130 / Early Missions, Charitable Work, YPM, and Higher Education Orphanage and Old People's Home

It is noteworthy that the upsurge of church life in the 1890's and first decade of the 1900's was seen at that time as being all of one piece. Said a writer in the February 15, 1900, Herald of Truth:

Wonderful revivals in many of our churches East and West, the introduction of Youth People's Meetings, Sunday schools, and Bible Conferences, the founding of Elkhart Institute, Home and Foreign Missions, Orphans' and Old

People's Homes, regular evangelizing tours, the Mennonite Book and Tract Society, the "Young People's Paper," and the "Institute Monthly," new books and other literary work "by our own people"-all these within a few short years, show the fruits of these great influences, and of many years of preparation and toil.

It is in the context of an awakening church that the growth of

charitable institutions can best be understood. Two such institutions came into being, the one an orphanage and the other a home for aged.

In 1896 David Garber, formerly a minister from Indiana, and his father-in-law, S. K. Plank, a deacon in Wayne County, opened an orphanage on their farm near Weilersville, Ohio.' The first inmates were six motherless children, soon followed by others. "The object of this Home was to bring up the children for Christ and the church and if possible place them in suitable homes." Support for this new venture came from congregations in Ohio and other states.

The next stage in the life of this new institution was its removal to West Liberty, Ohio, where it came to occupy an erstwhile mansion on an elevation that overlooked the fertile and beautiful Mad River Valley. The property was purchased by the Mennonite Evangelizing and Benevolent Board with the intent of operating an orphanage under the Ohio churches. M. S. Steiner was president of the board. In 1900 the Ohio Conference appointed Levi Hooley, and the Eastern Amish Mennonite Conference appointed S. E. Allgyer to serve with the superintendent, Abram Metzler, as a local controlling body.

The Home grew rapidly, its acreage at West Liberty expanded, and in 1909 it became debt free. The children placed in the Home were largely of non-Mennonite background; perhaps only one percent of all the children came from Mennonite parentage." The orphanage was a sizable undertaking for a church only beginning