Noon: You Can Go Home Again

Josephine, 52, wanted to go home again. But her idea of home isn’t what many folks would picture. It involves dozens of children and the nuns who cared for them. Josephine came to St. Joseph Children’s Home at age 9, and stayed until she graduated from high school, 8 1/2 years later. It’s the only home she knew as a child. Yet after all these years, the stigma of growing up in an orphanage lingers. She didn’t want her last name used in this story. “I feel embarrassed,” she said. But her longing to reconnect with the people she’d grown up with prompted an unusual family reunion. On Sept. 23, a handful of former residents gathered on the lawn at St. Joseph Family Center, along with some of the Catholic sisters who’d cared for them. They came to share their memories of the place many of them called home/ Cindy Hval , SR. More here. (Dan Pelle SR photo: Lynda Bowen, center right, gives a hug to Sister Bernadette Delourdes during a reunion)

Question: Have you returned to your childhood home? How much had it changed?