Monday, June 4, 2012

Historic Bennett Home and Wilson Nursery today

L-R: Wilson Nursery & Bennett Home 2012

Tommy Smith and I still talk about our nursery school days as classmates at the Wilson Nursery. Sure, we were only 3 and 4 years old, but we both have vivid memories which is a testament to how well the program was run.
To see the building in its current state is depressing. And the condition of the historic Bennett Home for Women and Girls next door is equally as tragic.
According to OldChesterPA.com...
The Ruth L. Bennett Improvement Club, Inc. was organized in 1914 by Mrs. Ruth L. Bennett and fourteen other civic-minded women. During the fifty years of existence of the Club, it has purchased and operated a home for Women and Girls, a Nursery for children and a community playground. 
The Ruth L. Bennett Home for Women and Girls was an answer to a pressing problem that developed as the result of World War I, and the “Migration Surge” from the South in 1918. The wives following their soldier husbands, and Migratory families moving "North” caused many stranded women and children on the streets and in the police station of Chester. 

2 comments:

  1. I ride down 291 every day. Construction had started they put in a couple of new windows and now nothing. What happen?

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    Replies
    1. You'll know when they get started. It'll be fenced in.

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