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Annie Wittenmyer

During the Civil War, approximately 76,237 Iowa men fought in the Union Army. The Iowa Sanitation Agency had the responsibility of overseeing the needs of these soldiers, making sure they had proper food, clothing, and medical attention Annie Wittenmeyer, a Sanitation Agent for the state of Iowa and one of the most well-known women of her time, received a letter from wounded and ill soldiers recuperating in a southern Iowa hospital.

Mrs. Wittenmyer read this letter to a convention of soldier’s aid societies and sanitation organizations on September 23, 1863. By February of 1864, a board had been organized in Des Moines to establish and operate a facility for the orphans of Iowa soldiers. Mrs. Wittenmyer, who was appointed to the Board and named a trustee, used her connections with Ladies’ Aid Societies and Iowa newspapers to advertise the need for a facility and began raising money. Contributions from civilians and soldiers came pouring in to support the cause. The first Orphan’s home opened in the summer of 1864 in Farmington, Iowa.

The Civil War left almost 13,589 Iowa men dead and many so sick or badly wounded that they were unable to take care of their families. By 1865, there was a long waiting list of needy children, and soon the Farmington Home became overcrowded. A second home was already under construction in Cedar Falls, but the Board also decided to look for larger facilities for the children living in Farmington.

Because of its closness to the Rock Island Arsenal, Davenport had been a center for Union volunteer units. After the War, several of the camps used to house and train soldiers were no longer needed. The government donated the deserted buildings of Camp Kinsman ( Eastern Avenue) to the Iowa Solders’ Orphans’ Association. On November 11, 1865, more than 150 orphaned children traveled on a steamboat to live at the new Soldiers Orphan Home in Iowa. Annie Wittenmyer oversaw the Home as matron until 1867.

The State of Iowa took over the Home as a tax-supported institution on June 6, 1866, and made the children wards of the state. This gave the Home financial stability and also helped to protect the interests of the orphans.

By the mid 1870s, most of the Civil War orphans had grown up and left the Home, but there were many other children still in need. The Home began accepting orphans from all over Iowa, and well as children from poor or broken homes and changed its name to the “Iowa Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home and Home for Indigent Children.

One early change was the replacement of the barracks-style dormitories

to smaller homelike cottages. Although the cottage system, which housed the children in small groups, was considered innovative, its adoption was strongly influenced by the scattering of the original buildings; it was much less expensive to use the old foundations than to redesign the whole layout of the grounds. However it came about, the system was beneficial to the children. A married couple or a matron was in charge of each cottage to further provide a family-style setting and more individual attention and care to each child.

Certain practical advantages of the cottage system were shown during three fires that broke out over the next few decades. 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; only the large ovens were salvageable. That these fires did not spread to the cottages was partially credited to the separation of the buildings: the firemen and the older boys of the home were able to keep the nearest buildings dampened down. Although there was extensive property damage, nobody was seriously hurt, and temporary facilities were quickly thrown up until permanent buildings could be built.

The third fire threatened more than dining halls and empty schoolrooms: on November 9, 1887, at three o’clock in the morning, lightning struck the main building, where thirty staff members and children were sleeping. The bolt came through the roof and made a hole in the ceiling of a teacher’s bedroom. She immediately sounded the alarm and everyone escaped without injury. The building itself, only about three years old, burned to the ground, along with most of its contents. .

The Home had its own chapel and its own grammar school, which was in session 10 months out of the year. The state legislature charged the Trustees in 1876 with finding legitimate employment for the residents after they were discharged, so beginning in the 6 th grade, students spent half of each school day in the classroom, and the other half learning a practical trade from staff members

In 1890, the Home was given custody of the children to avoid placing the children with unworthy relatives and to speed placement and adoptions. Before this, children with living family members could not be fostered or adopted without the consent of these relatives. The Home employed its first social worker in 1898, to supervise and protect children away from the Home.

In 1949, the Iowa Soldiers’ Orphans’ Home was renamed by the Iowa State Legislature in honor of Annie Wittenmyer. Eleven years later, the Home, which had always changed with the needs of Iowa’s children, had made the transition from an orphanage to a residential facility specializing in special education and behavioral counseling for troubled youth. Changes to Iowa law in the mid-sixties opened the Home to all dependent and neglected children under the age of 12 with emotional, mental, or delinquency problems. In 1966, a Mental Health Unit was built, financed by the sale of unused land.

In 1975, after more than a century of service, the Annie Wittenmyer Home closed. In 1976, the city of Davenport bought the buildings and the grounds. The buildings of what is now known as the Annie Wittenmyer Complex have been remodeled for a variety of purposes. The main building once housed a branch of the Davenport Public Library . The Parks and Recreation Department is still there. Several children’s organizations and state funded juvenile programs have also been headquartered there.

Iowa Annie Wittenmyer home : Our 100th year. 1965

Most Records are at the Iowa Dept. of Human Services

Adoption Dept.

Illinois Ancestors