granger was a fat old guy but pretty solid. He once challenged me to hit him in the stomach. I did, but not really all that hard, but it didn't seem to bother him. Lorraine Granger was a tall, sweet lady, and was always nice to us. The St. Germaines were something else. Mrs. St. Germaine was a skinny, paranoid old bat who was always looking for something you did behind her back. Mr. St. Germaine was okay. There were the Dudleys -- she was a nurse and he was a nutjob who once made my pal Charlie wear boxing gloves to breakfast because he "caught" him jerking off in bed after lights out the night before. There were other houseparents, but these were our main ones.

I made a lot of friends there, but you know how it goes -- people come and go in a place like that and when they're gone you never see or hear from them again. I sure would like to know what happened to some of them, though. Ronnie Gadd was like a brother to me, Same with Tommy Griner, though we had a falling out that we never did quite get over. Ronnie and John King, The Johnson brothers -- Leon, Lonnie, and Johnny, Oscar Cagle, Andy Ward -- Otis, Woody, Sonny, Marshall, Ringo, Joe -- the names and faces come flooding back. I hope they all have had good lives.
Frank 01-Mar-2019 02:58
My name is Frank, and I was a Dependent, that is, there because my family couldn't take care of me at Kendall from 1962 to 1965, when I moved to Boystown of South Florida. I have so many memories of this place it would take a book to get them all down, but here are a few:

When I first got to Kendall I was 11, and there were no beds at the Dependent Cottage, so they put me in Cottage 10 with the Delinquents, boys who were there because the courts had sentenced them there for 6 months or more because of some crime they had committed. Mr. and Mrs. Hanlon were the main housepartents, and on their days off either the Glovers or some other couple whose names I can't remember took watched over us. Nothing of particular interest happened while I was in Cottage 10, except that when we were locked in our rooms at night we were given a 5-gallon can to pee in if we had to go.I remember this vividly because my first chore assignment was collecting those cans (emptied, thank God) and hosing them out.

When a bed opened up I moved to the Dependent Cottage (I think that was the old Cottage 3A and 3B. That's where I first met Mom (Loretta) and Pop (Jesse) Stone, who I came to love with all my heart. They were both tiny people (I have a photo of me with them when I was 12 or 13, and I was taller!). They had come from New York at some time in their lives, where Pop had been a boxer in his younger years. Mom was a white-haired Irishwoman who looked after all 20 of us boys like a mother hen. I would be surprised if any of the boys under their watch had anything bad to say about them. Mom and Pop had two dogs, Bum and Hobo, who were our unofficial pets, besides the horse (Cocoa) and pony (Marty) and the two chickens, whose names I don’t remember.

Sammy Solis, I met Ernesto at the same time I met Mom and Pop. He was a hothead, your brother! You never knew when he was going to fly into a rage. Mostly just a lot of shouting, though. I don't think he ever hurt anybody. I hope he's cooled down over the years. Sammy, the first time I saw you was when we had moved down past the hospital to Cottage 4B, which was the bottom floor of that building up there in the photo ^ Cottage 4A was the upper floor and it was occupied by 20 Dependent girls, who were kept strictly separated from us most of the time. Anyway, you had just come from the "little kid's cottage" with a broken arm in a cast and I was Ernesto's age, so I really didn't hang out with you much, but you were the opposite of Ernesto -- a pretty mellow kid. Of course I also remember Cocoa and Marty -- I also have a photo of them, one with Steve King on Cocoa and Ernesto laying across Marty's back.
Sandy 12-Apr-2018 18:23
I was there. I was 8 or 9. I watched them take my sister to another place because she was 4. We were there because our parents abandoned us. I was molested every day. There was a black recreational counselor who drove the van for the outings. Does anyone remember him. Short and skinny and from another country.
Linda15-Feb-2018 19:21
Does anyone have any information on Parkway? I was there with my sister around 1971 waiting for a foster home. I cannot find any photos of the facility or even the address does anyone know about this facility? I am not interested in the Kendall home as I wasn't there. Thanks so much.
Pamela Stubock 13-Feb-2013 11:36
Unfortunately, I was one of those kids that was sent to Kendall when I was 15. My crime? smoking cigarettes and skipping school. I was there 4 months in the summer of 1966. I was treated well but was always afraid that I would get beat up by the other girls. It was run on a point system and if you misbehaved you lost a point and that meant you were no closer to going home. So you had to follow the rules. I am 61 now, I have never done drugs, been charged or convicted of any crime. Kendall may have done what it was supposed to do, straighten out wayward kids. But that's is just my experience, I never saw abuse.
Charles Knight 10-Jul-2009 02:18
Even in the sixties we were afraid of being "banished" to Kendall!
Guest 27-Aug-2007 18:45
Mary, Are you kin to Paul Pent, the caretaker of the Deering estate on Key Biscayne? I spent summer vacations on the Cape with Paul, his wife Rosa, and daughter Joan, who married my cousin, Eugene Lytton.....
steve 22-Aug-2007 01:14
Can i rember how many times i was threatened with ( if you don't straighten up you'll be sent to KENDALL!!)..............LOL
jenna 14-Jun-2007 05:19
true, many of the kids at kendall were juvenile deliquents, but there were also many children who were there because their parents were unable to care for them...my younger brother and i were there for 6 years from 1960-1966...i was 6 years old, my brother 5....there were over a 100 kids there that were dependants, not deliquents...the dependant kid section of kendall was actually ok..on a few occasions during that 6 years we were were placed in foster homes and the foster homes were much scarier than KENDALL....
Mary E. Pent - guest 10-Jun-2007 19:29
My family moved to Miami from Key West in Jan. 1933. I was 6 yrs. old. I remember Kendall, oh yes. We kids were in fear that if we misbehaved, we would be sent to Kendall, where all the bad kids went. I attended Silver Bluff Elementary and Shenandoah Jr. High. My name is Mary Oliveros Pent. I lived in Miami 40 years. Moved to Naples in 1972. If any of my old school chums are out there, please e-mail me. mepent@tnni.net . I also went to Comstock Elementary in the NW section. in the 4th grade. I have really enjoyed reading about all these old places. Takes a lot of time, but well worth it. A trip back in time.