Senior Spotlight: Hendrick Home for Children Celebrates 70
By: Megan Dobbs
Updated: September 16, 2009
Hendrick Home for Children has just turned 70! Ex-residents were at the weekend celebration for a reunion, including some of the first children ever to stay at the home.
Temple Greene was the first resident at Hendrick home for children in 1939.
"The love that we got from the home staff was something we had never experienced before," Greene recalls.
So, when the home celebrated its 70th birthday this weekend, Temple wouldn't have missed it.
"I've been coming back here for 30 some-odd years, and it is one of the highlights of my life."
He recalls how happy he was as a child, during his time at Hendrick Home for Children.
"We were very poor when we came to the home, and the first year we had a Christmas we had never experienced before. We got electric trains, hobby horses, lots of candy and things like that. It was very, very exciting."
He's noticed some changes since his time here 70 years ago.
"The horses, the tv's, the cars. I think we had a pair of roller skates we shared among all of us, and they were the kind that you wound up, put on your shoe, and you had a little key."
Greene says he plans to return to the home each summer for the rest of his life.
Hendrick Home for Children also celebrated the opening of its new M. Bernard Hanks Equestrian Center which opened Friday.
