Home Programs/Facilities Future Plans Newsletter How To Help Contact Information E-Mail Us1300 Summers Place
Ponca City, OK 74604
Phone: 580.762.4156
Fax: 580.767.8754
Executive Director
Bill Alexander
Director of Social Services
Jimmie Reeves
Director of Operations
and Personnel
Jim Tosh
Bill Alexander
Director of Social Services
Jimmie Reeves
Director of Operations
and Personnel
Jim Tosh
INSIDE THIS ISSUE: 2nd Annual Fall Festival - pg. 2 Good Sports - pg. 2 Outstanding Employee - pg. 3 Sweet Dreams by Haley - pg. 3 Our Trip to Nationals - pg. 3 The Christmas Story - pg. 4 Sponsorship Sign-up - pg.4 Email Offer - pg. 4 Memorial Contributors - pg. 5 Donation Form - pg. 5 A Time of Giving and Thanks - pg. 6 |
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| Christmas at the Children's Home... | |||||
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During this season of celebration of the birth of Christ, I want to share the story of how the American Legion
Home School in Ponca City, Oklahoma saved my life. In 1957 my older sister, Sallie, who was 14 at the time, was removed from our abusive home to live in the American Legion Home School in Ponca City. She refused to leave without her younger siblings who were 12, 9 and 6 because she felt we would not survive without her. Because of her intense pleading the Superintendent, Mr. Summers, took all of us and spent the next year getting custody of the three younger children. Living in the American Legion Home School was the beginning of a new and wonderful life. Christmas 1957 was the first time we had ever had a Christmas. Each child at the home was sponsored by an American Legion Post for the boys and a Ladies' Auxiliary group for the girls. My sponsors were the Ladies' Auxiliary of Stillwater, Oklahoma. They bought me a complete wardrobe for the whole year, bought me gifts at Christmas and for my birthday and had me stay in their homes during holidays. It was the most amazing experience of my life to be so loved and cared for. At the Home, Mrs. Mayhue was the Dorm Mother for my dorm. She was loving, but firm, and she taught us everything we needed to know and put great emphasis on manners. Right after Thanksgiving, each building got a Christmas tree. We were allowed to decorate the tree and we spent the whole evening making popcorn and stringing it with cranberries. Mrs. Mayhue would bring in lots of pecans and we would shell them for making fudge and other goodies. Memories were made as we worked like little elves decorating to our hearts' content. The whole month of December was a festive one for all of us. In 1983 I organized the first alumni reunion in the history of the American Legion Home in Ponca City. We have continued with other reunions and it gives us a chance to keep the connections from our childhood going. I felt God urging me to write a book, "My Home the Home of Many," the funds to be used by the home as a way of saying "Thank You" for the care we had received. The Alumni of the American Legion Home are a unique family and I am proud to be a part of each and every one who lived there. Many of us would not have survived without that Home. The Home gave us the opportunity to grow into productive citizens and to go out and meet the challenges of the world.
I am eternally grateful, Barbra Mahorney Alusi, American Legion Home Alumni 1957-1966 |
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