SYNOPSIS

A popular college town minister and his wife want to adopt a four-year-old girl but learn she has three older brothers and decide to welcome all four children into their home. They arrive from a bleak county children' s home, bringing with them invisible histories of neglect and abuse. This true story, based on case files and family interviews, opens with the children's background and the oldest boy's determined struggle to keep his family together. The four children barely survive ever worse threats as they lose the adults in their world to imprisonment, abandonment, and death. When all seems hopeless, a talented social worker intervenes, trying to change their fate. This is a lively and sometimes humorous story. Children of the Manse entertains as it describes how four wounded children respond to intelligent and loving foster care.

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EXCERPTS 

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How we lost our Father and Mother

They opened the door so my Daddy could get in and he sat between two sheriff’s deputies in suits and fedoras, and they sped away to the State Prison. My aunt Mary told me I came running into my Grandmother McNelly’s house afterwards crying “Grandma! Grandma! They took my Daddy to jail! They took my Daddy to jail!” All I knew was the joy of my heart was gone and my Aunt Mary said I cried inconsolably long into the night.

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We suffered in the bitter winter of l940-41. I can remember how the four of us spent entire days curled up on a mattress on the floor, huddled together under blankets, trying to keep warm. In the case file I found an account of a fire we built on the living room floor in January of l941. We did not know that our old house was a tinder box waiting to ignite in flame, and were so desperately cold we would not have cared. Helen Middleton, the social worker with ADC, reported, “The police were attracted to the Boggs home about 5:00 AM by a bright blaze in the living room. Investigation showed that the youngsters had built a fire of papers on the living

room floor to keep warm.” The police report also noted that, “The mother was not present, having left after the children were put to bed.” I have no idea why the police were attracted to our old house in a remote area next to the loading yard of a railroad in Sciotoville, Ohio. Were they summoned by a neighbor? If so, that neighbor and those policemen saved four young lives.

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I have memories of being left alone with my younger brothers and sister in the Old Gray House. Sometimes our mother was gone at night, sometimes overnight. There were rats in the house that came out at night and scampered around the floor. We could hear them in the darkness and sometimes feel the pressure of their tiny paws running on top of the blankets that covered us. Sometimes their whiskers and fur would brush against our cheeks.

 

Finally, unable to control my fear any longer, I jumped out of bed and dashed into my mother’s room. She wasn’t there! I began to shout, “Mama, Mama, where are you?” I called for her in the house, “Where are you? Where are you?” I ran outside to the front porch to escape the rats and to scream for her. There was one distant street light shining in the dark. I become even more upset and shouted as loud as I could for her, first in one direction, then in another. I did not give up, shouting for her again, and again, and again. When my throat was so sore I could not go on, I stopped shouting and only cried. Finally, exhausted, I crumbled to the porch floor, curled up in a ball to keep warm and went to sleep, where my mother found me when she came home the next morning.

 

Once our Mother left us alone for an entire week. I first heard that story from Aunt Mary. It most likely occurred in the spring of l941. I would have been five years old, and my brothers and sister, ages four, three and 18 months.

 

With few exceptions, I have no memories of visits our Mother made to the children’s home. But I will never forget my mother’s last visit in December of 1942, made while she was in Sciotoville for Grandmother’s funeral. She surprised me by arriving accompanied by a strange man and a new baby, whom she carried wrapped in a fluffy white blanket.

 

There are moments in life that transform our future that pass almost unnoticed, their significance appearing days or months or even years later. There are other moments whose full significance bursts in on us at once to make us aware our lives will never be the same again.

 

I knew too well what this strange new man and new baby wrapped in the fluffy white blanket meant for me and for my brothers and sister. I could not let this bad news in all at once. I slammed shut the door to my inmost being. I could not face this. Not all at once. Not yet.  

 

Life in the Children’s Home                           

Kline Dawson did not laugh and rarely smiled. He never placed his hand kindly on a boy’s shoulder to give a word of encouragement. Sometimes he dropped his blond wood crutch to the ground to grab a boy within reach by the arm. Like a predator Dawson would pull his victim to his left side and strike him across the face with his open right hand, on one finger of which he wore a bulging ring. We lived in fear of Kline Dawson and came to believe he hated us just because we were Little Boys.

