{"id":287,"date":"2008-10-13T11:13:33","date_gmt":"2008-10-13T16:13:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs2.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/?p=287"},"modified":"2015-11-17T09:41:27","modified_gmt":"2015-11-17T15:41:27","slug":"the-orphans-of-oakdale-cemetery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/2008\/10\/13\/the-orphans-of-oakdale-cemetery\/","title":{"rendered":"The Orphans of Oakdale Cemetery"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the most persistent\u00a0local legends\u00a0in Davenport centers on Oakdale Cemetery on Eastern Avenue. In this cemetery is a special section where children from the Iowa Solders\u2019 Orphans\u2019 Home<\/a>*, standing\u00a0just across\u00a0Eastern Avenue,\u00a0were buried. And it is said that if you go to Oakdale and stand by those small graves on Halloween night, you will hear the screams and cries of the orphans who died in a terrible fire at the Home.<\/p>\n

Children, fiery deaths,\u00a0and a graveyard\u00a0combine to send satisfying shivers down anyone’s back, but is this\u00a0legend\u00a0based in\u00a0 truth? To find out, we need to take a close look at the history of the Home and the records of the Cemetery.<\/p>\n

On November 11, 1865, more than 150 orphaned children traveled on the steamboat Keithsburg from the overcrowded Iowa Soldier\u2019s Orphans\u2019 Home in Farmington, Iowa, to the new Davenport Home set up in Camp Kinsman, a deserted Civil War training camp. The orphans stayed in the barracks until the buildings were replaced with more suitable cottages. These cottages were still separated, as it was cheaper to use the foundations of the barracks than build one huge building to house all of the children.<\/p>\n

Over the next fifty years, three fires broke out at the Home. In 1877, the engine room of the laundry building caught fire and both it and the schoolroom were destroyed. In 1880, the dining hall, kitchen and bakery burned to the ground. And on November 9, 1887, at three o\u2019clock in the morning, lightning struck the main building, where thirty staff members and children were sleeping. The building, only three years old, burned to the ground.<\/p>\n

According to newspaper accounts in the Davenport Democrat newspaper, no one died in any of these fires. The newspaper went on the praise the cottage system, saying that the separation of the buildings kept the flames from spreading through the entire complex. There was property damage worth thousands, but no loss of life.<\/p>\n

Do Oakdale\u2019s records support this? Information supplied by the Oakdale records office tells us that there are 251 graves in the Orphans\u2019 Section. Of these, only a few are older than 18, and none older than 26. The first orphan burial was a 15 year old girl named Lizzie (or Elizabeth)\u00a0James, who died of consumption\u00a0on November 14, 1865 while enroute to Davenport. She was buried on November 17, 1865, a day after the orphans arrived at their new home. According to her record, Lizzie\u2019s place of death was listed as Farmington. If a person died while traveling, place of death was commonly listed as the last known residence. The last burial was a five-year old boy named Joseph Pohl who was struck by a hit and run driver while walking home from school on November 2, 1970.<\/p>\n

Of the 249 children who died between Lizzie and Joseph, not one died by fire, burns, or through smoke inhalation. Most of the deaths between 1865 and 1950 were caused by pneumonia, diphtheria, influenza, untreated ear infections, and other diseases that thrive in a large group of children without access to modern antibiotics.<\/p>\n

So if one were to stand in the Orphans\u2019 Section on Halloween, or any other night, the sounds one hears would have more to do with wind and imagination than dramatic fiery deaths. But instead of going home disappointed, one might use the time to reflect on these young people whose only family in their too-short lives were each other and who deserve better than to be forgotten\u2014or exploited–in death.
\n___
\n*Now called the Annie Wittenmyer Home<\/p>\n

(Posted by Sarah)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One of the most persistent\u00a0local legends\u00a0in Davenport centers on Oakdale Cemetery on Eastern Avenue. In this cemetery is a special section where children from the Iowa Solders\u2019 Orphans\u2019 Home*, standing\u00a0just across\u00a0Eastern Avenue,\u00a0were buried. And it is said that if you … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[5],"tags":[26,22,1445,25,37,1446,24,1444,23,27],"class_list":["post-287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-local-history","tag-annie-wittenmyer-home","tag-cemeteries","tag-elizabeth-james","tag-halloween","tag-iowa-soldiers-orphans-home","tag-joseph-pohl","tag-legends","tag-lizzie-james","tag-oakdale-cemetery","tag-orphans"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pd0CXc-4D","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6559,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287\/revisions\/6559"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.davenportlibrary.com\/sc\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}