On Veterans’ Day a statue, along with a restored cemetery, was unveiled by the Association of Ex-Pupils after the Home History Fund raised nearly $160,000 to erect the statue and restore the gravestones of the children who died while living at the home in Xenia.
Bill Chavanne of Columbus started the fund. The former chief of staff for Attorney General Anthony Celebrezze was a resident from the age of 8 until he was 18.
“As children who were raised at this remarkable home, an institution that changed all of our lives, we have an obligation to recognize the role veteran organizations played in giving us a chance for a better life. We also have a duty to insure their devotion is not forgotten,” Chavanne told those gathered for the Veterans’ Day ceremony.
The bronze statue, designed by Kevin Conlon, provost of the Columbus School of Art and Design, depicts two students dressed for Memorial Day, carrying their flags and flowers. The base includes an etching of the home’s main building, a history of the home, the veterans’ associations that supported it over the years and the names of former residents who died in World War I, World War II, The Korean Conflict and Vietnam.
“This remarkable orphanage is part of Ohio’s history and the cemetery here, with its new statue and restored stones, will tell our story for decades,” he said, noting that it allowed the children to have a “normal childhood”
“The educational program gave many a vocational trade and sent many others to college. The band won awards for marching and playing. The military program was outstanding. The drama, choir and rifle teams were superior. The athletic teams were legendary.”
In 1870 the Grand Army of the Republic opened the Ohio Soldiers and Sailors Orphanage to care for children of Union veterans killed in the Civil War. By the time it closed in 1995 it was called the Ohio Veteran’s Children’s Home and cared for not only orphans but also children whose veteran parents could no longer take care of them.
It was a self-contained 500-acre community with a farm, power plant, water source, academic and vocational schools, sports fields, a hospital and a church.
The home closed when the state switched from an orphanage system to a foster care system.
Legacy Ministries, which operates Dayton Christian Schools, bought the grounds in 1999. In 2010 it subdivided the property, selling part of it to Campus Crusade for Christ, also known as Athletes in Action.
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