 

As soon as warmer weather arrived in the early spring of 1943, Dawson began taking us on hikes through the woods. Our joy was short-lived when, during the day, one of us would offend some unknown rule of the Dawson code. While he leaned on his blond wood crutch, Dawson sent his high school assistants to cut long branches and when they returned, he and they positioned themselves across from each other, four or five feet apart, forming a gauntlet through which we had to run. In our fear, time stopped. The orchard hardly existed. In our fear, we could see nothing but Kline Dawson and his lieutenants in two rows waiting for us, swaying their long black switches back and forth low to the ground.

 

A New Life in the Manse

Our new life in the manse was a total shift in cultures, behaviors, and environments. When we arrived in Athens, we all swore like sailors, an uncomfortable fact in a preacher’s home.   

 

But I was not yet willing to trust Evelyn Luchs. She was not yet my mother. Why was it that I had to learn or relearn to be at ease in the presence of love, to permit a willing, caring adult to love me when love was what I most needed?

 

I did understand we had been abandoned, which made me angry. I had come to believe we were abandoned becausewe were not worth loving, which made me angrier. To protect myself, I denied that I needed love, which made it less difficult for me to accept that we had been abandoned but more difficult for anyone to love me. At times my heart was a tiny red volcano of anger that erupted in blind rage.

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BOOK REVIEWS

 

Kirkus Review 

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In the 1940s, one family adopts four abandoned siblings in this true and tender recollection written by the eldest son.

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When a health issue triggers a search for their biological family’s medical history, the author and his sister, now middle-aged, sift through a bureaucratic haystack of adoption records and letters from the county home where they, and their two siblings, had spent two grim years. Even before that lowly stretch in the county’s care, the Luchs children had a chaotic home life with their alcoholic father—a petty criminal who, after serving time in prison, disappeared from their lives—and their unstable mother, who frequently abandoned them. But enter a compassionate social worker who, at young Luchs’ insistence, promised to keep the children together and found a loving and well-educated Presbyterian minister and his wife who unflinchingly welcomed all four into their comfortable home. Descriptive details abound, bringing the book to life through its many charming stories, usually involving Janey, the youngest of the family. As the eldest, the author has a keener memory of the neglect and abuses that he and his siblings endured, and, thus, bears the deepest scars. While cherishing the handful of happy times he had with his biological father, Luchs recounts his conflicted feelings for the man, and that Luchs forlornly held out hope that he would see him again. The author does an admirable job of examining the complex emotions he has toward his biological and adoptive parents and describes his struggle to fully embrace his adoptive parents and relinquish his role as surrogate parent to his siblings. This well-written, honest book would be best suited for those who have an interest in the adoption system of the past, or for those who enjoy the Chicken Soup for the Soul series.

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A touching story of hope, courage, generosity and the resiliency of children.

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Reaction to KEZI TV, Eugene, Oregon interview of Lewis Richard Luchs discussing his new book, Children of the Manse

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“What a powerful and moving tale…and what a happy ending! For years I’ve served on the CASA Baltimore Board…I’ve passed this video on and a recommendation for the book to our executive director and the board.”

—Leslie D. Brown, Baltimore, MD

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“This video is one of the most eloquent and convincing glimpses I have ever seen into the enormous scope of the human capacity for healing of early trauma.”

—Rod Gorney, MD, PhD, UCLA

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A review by Megan Shultz, Executive Director of CASA in Lane County

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What happens when the inability to truly love becomes generational? What does love look like behind the tears of an angry young boy? How does love conquer fear through the tender words and safe arms of a woman who yearned to be a mother? Children of the Manse is a story of love complicated by pain, of the power to heal a wounded child, and lay the foundation for future promise. It is a story of the power of love that every adoptive parent, social worker and foster parent should read.

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A review by Gila Freeberg, LCSW. Napa, California

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I have just finished reading Children of the Manse by Lewis Richard Luchs and I loved it!

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Children of the Manse is Mr. Luchs’ heart-felt personal exploration of his history of neglect, abandonment, and eventual adoption, an experience he shared with three younger siblings. The four children grew abnormally close to each other during their difficult early years.   

