More on the Old Madison County Home, winter and Welfare Reform

Workers starting the rebuilding of "The Home!.

This week as usual has been cold for the most part.  Winter does not read calendars...so its still winter.  The snow is still on the ground...so I thought I would continue with the story of the old "Madison County Home.

The building of the news Almshouse almost coincided with the new wave of welfare reform that swept New York State after the election of Franklin D. Roosevelt as the new Governor.  Roosevelt, elected in 1928, set to work immediately modernizing the poor laws and the rules governing public assistance in New York State.

The Superintendent of the Poor at this point in Madison County (since January 1, 1927) was Freeman MacIntyre.   The new governor signed the new Public Welfare Act into place.

The new Welfare Act came into law in April of 1929, modernizing the Madison County poor laws, which had been put into place in 1821.  This “Act” placed all the monies at the charge of the new Commissioner of Public Welfare.  Freeman McIntyre’s title had changed.

This new Welfare Act removed the terms “pauper, alms house and superintendent of the poor”.  The term Alms House that had been used for over one hundred years, was to officially become County Home.  (It is interesting to note that in Madison County documents it continued to be off and on referred to as the “Almshouse.”

Those interested in historic markers can go to the Town of Eaton Office Building and see the beautiful plaque that was removed from the Gerrit Smith Infirmary before it was sold; this bronze plaque clearly reads “Almshouse.”

From a 1931 clipping we find that the County Home and Freeman MacIntyre was placed in a number 1 classification for administration.  These times were the times of great poverty and depression in the United States, and the County Home contained over 95 occupants.  The highest number for the year was 112.  From July of the year before, there were 67 admissions and 61 discharges in addition to many “transients” that received food and shelter.

The week in review, MLK Day, Lincoln, Guns & Gordon Lightfoot

This week has been another week of bitter and mean comments about guns, the president, elderly on social security - labeled as living off the system, families needing food stamps because of job loss or poor paying jobs, fracking, Hurricane Sandy relief, war, choking smog in China, snow in Europe, heatwave in Australia, death in Syria and Mali…. and on an on.  I just could not stand it …so I off’d Facebook comments that bothered me…..and tuned out the news.

Martin Luther King Day and the Inauguration are on the same day… I found that almost ironic.  The hatred and bigotry that he faced is still here today, it has just resurfaced because we have a “black” president. … Humorously he is half white so why not call him a “white president”?

It occurred to me that instead of going after food stamp people who are poor or elderly and need it, perhaps we should check those on programs that can afford to buy multiple guns and ammunition that cost over $1 per round?  I pondered this whole situation…no answers!

I wondered if the biggest haters of the newer gun laws were those who had run-ins with the law and were afraid they wouldn’t pass the background check...motivated by FEAR!!

The movies this week brought Lincoln into view.  The new Lincoln movie has shown a light on Lincoln as a “saint” of sorts and “Great Emancipator”, yet I know he was a racist of sorts…he only wanted to preserve the Union at all cost knowing slavery was the Union’s most divisive problem…and cost it did… almost 600,000 people died in that bloody conflict…

Really... it wasn’t until MLK and the peaceful freedom marches and the desegregation movement took place ... that blacks could finally see a small light at the end of the tunnel.

So I slunk around the house all week chopping wood to relieve the stress by day and took out my old guitar and sung a few songs at night…The one song that kept coming back to me was by my favorite...Gordon Lightfoot...it is called “Too Late for Prayin’”…. and says it all eloquently in a nut shell…..

**Please take the time to view this video and listen to the words…friends, foes, teachers, preachers, poets, workers, haters, and everyone.  There is a message….and some harsh truth for us all to ponder!!