Amsterdam's Children's Home

By Bob Cudmore, Focus on History, Daily Gazette, Recorder 

Sunday, January 4, 2026

     Shirley Spurles Baroody could remember the day in the late 1940s when her parents, migrant farm workers, were declared unfit, whatever that meant at the time.

One older brother went to live with relatives. Shirley, about four years old, another older brother and an older sister were put into a Gloversville police car and taken to the Children’s Home in Amsterdam. Baroody lived there for 11 years.

“The decision on where we were placed depended on who had the openings,” said Baroody, who later lived in Greensboro, North Carolina. The Catholic Sisters of the Resurrection operated a home on Market Street in Amsterdam and the Protestant-oriented Children’s Home was at 81 Guy Park Avenue. Baroody and her siblings went to the Guy Park Avenue institution and were baptized at the former First Methodist Church on nearby Division Street.

“Three matrons took care of us which was just amazing given the mechanics of caring for 50 children day in and day out,” Baroody said. The matrons were Elizabeth Trenham, Genevieve Hopkins and Clara Hall, the last being Baroody’s favorite “because she would read to us.

”The children attended public school and went to Sunday school at the Methodist Church. Otherwise they led a regimented life behind a fence and tulip garden and inside the walls of the Children’s Home.

Girls and boys lived dormitory style on separate sides of the building, getting together for meals. The children helped clean up after dinner. Each Saturday, laundry arrived with one clean dress for each girl for the week. Baths were twice a week. Children lined up for meals and even to brush their teeth.

The matrons emphasized good manners--boys and girls stood when an adult came into the room. Baroody remembered a few spankings but said she was not abused. She said that living in the Children’s Home, “Probably saved my life and guided me to better things.”

The older residents, Baroody recalled, were granted the privilege of leaving the building, some of the girls even going on a trip with the matrons to New York City. The younger children spent many hours in the playroom sitting on wooden boxes that contained each child’s possessions.Baroody said,  “I cannot tell you how many hours I sat on that box while somebody taught us to knit or embroider, very quiet  activities.”                            

In December, the matrons asked each child for a list of three things wanted for Christmas. Baroody remembered getting her three items each year, paper dolls, perhaps, or white socks. The women’s clubs of Amsterdam put on a Christmas party every year for the home.

Generally, there were not many visitors but Mrs. Charles Bacon and the board visited as did people from the Methodist Church, including music teacher Edna Lindsay and her sisters Frances and Elsie. Baroody enjoyed watching Burton Mains, a Methodist minister who could wiggle his ears.

A home for children was first established in Amsterdam in 1883. In 1896, the structure at 81 Guy Park Avenue was built and then enlarged in 1909, with money donated by carpet industry executive Stephen Sanford. The home continued in operation until 1957 when it closed because of changing state regulations on the care of children.

Baroody and her sister were sent back to their mother, then living in Schenectady. Their mother had visited a few times but there was no continual relationship with the girls who were now teenagers.

“I think I was in shock for years, going from an institutional life where every minute of my life was guided and told what to do and then suddenly having tremendous freedoms,” Baroody said. “Just staying outside whenever I wanted was a great joy to me.”

The Children’s Home was torn down some years ago but what was the board of the institution continued as the Children’s Aid Association of Montgomery County. The association provided scholarships, camperships and other services to young people in the area.

You may contact Bob Cudmore at 518-346-6657 or email [email protected]