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He tells this story from the point of view of a child but his detailed memories are enlarged and authenticated by his research, and especially by the social workers’ case files he was finally able to obtain from Ohio authorities. In the files, he found: biological family histories; psychological evaluations; references to his father’s prison records; the pre-adoption interviews of biological family members by social workers; medical histories; and a journal of events for the 26 months the children spent in a bleak county children’s home.           

 

I enjoyed how this story examines what life was like for many foster children of the l940s, and what poverty, suffering, and the lack of education do to a child’s psychological development.

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But the children’s fate changed dramatically when they are placed in the home (the manse) of a popular young clergyman and his wife, who work to restore their new family’s physical and emotional health. At the same time, the children are thrust into a different culture and university- sponsored elementary school, which leads to many funny and loving memories.

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As Lewis describes the dramatic change in the children’s circumstances:

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“It was true, as Ann wrote, that we were happy at the Luchs and that our first weeks had been a honeymoon. No wonder. The four of us were together for the first time in over two years. We had never been in such comfortable, spacious surroundings, eaten such good food, or slept in such pleasant rooms or beds. We had privacy for the first time I could remember, and our own closets and dresser drawers for our new clothes and new shoes. We could talk at meals in our turn and, incredibly, second helpings of food were available just for asking.” 

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“Our lives were suddenly full of excitement and beauty – carpentry tools, boxes of books, field trips to the country and free and noisy romps through the woods, a delightful neighborhood of people to meet, a large back yard to play in, and a red-brick school on a university campus three blocks away. While unending tedium filled our hours at the children’s home, we were now involved in a stimulating round of activities that never seemed to end. Janey would later sum up our first years in the manse and the surrounding neighborhood with, “What an exciting place to be a child!”

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This book should be on any reading list that professes to serve others in a counseling or educational capacity. I was especially taken by the value Lewis gives to professionals who work in the fields of social welfare and education. I would also recommend this book for use in the training programs of foster and adoptive parents. 

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We need more books such as this that not only bring hope -- the underlying theme of Children of the Manse -- but address the importance of education and social welfare in healing wounded children and, thereby, building a better society. 

 

 

 

 

A review by Pierre L. Van Rysselberghe, Senior Judge, State of Oregon Circuit Court, Retired

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Children of the Manse is a personal reflection by one of four siblings who comes to terms with his biological family and by which he learns to understand familial disengagements and attachments. The relating of his story allows him to assess and harmonize his feelings toward his biological parents, his three siblings, and his adoptive parents. 

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The work is an illustration of what thousands of neglected and abused children experience. Many children are never rescued from their circumstances of poverty, abuse and neglect. Although attempts are made to improve the lives of many of these children, success is limited and many flounder within the temporary care system which results in limited or unfulfilled opportunities in life. 

 

Children who somehow manage to survive their impoverished circumstances to ultimately experience a world of love, security and opportunity are the fortunate and perhaps rare examples of the best that child care services and adoption can provide.

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The author is the eldest of four children, three brothers and one sister, who are placed by their inadequate parents in a children’s care home. There they reside for two and one-half years until a gifted social worker uncorks the bottle of promise by finding a remarkable placement that becomes their permanent home. It is a bitter-sweet, sometimes humorous, deeply moving story. 

 

A glaring light is cast on the helplessness of children who are born into dysfunctional homes in which they are mistreated and perhaps genuinely unwanted. The writer describes the unique family that selflessly welcomes the four children into their home of warmth and encouragement. It is a remarkable description in which the reader celebrates with the author. 

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Finally, it is a story about a caring child welfare worker who tirelessly champions the needs of children in their limbo years of temporary child welfare life. The magic of her resolve and insight blends the children’s hopes of which they are unaware to a couple who are seeking an opportunity to have children of their own. How often can such a match be made and how often with such remarkable success?

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Lewis Richard Luchs understands these delicate features of life about which so many are ignorant. He has walked the impossible path and survived to come accomplished in his career in the diplomatic service, as a musician and as a champion for children who benefit from caring and loving adoptive homes.

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His story exposes human frailties while it exalts human kindness and generosity. The road traveled by the four Luchs siblings leads to a triumph of the human spirit.