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Finding His Way Home

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By F. CARL MILLER Special to the Tribune

The Tampa Tribune

Published: September 7, 2008

TAMPA - In the early 1930s, mealtime at the Children's Home was most often a hectic event. The Children's Home was Tampa's orphanage on Florida Avenue. It is where I grew up, from 1926, when I was an infant, to 1943 when I was 18 and joined the U.S. Navy during World War II.

Having enough to feed the children at the Home in the midst of the Depression was a continuous concern for the staff. They always seemed to manage, though. We almost never left the table hungry. If we did, it was usually our own fault for not eating what was in front of us.

The routine went like this: About 10 minutes before a meal, all the children lined up in the spacious hallway leading to the dining room, girls on one side, boys on the other. It wasn't uncommon for fights to break out, especially when no staff member was present. Children pushed and shoved; they wanted to be in front.

A staff member would be signaled to ring the bell. We children would run to our assigned places. The large dining room was full of oval tables with eight place settings. We had a standing ritual: The first to yell "First on extras!" after being seated would get the extra hot dog, hamburger or whatever. Extras didn't come often, only when another child was sick or absent for some reason.

Once a staff member called for quiet, we were led in the blessing for the food we were about to receive. After the blessing, pandemonium broke loose as a hundred or more hungry children began to eat.

Weekly menus were pretty much cast in concrete. A new matron, a new cook or shortage of money to buy food were some of the reasons that would cause variations in the rigid bill of fare. When we weren't in school, our main meal would be served at noon. Evening meals were light, consisting of soups and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. The schedule was reversed during the school year.

I always looked forward to the porcupine meatballs on most Mondays during the time Miss Post was the cook. On Wednesdays, we had macaroni and cheese, hotdogs and cooked cabbage, my favorite. On Saturdays, beef stew with lots of cooked carrots, my least favorite. At noon on Sundays, we could be sure to have fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy and a vegetable in season. The only time we had dessert was on most Sundays.

The staff depended a great deal on donations of food. The produce market across the street from the Children's Home was the source of most of our vegetables. The owner was very generous and also had a son who was seriously dating one of the older girls at the Home.

It had been arranged for some of the boys to go over to the market late in the afternoon and collect overripe vegetables that couldn't be sold the next day. Some vegetables were so mature they were about 10 minutes from being tossed in the garbage. But in those tough times, nothing was refused. It is amazing what can be added to vegetable soup without being detected. As can be surmised, vegetable soup was often on the menu. To this day, it is not one of my favorites.

Sometimes, donors were overzealous, causing problems almost as great as the lack of food. Well-meaning citrus growers would bring in truckloads of oranges, grapefruit and tangerines, always more than we could eat before it spoiled. The citrus had to be stored on the north porch, right outside the dining room windows. The spoiled fruit smelled atrocious. It was hard to eat oatmeal while we were holding our noses.

There were rare times when we ate better than most people in the whole city. One such incident occurred when one of Tampa's finer Spanish restaurants had a large amount of food left over from a banquet given in honor of some VIP. Not wanting it to go to waste in those hard times, the owners sent the excess food to the Children's Home.

The enormous pots of yellow rice and chicken along with many loaves of Cuban bread and little containers of flan arrived close to midnight.

Miss Lyda, our matron, could not see putting this exceptionally delicious meal in the refrigerator until the next day. She reasoned the food would lose its freshly cooked flavor if not eaten immediately.

Most of us had been asleep for more than two hours when the night nurse barged into the dorm. She turned on the lights and shouted, "Everybody up ... down to the dining room!" We groggily put on some clothes. Like a bunch of zombies, we shuffled off to the dining room, wondering what all the commotion was about so late at night.

Despite the rude awakening, most of us enjoyed the delicious meal. The next day, though, the infirmary was deluged. Many children were in distress because of the late-night feasting and loss of sleep. They had various stages of stomachaches and headaches.

Today, when my friends and acquaintances become aware that I spent the first 18 years of my life in an orphanage, they usually react in a "God, I'm glad it was not me" kind of way.

But as a child, I was fortunate enough not to have negative feelings about my situation in the beginning. It took awhile for me to realize that not having a mother and father or other blood relatives was not the norm.

If it was not a good life at the Children's Home, I was not aware of it. Throughout my life, I have tried to keep a positive attitude. I cannot remember being consistently unhappy, but I do remember enjoying myself much of the time with my fellow orphans.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

F. Carl Miller, 83, lives in Tampa. He served in the Navy during World War II. After the war, he became a schoolteacher and administrator in Hillsborough County schools and taught math at Saint Leo College. He and his late wife, Barbara Lee, raised five children and three adopted sons. This story is from the book he wrote for his children about growing up in the Children's Home.

HAVE A STORY TO TELL?

I Remember It Well is a feature of the Prime Time page. Send entries to shemmingway

@tampatrib.com or in typewritten form to Susan Hemmingway, The Tampa Tribune, P.O. Box 191, Tampa FL 33601. Submissions cannot be returned. Be sure to include a contact phone number.

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