Description:
Nestled in a thick grove of post oaks descended from the old Council Grove is the cozy looking former site of Our Lady of Victory Home and Clinic. Built in 1953, the “Lady Vic” served as a dormitory and hospital for unwed mothers in this building at 7001 NW 36th in Bethany.
Catholic Charities originally cared for unwed mothers at St. Joseph’s Orphanage just three blocks north of Our Lady of Victory on NW 39th. Both facilities were built on 27 acres of land purchased by the church in 1910 along the Interurban rail line to Yukon and El Reno. However, by 1926 the two rooms alotted to infants and expectant mothers were simply not enough and for the next ten years mothers and infants were boarded in private homes throughout the city. By 1937 the former home of Capt. Daniel Stiles and later Charles G. Jones, early city entrepreneur, passed into possession of the church and Our Lady of Victory Nursery and Maternity Clinic was established in that large Victorian home (at 611 NE 8th). Before it moved to its new home in Bethany in 1953, the home cared for 847 mothers and delivered 1251 babies (730 of those were adopted).
The new clinic in Bethany was dedicated in June of 1953 and provided facilities for 22 maternity cases and 32 infants. Infants who were not immediately adopted later made the short trip three blocks north to St. Joseph’s Orphanage. A staff of four Felician Sisters operated the facility until it closed in 1972.
Below are the thoughts and memories of Jane Taylor, a former resident of Our Lady of Victory:
“Looking at this picture of Our Lady of Victory Home for Unwed Mothers, I think of how, for many of us girls who passed through those halls, it was a place out of time. It was a secret place of waiting, and it was a home only in the saddest sense. For me, it was a place my parents found to save us from disgrace when my boyfriend’s family decided not to encourage such a marriage -- marriage to a Catholic, to a white girl, to a girl so young. I spent the spring and summer of 1960 at the Home in the company of pregnant girls of all ages and backgrounds – rich and poor, reckless and naïve, precocious and sadly retarded. Catholic Charities provided us a place of refuge and a surrogate community of sorts where we all hid under pseudonyms. The evenings and nights were long. But, we were given day-assignments to keep us busy. I worked in the nursery with the infants before they were adopted or transferred to the orphanage. My roommate worked in the kitchen. She was always thankful not to have to hold and rock the babies. I found fixing the bottles and feeding the newborns comforting. I was the youngest, and possibly the least prepared to understand the emotional consequences of one day walking away, leaving these little ones, and the one I’d never see. I can say that even in our anonymity, we made a small sorority. Some of the older girls watched out for me, trying out their new maternal instincts. They taught me how to play canasta. They helped me celebrate my fourteenth birthday. I look at this picture and I like to think of a happy couple driving up to the door with hearts like open irises, ready to carry their new child to a real home, to a bouquet of birthdays and holidays. I look at the building and think of the children we called Bertha, and Lisa, and Billy, and I wonder if all the children found a home, a real home without secrets.”