Giving thanks at the orphanage

Nov. 23, 1904: Donations arrived at the McKinley Home for Boys just in time for Thanksgiving, The Times reported under the headline “Happy Days for Orphans.”

“There were fowls and vegetables and other good things to eat, and the whole thing was topped off with 72 pairs of new shoes, sent out as the Thanksgiving gift of the Mystic Shriners,” the newspaper said.

“Never was there a material endowment more timely. Many of the little fellows were in need of new footgear to start them off successfully on the winter; some of them were fixed for “Sunday,” but everyday shoes were beginning to look badly worn; lastly, as the matron told with low voice, a number of little men had come into the institution within the last few days in desperately poor circumstances, with scarcely any clothes at all, and to these the shoes would be a priceless boon.”

The home housed 60 boys and would need to house more, The Times said, because in the growing city “each day there are manly little fellows, scarcely big enough to make a living at anything” who needed such a haven.