The Old Folks Home

O-86

The Woman’s Baptist District Missionary Convention conceived the Old Folks Home in 1894 and opened it here ca. 1909 to care for aged, destitute Black people, some of whom had been enslaved. Under the supervision of a live-in matron and an all-woman trustee board, residents were afforded life essentials as well as burial. Churches, individual donors, and timber sales provided funds for the Home, which operated for about 30 years. The Home exemplified a nationwide social reform that began late in the 1800s as charitable groups, often led by women, founded residences for the indigent elderly as alternatives to public almshouses. Homes serving Black elders coped with the ills of racism and poverty.

Department of Historic Resources, 2023

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References/Bibliographic Citation:

Essex County Deed Book 62:319. Gloucester Letter, vol. 11, no. 3 (Nov. 1898). Gloucester Messenger, Nov. 1899. West Point News, 25 June 1915. Gloucester Mathews Gazette-Journal, 6 April 1939. Minutes of the Woman’s Baptist District Missionary Convention. W. Edward Robinson, Historic Sketch of the Southside Rappahannock Baptist Association, the Raikes Sunday School Convention and Women’s Missionary Convention (Southside Rappahannock Baptist Association, 1927). Brief History of the Woman’s Baptist District Missionary Convention (WBDMC, 1973). The Centennial Celebration (Woman’s Baptist District Missionary Convention, 1982). Lillian H. McGuire, Uprooted and Transplanted from Africa to America (New York: Vantage Press, 1992). Iris Carlton-LaNey, “Old Folks’ Homes for Blacks During the Progressive Era,” Journal of Sociology and Social Welfare (Western Michigan University), vol. 16, issue 3, Sept 1989. Leslie J. Pollard, “Black Beneficial Societies and the Home for Aged and Infirm Colored Persons,” Phylon (Clark Atlanta University, 1980).