Growing up in Lake Villa orphanage was good

"Orphanage" is a word you don't hear much anymore.

And if you do, it's likely you'll picture an overcrowded clapboard building filled with Oliver Twist-like ragamuffins. Or maybe you'll see Spencer Tracy as Father Flanagan turning wayward boys into men. Either way, the images never fail to evoke sympathy.

But ask siblings Ginny and Toby Palmer and they'll tell you some of their best years were spent in an orphanage.

Opened in 1948, the Central Baptist Children's Home in Lake Villa housed nearly 50 kids on its sprawling 30-acre campus. Toby and Ginny lived there in the 1950s, along with their siblings Bud and Bob.

Now called Kids Hope United, the social service agency is marking the 60th anniversary of its Lake Villa campus. It now serves 15,000 children and families in four states. The Palmers, along with other CBCH alumni, attended an anniversary celebration earlier this month.

Thinking back on the years at CBCH, Ginny's memories are fond.

"I couldn't have had a better childhood," said the North Aurora woman. "Those times were great."

The children moved to the orphanage in 1955, a devastating year for the Palmer family. Not only did a fire destroy their Downers Grove home, but their mother Bonnie was seriously injured in a car crash. Overwhelmed with the responsibility of caring for his four children alone, Claud Palmer chose to send them to the Lake Villa orphanage.

When they arrived, the siblings were pleasantly surprised.

"This wasn't like the typical orphanage I had pictured," Toby said. "It was a place where kids got to ride horses, ice skate, play in tree houses and care for the many animals on the property. It wasn't at all what I expected."

Funded by a network of Baptist churches, CBCH operated as a traditional orphanage until the 1960s when the trend shifted away from large-group settings to the foster-care system. Experts in child social services believed children were better served in small family environments, rather than big institutions.

But as large as CBCH was, Toby, who was 6 years old then, said he felt like he was part of a big extended family.

"The staff cared about us like we were their own kids," he said. "If there was a bad storm during the night, you could jump in bed with them. It was a different world back then," said the LaGrange man. "They included us in everything they did. Whether it was working in the kitchen, wood shop or feeding the animals, they kept us occupied."

Ginny, who was 10 when the siblings moved, has similar feelings.

"It's almost like my childhood began there," she said. "I remember when Hugo the cook would sneak us warm doughnuts. And then on Christmas, we would all get a silver-dollar coin in our stockings. I only have great memories of that place."

Some of the children who lived in town were a little envious of life at CBCH.

"The townies never looked at this place and thought, 'Those poor kids,'" said Kid's Hope Development Director Joyce Heneberry. "When they would hear stories about the fun things the kids were doing, a lot of them said they wanted to live here, too."

Today, Kids Hope United has more than 850 on the full-time staff working to provide prevention, intervention and community-based programs for vulnerable families, LaMattina said.

The days of large, institutional-type orphanages have passed, but Toby wishes there was a way for kids to experience what he did. "If we were millionaires, I'd buy the place and turn it back into what it was," he said. "They worked hard for us kids."