Menu
Sisters recall rescue from poverty
By Brett Dalton
Herald-Tribune
FORT SCOTT, Kan. -- In 1942, three young sisters from Fort Scott were placed in what they considered to be an orphanage, and to them, that's exactly what it was.
They didn't quite understand why they were there. All they really knew was that, for the first time in their lives, they had food, shelter, supervision and were around people who truly cared about them.
That's why the old Goodlander Home for Children was a blessing to those young siblings. That blessing is why two of them returned to Fort Scott last week to revisit the "orphanage" that literally changed their lives.
Marianne Daniels and Jeanie Hultman spent three days in Fort Scott last week, touring the Fort Scott National Historic Site, specifically Officers Quarters No. 2 which, for a time, housed the old Goodlander Home for Children. While in town, they also visited their old neighborhood on Holbrook Street.
The sisters said they enjoyed the return to Fort Scott, which included a room and a spa treatment at the Courtland Hotel and Day Spa, but admitted that it was a bittersweet visit.
They said it was sweet in the sense that it brought back many memories from their childhood, yet bitter in the fact that it did not reunite them with their youngest sister, Vera Leivan, and their brother, who Hultman has never seen, Larry D. Hill.
"We were hoping to get all four of us together for the first time in our lives," Daniels, who now lives in Sherman, Texas, said, "but I guess the other two couldn't make it."
Throughout their trip, Daniels, 70, and Hultman, 69, shared their memories of the Goodlander Home, including how they came to live there for six months.
Growing up in poverty in a small house on Holbrook Street, the girls were deserted by their father, and their mother eventually left to find work. They lived briefly with a family that Hultman described as "abusive" before eventually being placed in the Goodlander Home.
The sisters agree that it was the best thing to ever happen to them.
"The orphanage was the best life we had ever had," Hultman, who was five years old when they entered the home, said. "We had shelter and we had food. We had an awful life up until then. It was quite a deal to live in the fort over here."
All three sisters were eventually adopted out of the home by different families. Leivan was taken by a family in Independence, Hultman by a family from Wichita and Daniels was adopted by the Hill family in Fort Scott.
The three sisters grew up apart, got married and have reared their own children. However, while Daniels and Hultman enjoyed successful careers, they said their youngest sister wasn't quite as lucky.
"Vera had a hard, hard life after she was adopted," Daniels said. "It was just horrible."
Daniels and Hultman said they owe any success they have enjoyed in their life to their experience at the Goodlander Home.
"I don't know what would have happened had we not been put in there," Daniels said. "It would not have been good. We were very fortunate."
Though more than 60 years have passed since the girls lived at the Goodlander Home, both women have clear memories of their days there. They also have favorite stories they like to tell.
One of Hultman's favorite memories involves a buried treasure.
"Somehow, we got in our heads that a fortune had been buried under the steps," Hultman said. "Wouldn't you know it, we went and got a spoon and started digging. We never found anything, though."
Another vivid memory involves a mysterious cupboard built into the wall on the second floor. Daniels said the door was always locked and she always wondered what was in there. Perhaps another treasure, she said.
"We left there and we never knew," Daniels said. "I then came here once and got to talking to a park ranger and he went over there and asked me to remember anything I could about the orphanage. So I told him about the cabinet upstairs.
"They went and got some tools and they opened that door. Of course, there wasn't anything in there, much to my disappointment."
The sisters also have memories of, among many other things, the "truckload of turnips," getting to watch a movie every Saturday and the big walnut tree in the front yard.
"It sometimes amazes me how much I remember," Hultman said.
However, along with their clear memories the Goodlander Home, the sisters also have clear memories of their tough life before they lived at the home. Through it all, however, they said they are proud of the way they turned their life around after that rocky start.
"It happened so long ago," Daniels said, "it's almost like it happened to somebody else. It's not a part of my life anymore,"
The Goodlander Home, on the other hand, will always be.
"I will never forget that place," Hultman said. "I think it saved us."