St. Thomas–St. Vincent Orphanage

St. Vincent Orphanage, for girls, was opened in 18700 in Louisville, Kentucky, by the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth.[1] It was first located at 443 South 5th Street until 1836, then moved to the corner of Wenzel and Jefferson Streets from 1836 to 1892, the present site of Bellarmine University from 1892 to 1901,[2] and 2120 Payne Street to 1955, the year of the merger with St. Thomas Orphanage.[1]

In 1850, Bishop Martin J. Spalding of the Diocese of Louisville, Kentucky delegated Father Francis Chambige to establish an orphanage for boys, as the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth had recently established one for girls.[3][4] It opened near Bardstown, Kentucky, in 1858,[1] on farmland owned by St. Thomas Seminary.[3] Two Sisters of Charity of Nazareth were assigned to the orphanage, and the first boys lived in a seminary dormitory building.[3] When those facilities became too crowded, the seminary donated some of the farmland and built a building for the orphanage.[3] The land included vegetable gardens, which helped with food costs until the Civil War, when both Union and Confederate soldiers would scour the land and take the food.[3] In 1889, the original building burned down and the orphanage was moved temporarily to facilities in Louisville, Kentucky, on what is now the location of Bellarmine University, where it was located in the building of the recently closed Preston Park Seminary from 1910 to 1938.[1][2] The St. Thomas then moved to new facilities on Ward Avenue, Anchorage, Kentucky.[1]

In 1952, St. Thomas Orphanage and St. Vincent Orphanage merged to form St. Thomas–St. Vincent Orphanage, located at St. Thomas's former Anchorage location.[1][5][6] From St. Vincent, 81 girls moved to a newly completed wing of the St. Thomas building, allowing many brothers and sisters to be reunited.[7] The National Conference of Catholic Charities administered the new orphanage,[5] and naturally, the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth staffed it, as they were the staffers of both the predecessor institutions.[3][5][6]

In 1982, the orphanage held 450 children,[8] up from 250 in 1966; much of this growth can be attributed to more abused and neglected children being taken in rather than solely orphans.[7] Living conditions during the orphanage's last years have been revealed by a former resident from 1981 to 1983, who was written about in a 2005 Washington Post article describing St. Thomas–St. Vincent as:

Some sort of castle run by nuns. The orphanage housed about 450 children, who slept in a room as big as a gymnasium filled with dozens of beds. "I remember it being very cold," he said, "and always being scared."

In 1983, St. Thomas–St. Vincent Orphanage closed as a result of rising costs and increased government services for orphans.[4][6] The building was demolished later that year, and was replaced by a housing development comprising 572 houses called Owl Creek Community.[7][8]

Ann Wilson of Mississippi, was born in 1945 and lived at St. Thomas–St. Vincent Orphanage in the early 1950s with her four sisters, all of whom later filed suits.[5] She and her sisters all claimed to have been raped and molested by Fr. Lammers, and one was impregnated, and had a miscarriage.[5] They also spoke of physical and sexual abuse by nuns, who they alleged beat and molested them, and locked them in dark rooms without food.[5]

Gladys Cambron, aged 72, was the oldest person to sue, and claimed she was molested by two nuns and a priest starting at age 6.[5] She lived at St. Vincent Orphanage from 1938 until 1943, and accused Fr. Lammers of sexually abusing her.[5] She alleged physical as well as sexual abuse by nuns, saying that she was punished for talking in class by being tied to a chair while a nun "beat the life out of me."[5]

Kim Michele Richardson wrote a memoir about her experiences at the orphanage in 2009, The Unbreakable Child. Richardson confronts the institutionalized physical and emotional abuse suffered by orphans at the hands of their caretakers, and also documents the lawsuit.[9]