“Give thanks for the past,
for those who had vision, who watered and planted that dreams might come
true.” - Jane Marshall
Founded in Helena in 1909 by Rev. William Wesley Van Orsdel (Brother
Van), as a boarding school, Intermountain is honored to celebrate our
centennial in 2009.
Into the Heart-life of Children: Intermountain and a Century of Healing By Ellen Baumler
The lights of Helena twinkled in the distance as a coyote’s howl echoed
across the Prickly Pear Valley. The huge building loomed cold and uninviting
in the summer twilight. Louise Stork and her five colleagues screwed up their
courage, for they knew that the road ahead would not be easy
Miss Stork came to Helena in 1908 at the request of Reverend William Wesley
Van Orsdel, Montana’s beloved circuit-riding Methodist minister, to help
found a protestant children’s school. Miss Stork was the first of three
Methodist deaconess administrators dedicated to children in need. While “Brother
Van” often receives the acknowledgement, the women did the real work,
raised funds, and nurtured and loved the children. The seeds they planted a
century ago are still growing. Today, Intermountain Children’s Services
is an innovative children’s mental health center. Their vision is to secure
emotional health and a loving permanent family for every child. As Intermountain
prepares to celebrate its centennial in 2009, it is clear that despite change
and adaptation, the heart of its mission—a love of children and a desire
to see to their well-being—remains unchanged.
The Methodist minister was drawn to Montana “to preach, to sing, and encourage
people to be good.” From 1872 to 1890, Reverend Van Orsdel traveled the
territory gathering friends of all colors, beliefs, and social circumstances.
He and his horse, Jonathan, were a familiar, welcome sight in lonely places
where the preacher worked his magic in song and prayer.
Appointed Presiding Elder of the Great Falls district in 1890, Brother Van put
his horse in the stable and began other important work, founding Wesleyan University
in the Prickly Pear Valley, over 100 Methodist churches and two hospitals across
the state. He recruited deaconesses from the Chicago Training School to operate
his hospitals. The school offered Methodist women vocational training such as
nursing and teaching in the Wesleyan tradition. Louise Stork had a strong background
in social work and in 1905, came from the Chicago school to Great Falls to help
canvas for the expansion of the Deaconess Hospital there.
Brother Van often lamented that the Catholic Church offered its youth good educations,
but there were no protestant counterparts in the entire Northwest. A bachelor
with a special love for children, he set out to remedy that situation. The economic
panic of 1893 closed the trolley line out to the Prickly Pear valley making
Wesleyan University inaccessible to its students. In 1898, officials relocated
the campus in town. The university building stood long empty when Brother Van
began to campaign for a children’s school. He and Louise Stork convinced
the Wesleyan board that the empty college out in the valley was a “black
eye” on Methodism. And so the board reluctantly gave permission and the
six women arrived at the abandoned campus in the twilight of a June evening
in 1909.
The building was in terrible shape. But by September, the energetic women had
it furnished and habitable once again. The Montana Deaconess Preparatory School
accepted boarding and day students from ages five to fourteen. Monthly tuition
was $20 and the well-rounded curriculum extended through the eighth grade. The
school catered especially to rural boys and girls whose parents, for a variety
of reasons—illness, separation, death of a spouse—were unable to
care for their children.
Miss Stork retired in 1910 and Roxanna Beck—like her predecessor, a deaconess
trained at Chicago—became principal. In 1913, a third Chicago-trained
deaconess, Helen C. Piper, joined the staff as assistant principal. She remained
with the school until 1950. The building capacity was sixty-five students and
the school was soon over full. Children came from all over the Northwest and
Canada. By the 1920s, average enrollment was eighty students. In 1929, when
Miss Piper became principal, the school accepted ninety-five students and refused
seventy-six.
Locals perceived the school as a place for orphans and destitute children, which
it was not, but because of this, the community was always generous. It was true
that many children came to the home who could not pay and refusing students
was the challenge. Most difficult of all were the tragic stories of the lonely
children who needed comfort and love. During the depression, Miss Piper reported
that 70% of the work they did was free. “Yet,” she wrote, “we
were able to pay our bills. Friends had slipped us tiny envelopes.” Donations
and a bequest of $10,000 kept the school solvent through the depression.
Most Deaconess students were behind in their studies, often behind in social
development, and needed individual attention. In the debate between private
versus public schools, Miss Piper wrote that many of the students fell into
these minorities, “and minorities are precious in a democratic plan of
life….The social orphan,” she further explained, “stands just
as much in need as the child whom death has robbed.”
Devastating earthquakes in October 1935 destroyed the 1890 school and severely
damaged Van Orsdel Hall, just completed next door (the ruins still stand). Students
were relocated throughout the community. In 1937, the school then moved into
Mills Hall, the former home of the Intermountain Union College on Eleventh Avenue
(now the Department of Corrections). As needs changed, the academic curriculum
was discontinued in 1954 and Deaconess students began attending public schools.
The name changed to Intermountain Deaconess Home for Children.
House parents replaced deaconesses and courts and public welfare agencies began
referring troubled adolescents to the home. In 1971, Intermountain moved to
its cottage-style campus at 500 S. Lamborn and in-house educational services
resumed. In 1982, professional counselors replaced house parents and services
further evolved. Today, Intermountain is a nationally recognized non-profit
organization specializing in nurturing, therapeutic environments for children
under severe emotional distress. Children and families learn to trust, to laugh,
and to love.
One hundred years ago founders strove to comfort, nurture, and “enter
into the heart-life of the children.” A century later, the services have
changed, but Intermountain’s mission, “healing through healthy relationships,”
is not so very different.
Ellen Baumler is the Montana Historical Society’s interpretive historian.
Her most recent book, Beyond Spirit Tailings: Montana’s Mysteries, Ghosts
and Haunted Places, received a 2006 Award of Merit from the American Association
for State and Local History.
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