Memories
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John C. Furstenberg, 32°
President, The Omaha Home For Boys
4343 North 52nd Street, Omaha, Nebraska 68104–2895
The Omaha Home for Boys continues its mission, begun over 80 years ago, of service to youth and families.
Various Masonic organizations across the country give over $2 million a day to charity. That is a great deal in terms of money, but numbers sometimes miss the real benefit, the human element. The Omaha Home for Boys is a case in point. As a nonprofit charitable organization in Omaha, Nebraska, the Home truly fills a very real and important human need. The Home's purpose is to support and strengthen youth and families. Its mission is clearly focused on the human element.
The close relationship of The Omaha Home for Boys with the Masonic Craft extends back to the organization's founding. In 1920, the Omaha juvenile authorities contacted the local Chamber of Commerce and asked it to create a residential home for boys. The president of the Chamber, Tinley Combs, felt it was too big a task for that organization. But it wasn't too big, he thought, for another group with which he was affiliated—the Masons. So, on October 12, 1920, members of the Masonic Lodges in Douglas County joined forces, and The Omaha Home for Boys was born.
Since its founding, the Home's operations and growth have always focused on the one most important issue: what is best for the boys. During that growth, Freemasonry has always been there to guide, advise, and support the needy and at-risk boys the Home serves. Since 1920, well over 4,000 neglected, abused, wayward, and abandoned boys have been served—housed, fed, clothed, nurtured, and loved—by The Omaha Home for Boys. One of these boys was Mickey Davis.
When Mickey was quite young, his father left home. It was near the end of World War II, and Mickey's mother was caring for him and his two older brothers. Mickey's mother had problems with alcohol, and he was soon living, along with his older brothers, with his grandmother. In 1947, his young life dramatically changed.
At the age of five, Mickey's grandmother
placed him with The Omaha Home for Boys. Losing your family is
a difficult thing to accept at any age. At five years old, Mickey
must have been devastated. Yet, with the care and love of good
people—like his House Mother, Mrs. Mabel Stoft—Mickey
soon adjusted to life at the Home. From 1947 to 1957, "home"
for Mickey was The Omaha Home for Boys.
In 1991, at the age of 49, Mickey was asked to recount some of his memories for the Home's 70th Anniversary History Book. The following is an excerpt from those memories and demonstrates the positive impact Masonic charity can have on society.
I spent the first five years or so in the Buck Cottage, and my memories are of birthday parties in the dining room, working in the garden—first planting, then weeding, and then harvesting the vegetables. It was hard and hot work, but we had a lot of fun, and when Mr. Reichart wasn't around, we were known to have a dirt clod fight once in a while.
I remember riding on the plow horse team with Jimmy Brown and a cement block holding the plow in the ground behind us. We loved the smell of alfalfa, and horses, and pigs, and freshly turned soil. I also recall Mrs. Stoft teaching us the multiplication tables and Bible verses on her blackboard at the bottom of the stairs. Eventually I moved to the Scott Cottage as I got older, and then the Anderson Cottage.
Here are some random memories of
Home events:
• The visit by Pat O'Brian on
St. Patrick's Day, and visits by Sky King and Penny, and the Mills
Brothers.
• The father and son banquets
with the Masons where each of us would be a guest of one of the
Masons.
• The father and son banquet
where they served Boston cream pie and everyone got sick, giving
a new meaning to the term bucket brigade.
• Molly, the Shetland pony we
used to ride, and in the winter she would pull us on our sleds.
• What a change when Mr. Ayers
came to the Home. Suddenly, we had baseball, football, choir,
tumbling teams, and a craft shop. It represented a major cultural
change at the Home.
The dinner bell, the pine tree in the traffic circle, Dobby the quarter horse, Staska, Monroe School, the woody station wagon, the Green brothers—the list goes on as the memories flood back. But they are just words on paper to all but the few who experienced them. Whoever or whatever we [the former residents of the Home] are today, we are the sum total of all these things and many more that are locked deeply inside. There are memories that I would probably never tell another soul, but they are as important as all the rest. I can say the Home holds a special place in my heart. It was pretty much the only home I ever knew.
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| Since 1920, The Omaha Home for Boys has fulfilled its central mission to support and strengthen youth and families. Citing from the 70th anniversary history of the home, Bro. John C. Furstenberg, 32°, President of The Omaha Home for Boys, recollects this fine Masonic institution's colorful past and shares nostalgic memories of the home recorded by one of its early residents. |
Note: Each fall many Masonic Lodges conduct a fund drive to support the Omaha Home for Boys. To contribute to this mission, you may contact Bro. Furstenberg at the address at the head of this article or write to R. Todd Simpson, Director of Development, at the same address, call 402–457–7014, or fax 402–457–7161, or e-mail to rtodd@radiks.net.