by Brian Rosenthal
The drama leading up to today’s closure was only the last chapter in the storied history of the Cass County Home.
The story starts on a March day in 1846, when members of the county board decided to buy a farm as a “public asylum for the increased numbers of the unfortunate people of the county,” according to Jehu Powell’s History of Cass County, written in 1913.
If 1846 is the opening chapter, the prologue dates to 1829, the year the county was first established. From the beginning, county leaders promised to aid the poor of the community.
When a building to house the area’s homeless was actually built in August 1846, it was set up on a large expanse of farmland three miles northeast of Logansport. The Clay Township farm, called Woodlawn Acres, still stands just down the road from the current 4-H fairgrounds. The average number of inhabitants in the early days was 50, and the residents farmed the land for their food.
For decades to follow, the Poor House as it was then called existed in relative obscurity, presumably because it was considered tactless to go into the details of the community’s poor. The half-page excerpt on page 69 of Powell’s history is the only known mention of the home in the vast records of the Cass County Historical Society.
The page also mentions a March 1874 rebuilding of the facility, in order to accommodate increasing demand at the home. It’s also known that the home was rebuilt again in 1954.
The history then goes blank until the accounts by living Cass residents.
Sandra Maughmer was 8 years old when her father, Neal Frey, became the administrator of the home. Today at age 61, she still remembers the tall building that was the home.
“To me, it was like having about 50 grandparents,” she said. “It didn’t seem like a nursing home or anything. Nobody was confined or anything, and they had holiday parties and birthday parties.”
In those days, the farm was completely self-sufficient, Maughmer said. Each resident also had a hobby — the most popular was gardening.
The garden was also a staple at the County Home in the days of Mary Jo Jacko, she said. Jacko, who served as the administrator from 1983 to 2003, said she considered herself more of a mom than a supervisor of her residents, who numbered around 20.
“I usually ran them everywhere,” she said. “They went to town, they went to hockey games, they went shopping.”
Farming took a back seat in those days, said Jacko, who added the home had hoe-downs, cookouts, picnics, outings and many visits from school and church groups.
In 2003, when the home moved to its new location on Pleasant Hill, everything started to go downhill, said Jacko, who retired rather than moving with the home into town.
The home became more of an institution, she said. Interest decreased and the remaining residents didn’t participate in many activities.
Five years later, the Cass County commissioners wrote the last page of the story by making the decision to close down the home for good.
“It’s just too bad that we don’t have a County Home anymore,” Jacko said. “I’m going to miss knowing that it’s there.”
Brian Rosenthal can be reached at (574) 732-5148, or via e-mail at Brian.Rosenthal@pharostribune.com
Timeline
1846: “Poor House” erected at Woodlawn Acres
1874: House rebuilt to accommodate demand
1954: House rebuilt for second and final time
February 2003: County Home moves to Pleasant Hill
April 2007: Four-County Counseling Center contracts to run home
July 7, 2008: Commissioners launch feasibility study into home
July 21, 2008: Commissioners announce decision to close home
Aug. 31, 2008: Cass County Home closes
